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posted by cmn32480 on Friday August 07 2015, @10:28AM   Printer-friendly
from the say-that-again dept.

The amateur linguist in me who, for example, finds it fascinating that Hindi and Farsi are far more closely related to European languages such as English or Greek than they are to other languages in that part of the world such as Arabic or Tamil, has come across an Ars Technica article that appears to demonstrate that there is a "language universal" that binds all language families:

Language takes an astonishing variety of forms across the world—to such a huge extent that a long-standing debate rages around the question of whether all languages have even a single property in common. Well, there's a new candidate for the elusive title of "language universal" according to a paper in this week's issue of PNAS[*]. All languages, the authors say, self-organise in such a way that related concepts stay as close together as possible within a sentence, making it easier to piece together the overall meaning.

Language universals are a big deal because they shed light on heavy questions about human cognition. The most famous proponent of the idea of language universals is Noam Chomsky, who suggested a "universal grammar" that underlies all languages. Finding a property that occurs in every single language would suggest that some element of language is genetically predetermined and perhaps that there is specific brain architecture dedicated to language.

The idea that all the major language families is nothing new, and linguists have documented similar words that seem to be present in different language families all over the globe (e.g., milk). This article may be more evidence of these links, or it may just demonstrate something in the language center of the brain that guarantees that all languages are going to have similar characteristics.


[*] Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by Justin Case on Friday August 07 2015, @10:47AM

    by Justin Case (4239) on Friday August 07 2015, @10:47AM (#219500) Journal

    It is true when you study another language you begin to see your own so much more clearly. There are many words that are similar from one language to another but that's likely because of historical borrowing. How difficult it must be to untangle all those loanwords and get back to the original language(s).

    This is a topic of heated debate, almost like religion. Well, because religion plays into it. Did gods/flying saucer people put us here with just one breeding pair, and thus one language? Or did humans evolve in several parallel tracks, each stumbling across the concept of language independently? So you find a lot of conclusion-based-reasoning in this area. Which is to say, shut brain off and shout loudly.

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2015, @10:54AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2015, @10:54AM (#219502)

    Conclusion based reasoning serves to demonstrate that human cognition is biased toward quick easy answers. Now fund my research to conclude whatever you want me to conclude, baby.

  • (Score: 1) by deathlyslow on Friday August 07 2015, @11:43AM

    by deathlyslow (2818) <wmasmith@gmail.com> on Friday August 07 2015, @11:43AM (#219519)

    This is a topic of heated debate, almost like religion. Well, because religion plays into it. Did gods/flying saucer people put us here with just one breeding pair, and thus one language? Or did humans evolve in several parallel tracks, each stumbling across the concept of language independently? So you find a lot of conclusion-based-reasoning in this area. Which is to say, shut brain off and shout loudly.

    Still working on my first cup of coffee so be nice to me.

    According to the Bible there was only one language until the tower of Babel, I don't know I wasn't there. If you ascribe to the creation/ID/whatever you want to call it, then yes there was always one "mother" language till then. If you're in the evolution camp it just seems like it would also point to a single language. One that changed and morphed over time and distance of separation from your nearest neighbors. The models of population spread, over time, that I've seen would, to me, almost make it a necessity that there was only one language. Look at the many different dialects and recognized languages that are in china. One village/town/area can speak so differently that they have a hard time understanding each other. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Also if you disagree give me some links so I can read it and learn.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Friday August 07 2015, @12:23PM

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 07 2015, @12:23PM (#219533) Journal

      No, I don't think that is implied by evolution based models. It's allowed, but not implied. The thing is, just having the genetic capability to use language doesn't automatically gift you with even a simple language, so the capability could spread and the invention happen in several independent places, rather like the way writing occurred.

      Even if you assume a theisticly based origin it still requires additional assumptions to decide that language all derived from one initial instance. (Yeah, the bible says that's what happened, but it's got a lot of inconsistent statements in the early part. E.g., Adam and Eve only had sons, so where does humanity come from?

      --
      Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
      • (Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Friday August 07 2015, @03:46PM

        by Anal Pumpernickel (776) on Friday August 07 2015, @03:46PM (#219607)

        It has a lot of inconsistencies throughout the entire book, as well as countless inaccuracies.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2015, @12:33PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2015, @12:33PM (#219537)

      Look into twin languages (twins sometimes spend so much time together they acquire a language that only the two of them know, usually learning the actual language of their parents at the normal rate) and creoles/creolization (basically the creation of a language from non-linguistic input, sometimes a pidgin, similar to twin languages but on a larger scale. Nicaraguan Sign Language is a very interesting example of a completely new language being recorded as being created this way).

    • (Score: 1) by throwaway28 on Friday August 07 2015, @03:40PM

      by throwaway28 (5181) on Friday August 07 2015, @03:40PM (#219604) Journal

      If you're in the evolution camp it just seems like it would also point to a single language.

      Not necessarily. Eyes are so complex I'ld have once though that they only evolved once; but octopus eyes are so different that it's clear they evolved independently of human eyes. LMGTFY [blogspot.com]

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2015, @04:23PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2015, @04:23PM (#219617)

    Words are the least important part of the language. You could replace every word of a language with another one and still get essentially the same language; a dictionary would be enough for translating. Google Translate would be perfect on that one.

    What makes a language different is its structure. Some languages have different words for the same thing, depending on who you are speaking with, for example.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2015, @01:22AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2015, @01:22AM (#220502)

      Different languages, even closely related ones, also contain/reflect some degree of different thoughts and patterns of thinking much in the same way different computing languages do; look at differences rather than similarities between LISP, C, Python, Brainfuck, and Javascript.