#Otto Jespersen

[noosphe-re]

The Great Vowel Shift was a series of changes in the pronunciation of the English language that took place primarily between 1400 and 1700, beginning in southern England and today having influenced effectively all dialects of English. Through this vowel shift, the pronunciation of all Middle English long vowels were changed. Some consonant sounds also changed, particularly those that became silent; the term Great Vowel Shift is sometimes used to include these consonantal changes.

Wikipedia

[movie--posters]

[eclecticpjf]

Now watching:

[duardius]

otto jespersen’s words from his essay «On Some Disputed Points in English Grammar» in S.P.E. Tract No. XXV, oxford, 1926, p143. set in digital reissue of ‹gills’s joanna›.

[roseshavethoughts]

Trollhunter (2010)

My ★★★★ review of Trollhunter #FilmReview #MovieReview #Cinema

Trollhunter (2010) Synopsis – A group of students investigates a series of mysterious bear killings, but learns that there are much more dangerous things going on. They start to follow a mysterious hunter, learning that he is actually a troll hunter – Trollhunter. Director – André Øvredal Starring – Otto Jespersen, Robert Stoltenberg, Knut Nærum, Glenn Erland Tosterud Genre – Drama, Fantasy,…

[janmisali]

In a yt community post, you said that the person in your pfp was Jonathan Bowers. But I seem to recall you mentioning that the pfp was in fact Otto Jespersen, "the first conlanger". Which one is it?

my tumblr pfp is different from my youtube pfp

[haggishlyhagging]

Words exist and are created because they serve the values and attitudes central to a culture. Dictionaries record cultural meanings. Definitions of womanly, mannish, and manly, feminine and masculine from the Random House Dictionary reveal the cultural values modifiers denote and perpetuate. As long as women use these words as though they describe something real or explain observable phenomena, we lend credence to the idea that people can and should be characterized by the dichotomy they represent. As one could predict, the "real meaning" of each word is revealed in the definition of its opposite.

womanly—like or befitting a woman; feminine; not masculine or girlish. Womanly implies resemblance in appropriate, fitting ways; womanly decorum, modesty.

manly—having the qualities usually considered desirable in a man; strong, brave; honorable; resolute; virile. Manly implies possession of the most valuable or desirable qualities a man can have, as dignity, honesty, directness, etc., in opposition to servility, insincerity, underhandedness, etc. It also connotes strength, courage, and fortitude.

feminine—pertaining to a woman or girl: feminine beauty, feminine dress. Like a woman; weak; gentle.

masculine—having the qualities or characteristics of a man; manly; virile; strong; bold; a deep, masculine voice. Pertaining to or characteristic of a man or men: masculine attire.

mannish—applies to that which resembles man: . . . Applied to a woman, the term is derogatory, suggesting the aberrant possession of masculine characteristics. [My emphasis]

The qualities listed under manly and masculine are the "good" things an individual might wish to be: strong, brave, determined, honest, and dignified. Not a single one of the negative qualities commonly attributed to maleness are listed here: aggressive, violent, narrow-minded, self-centered, defensive, easily threatened, domineering, penis-obsessed, intrusive, predatory, immature, dependent, energy-sucking, or territorial, egotistical, and war-mongering. In contrast, the adjectives womanly and feminine are not really defined. Look closely at the long list of characteristics in the definition for manly compared to the circularity of the pseudo-definition for womanly, "like or befitting a woman." That's not a definition; it assumes that we already know the behaviors that "befit" a woman. The real definitions for womanly are implied as "oppositions" to "manly qualities": "servility, insin-cerity, and underhandedness." Under feminine, we find two more adjectives, weak and gentle, but that's it. Positive attributes commonly associated with females, nurturing, kind, and loving, have been omitted, exactly the "feminine" traits that some women want to "reclaim." But those didn't make it into the RHD descriptions.

Most speakers of English accept as "fact" the descriptions forced by this semantic structure. They assume that the descriptive limits of English are, in fact, the limits of reality. One is or is not a man. This assumption was expressed in a television advertisement for a magazine, Savvy, aimed at a female audience: "You don't have to be like a man to succeed in business. You can allow yourself to be a woman." The opposition of woman and man in the ad accepts the idea that members of both sexes are utterly different, assumes as givens the descriptive adjectives for both sexes omitted from the RHD definitions, and implies that being "like a man" is an undesirable thing for a woman, even if she wants to "succeed in business" (a "man's world").

But PUD [Patriarchal Universe of Discourse] dictates that "being a woman" cannot be a "good thing." What isn't apparent in Diagram 3.1 is the equation of "feminine" and "childish" behaviors described by Otto Jespersen. This equation turns up in other places where it isn't as obvious. Consider, for example, paired phrases like "jock itch"/"feminine itch," "adult supporter" (jock strap)/"feminine apparel" (underwear), or the euphemistic "adult movies," "adult bookstore," both of which refer to male pornography. Such examples reflect the equation of [+ male] with 'adulthood', and the corollary notion that women, because [- male], are non-adult ("childish").

When we consider the definition for mannish, "the aberrant possession of masculine characteristics," the idea of a woman who is honest, strong, dignified, forthright, and brave is revealed as negative. Men have reserved the positive attributes for themselves. Women are implicitly defined as "appropriately" weak, gentle, insincere, servile, and underhanded, and any woman who is honest, forthright, dignified, brave, or resolute is "aberrant," that is, mannish. PUD dictates that those born female who reject the dichotomy, who refuse to behave in feminine, "appropriate" ways, will be labeled "masculine" by semantic default. This semantic trick makes it seem as though the adjectives describe behavior accurately, but their existence maintains patriarchal consensus reality at the cost of the individual's integrity. These words will become obsolete just as soon as speakers, especially women, realize such words name culturally valued behaviors, not inherent, biological attributes, and stop using them. Our continued use validates these descriptions.

-Julia Penelope, Speaking Freely: Unlearning the Lies of the Fathers’ Tongues

[cd-covington]

There ain’t nothing wrong with double negation

When you were in school, your teacher probably told you something like “two negatives make a positive,” so if you “don’t know nothing,” you do know something. I’m here to tell you that’s bullshit.

Many languages have what linguists call negative concord, which is kind of like subject-verb agreement but for negation markers. In Russian, for example, to say “I don’t know anything,” you say ya nichevo* ne znayu. Russian uses negative concord, so if you have “nothing” (nichevo) you also have to have the verb negated (ne).

*standard transliteration is nichego but that’s not how you pronounce it, so shrugman

Standard English used to do this as well! Just, like, 1000 years ago. Here’s an example from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Peterborough):

418. Her Romane gesamnodan ealle þa goldhord ðe on Brytene wæron;

and sume on eorðan gehyddan, þæt heo nan man syððan findon ne mihton. And sume mid heom on Gallia læddon.

418. In this year the Romans gathered all the hoards of gold that were on Britain; and they hid some of them in the ground, such that no man could (not) find them afterward. And they took some with them to Gaul.

nan, as the note in the textbook says, is a contraction of ne + ān (NEG + one). (Old English did a lot of fun things with negation, and you could negate things by sticking ne on the front and going about your day, like nillan from ne + willan (‘to want’) means ‘to not want.’) (And yes, this is the origin of the phrase “willy-nilly,” which is derived from “will he, nill he” ‘whether he wants to or not’.)

The Danish linguist Otto Jespersen described a cycle that negation follows, where over time more negation is added because it doesn’t “feel” negative enough, and then later some is taken away because it feels redundant. The canonical example for this is French. Older French varieties would have Je ne sais ‘I NEG know’ but modern standard French has Je ne sais pas, with the pas adding an extra oomph. But modern colloquial French has Je sais pas, with the ne going away. So, is modern English in the single negation phase of the cycle? Will double negation come back in the future as the standard? Your guess is as good as mine, but negative concord is already (still) widespread in colloquial English, so I’d say it’s never gone away, just been forced out of the standard.

Because in modern English, there are other factors at play in why people get mad about double negatives, all of which boil down to prejudice. If you think about which varieties of (US) English use it the most, or are associated with it most strongly, it’s Black American English (AAVE) and lower/working-class varieties in general: the groups perceived by the societal groups with the most power as uneducated. I know that I got a lot of shit about it as a kid, growing up in a White pink-collar single-mom family, because I should aspire to sound educated, not like some working-class loser. (Note: I do not hold any of these beliefs!) As it is, my natural diction tends toward the academic, which was great when I was in grad school.

Regardless. If you, a native English speaker (and I’m going out on a limb here to include the non-US varieties in this), heard someone say, “I ain’t never heard nothing about that,” you would understand that as a denial that they had heard something, perhaps even a vehement denial. You wouldn’t sit there and count up the negatives and go “negative times negative times negative … yeah, negative, checks out.” It’s not math class, for god’s sake.

Sociolinguistics studies this kind of thing, from the level of “this variation exists and it is most prevalent in this group” to “this is how this variation has changed over time” to “these are the attitudes people hold about people who use this variation,” and a lot more. Anne Charity Hudley studies African American language, and the Language and Life Project at North Carolina State University has a documentary about Black American English. (They also document dying languages and dialects in North Carolina and Appalachia, and I recommend poking around their site when you have time.)

--

If you liked this post, check out my Kickstarter, where I’ll be writing a book about how to include sociolinguistic concepts in your worldbuilding. Launch is scheduled for August 15, 2023.

[aeide-thea]

also i just. love and am so fucking grateful for the parts of the internet that haven't been killed. like. being able to google for free a book on comparative correlatives that definitively addresses my question, and note that it cites among other things 'jespersen 1933' and google that, and identify it as otto jespersen's 'essentials of english grammar' which, yes, is available on libgen, because people kept reissuing it for long enough that it made it to the era of digitization... just like. really, really beautiful honestly. like. i don't know. here i am at the end of this long chain. looking at something alfred the great wrote well over a thousand years ago (itself a translation of something gregory the great had written hundreds of years earlier) and using it to answer my questions abt the origins of a present-day english grammatical construction. which i can do bc multiple links in the chain are available to me for free online, and the text of them searchable. like. i know things have gotten SO stifled and SO monetized but. i don't know. this much still exists and is ours, a free marvel and wonder. i could weep!

[marothro]

Quelles sont les langues créées comme l'espéranto ?

L'espéranto est la langue construite la plus connue, mais il existe plusieurs autres langues artificielles (ou construites) qui ont été créées avec des objectifs similaires. Voici quelques exemples de langues construites comme l'espéranto :

1. Volapük

Créateur : Johann Martin Schleyer

Année de création : 1879

Objectif : Volapük a été l'une des premières langues internationales construites, créée pour faciliter la communication internationale. Elle a eu un certain succès avant d'être éclipsée par l'espéranto.

2. Ido

Créateur : Une commission d'espérantistes réformateurs, dirigée par Louis Couturat

Année de création : 1907

Objectif : Ido est une réforme de l'espéranto visant à améliorer certaines de ses structures et à le rendre plus régulier. Il a été conçu pour être plus facile à apprendre et à utiliser.

3. Interlingua

Créateur : International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA), dirigée par Alexander Gode

Année de création : 1951

Objectif : Interlingua a été conçue pour être une langue internationale facile à apprendre, basée sur les langues romanes et une grammaire simplifiée. Elle est destinée à être compréhensible pour ceux qui parlent des langues européennes.

4. Lingua Franca Nova

Créateur : C. George Boeree

Année de création : 1998

Objectif : Inspirée par l'interlingua et le pidgin méditerranéen, Lingua Franca Nova a été conçue pour être simple et régulière, avec une grammaire facile à apprendre et un vocabulaire tiré des langues romanes.

5. Loglan et Lojban

Créateur : James Cooke Brown (Loglan) et Logical Language Group (Lojban)

Année de création : Loglan en 1955, Lojban en 1987

Objectif : Loglan a été créé comme une langue expérimentale pour tester l'hypothèse Sapir-Whorf, qui propose que la langue influence la pensée. Lojban est une version modernisée et développée de Loglan, avec une grammaire et un vocabulaire conçus pour la logique et la précision.

6. Klingon

Créateur : Marc Okrand

Année de création : 1984

Objectif : Le klingon est une langue construite pour l'univers fictif de Star Trek. Bien qu'il soit principalement destiné à la fiction, il a une grammaire complète et un vocabulaire en expansion, avec une communauté active d'apprenants.

7. Toki Pona

Créateur : Sonja Lang

Année de création : 2001

Objectif : Toki Pona est une langue minimaliste construite avec un vocabulaire de seulement 120 à 137 mots, conçue pour exprimer des idées complexes de manière simple. Elle se concentre sur la simplicité et l'essence des concepts.

8. Glosa

Créateur : Ronald Clark et Wendy Ashby

Année de création : Années 1970

Objectif : Glosa est une langue internationale simplifiée, inspirée de l'interlingua, conçue pour être utilisée comme une langue auxiliaire mondiale.

9. Novial

Créateur : Otto Jespersen

Année de création : 1928

Objectif : Novial a été conçu comme une langue internationale simplifiée, tirant son vocabulaire des langues européennes et avec une grammaire facile à apprendre.

10. Solresol

Créateur : François Sudre

Année de création : 1827

Objectif : Solresol est une langue construite basée sur les notes musicales, avec l'idée que la musique, étant universelle, pourrait servir de base à une langue internationale.

Ces langues construites partagent souvent un objectif commun : faciliter la communication internationale, promouvoir la paix mondiale, ou expérimenter des concepts linguistiques. Cependant, chacune a ses propres caractéristiques et nuances, reflétant les visions et les intentions de leurs créateurs.

[honyakusho]

2024年7月23日に発売予定の翻訳書

7月23日（火）には8点の翻訳書が発売予定です。

音楽で世界を変える

エリック・ブース／著 久保田慶一／監訳 大島路子／訳 大類朋美／訳

スタイルノート

ヘーゲル全集 : イェーナ期体系構想Ⅱ：論理学・形而上学・自然哲学（1804/05）

座小田豊／編集・翻訳

知泉書館

啓蒙の時代

ヴェルナー・シュナイダース／著 河村克俊／翻訳 嵩原英喜／翻訳 西章／翻訳

晃洋書房

エッセンシャル英文法

Otto Jespersen／著 中村捷／翻訳

開拓社

アンガーマネジメント・ワークブック : STOPメソッドで破滅的な反応から建設的な行動へ

ロバート・W・ネイ／著 中尾智博／監修 岩崎悠理／翻訳

金剛出版

その国の奥で

Ｊ・Ｍ・クッツェー／著 くぼたのぞみ／翻訳

河出書房新社

「歴史」の世界史

ダニエル・ウルフ／著 南塚信吾／著 秋山晋吾／監修 小谷汪之／翻訳 田中資太／翻訳

ミネルヴァ書房

ヨーロッパの地政学 : 安全保障の今

ジャン=シルヴェストル・モングルニエ／著 中村雅治／翻訳

白水社

[sa193791]

Chapter 1 - The Origins of Language.

Although the origin of language hasn’t been discovered yet, many people have given numerous theories behind it.

The Divine source: In many religious traditions, language is believed to be a gift bestowed upon humanity by a divine source. For instance, Hinduism people think that language is a gift from Sarasvati, who is a god in Hinduism; in Christianity, it is believed that God gives Adam the ability to name all creatures.

The fundamental hypothesis underlying this belief is that if human infants are raised without exposure to any spoken language, they will naturally speak the original language given by God. However, numerous studies later have confirmed that children raised in isolation do not spontaneously develop language. If children are raised in silence, they will become mute.

2. The Natural Sound Source: According to some researches, human authority system is already functioning before birth. This helps us able to identify different kind of sounds. Therefore, many people said that primitive words were formed by emulations of the natural. A linguist named Otto Jespersen (1922) invented 2 theories based on this idea.

The "Bow-Wow" Theory: When objects flew by, humans attempted to imitate the sounds and identify those objects. For example, English has words like cuckoo, splash, bang, boom, rattle, buzz, hiss, etc,... We describe those words that are similar to the noises of onomatopoeia.

The “Pooh-Pooh” Theory: This theory proposes that speech originated from instinctual emotional sounds such as cries of pain, anger, or joy. Nevertheless, these noises often made during inhales, differ from spoken language, which typically occurs during exhales, making them unlikely sources for language evolution.

3. Social Interaction Source: The "yo-he-ho" theory proposes that human language might have evolved from sounds made during coordinated physical activities, such as lifting and carrying heavy objects together. This theory highlights the social aspect of language development, suggesting that early human groups used a range of sounds, including hums, grunts, groans, and curses, for communication and coordination. However, this theory is often disputed because apes and monkeys also produce grunts and noises to convey themselves, similar to how humans might have in ancient times, yet they do not exhibit any advancement in communication abilities.

4. The Physical Adaptation Source:

It's believed that the evolution of our bodies has influenced the development of language. For instance, the shift from quadrupedalism to bipedalism altered our breathing patterns, enabling longer articulations during exhales and shorter inhales. Several key anatomical differences set humans apart from other primates in terms of vocalization:

Teeth and Lips:

Our smaller and evenly sized teeth allow for the production of sounds like "f" and "v."

Greater flexibility in our lips, owing to more intricate muscles, facilitates sounds like "p," "b," and "m."

 

Mouth and Tongue:

Smaller mouths that can open and close quickly aid in speech production.

A smaller, thinner, and more flexible tongue enables a wider range of sounds.

Larynx and Pharynx:

The lower position of our larynx creates a longer pharynx, enhancing the variety and clarity of sounds we can produce. Nevertheless, this adaptation also heightens the risk of choking on food compared to animals with higher-positioned voice boxes. This evolutionary shift likely occurred because the advantages of improved speech were deemed more significant than the risk of choking.

5. The Tool-Making Source:

This theory suggests that our ability to make tools is closely linked to how language develops. Both involve combining things—like rocks for tools and sounds for language—hinting that our early tool-making skills may have helped our later language abilities. Studies propose that the brain circuits used for making tools might have also been used for language. As we got better at handling tools, it likely pushed our brains to develop language skills too. Additionally, changes in how we use our hands and gestures also played a part. Therefore, as our tool use improved, so did our ability to communicate.

6. The Genetic Source: Gene mutations have been linked to shifts in the human diet, particularly in the ability to digest starch found in food, leading to increased glucose production. This, in turn, has resulted in higher calorie intake and enhanced blood flow to the brain, creating conditions conducive to the development of a more complex brain.

[hoangphuong2005]

The Origins Of Language

_ Humans do not know exact the origins of language, but there are some theories:

1. The Divine Source

_ In some regions, humans believe that they receive language from a god in their respective region. For example, following a Hindu tradition, Sarasvati is credited as the goddess associated with knowledge, arts, wisdom, and speech. Therefore, Sarasvati is worshipped as the source of inspiration and learning, including the gift of language to humanity.

_ In the biblical tradition, god created Adam and whatever name Adam called every creature became the name of that thing.

_ A basic hypothesis is that if human infants grow up without hearing any language around them, they will use the god-given language. Although there are recorded experiment results which support the hypothesis, one experiment stands out because it is more likely to happen in real life. In the experiment created by the Mogul emperor Akbar, the babies, who were raised in an environment where there was no human speech, could not speak at all.

2. The Natural Sound Source:

_ The human auditory system is already functioning before birth. Therefore, they have the ability to identify the sound in the environment. Then, people make a connection between a sound and the thing producing that sound. Finally, they create the primitive words which are derived from imitations of the natural sound.

_ Otto Jespersen, a linguist, called this idea the "Bow-Wow" theory. According to his theory, humans tried to mimic the sound and then used them to refer to those objects even they did not exist such as cuckoo, splash, bang, boom, rattle, and buzz.

_ Another of Jespersen's nicknames was the "Pooh-Pooh" theory, which proposes that speech developed from the instinctive sounds people make in emotional circumstances (pain, anger, joy,...). For example: Ouch!, Ah!, Phew!, Wow!, Yuck!. However, they are usually produced with sudden intakes of breath, which is the opposite of ordinary talk.

3. The Social Interaction Source:

_ Another proposal involving natural sound was nicknamed the "Yo-He-Yo" theory. This idea said that the sounds that early humans made when they involved in physical effort, especially when they do it in a group which needs coordination like grunts, groans and curses are the origin of the language.

_ This theory is a reason for the development of human language in a social context because it forces early people to live in a group if they want better protection from attack. However, it does not reveal the origins of the sounds produced.

4. The Physical Adaptation Source:

_ In this perspective, it is believed that our languages came from the way our bodies evolved. Major differences will bring many benefits for producing sound compared to other primates do:

. Teeth: Human teeth are upright, roughly even in height and much smaller. Such characteristics are very helpful in making sound such as f or v.

. Lips: Human lips are more flexible thanks to the fact that we have more intricate muscles, so we can make the sounds like p, b and m.

. Mouth: The human mouth is smaller, so it can be opened and closed rapidly.

. Tongue: we have a shorter, thicker and more muscular tongue that can be used to shape a wide variety of sounds inside the oral cavity. Besides that, humans can close off the airway through the nose to create more air pressure in the mouth by an L-Shape of the tongue.

. Larynx and Pharynx: In humans, the position of our larynx differs from that of animals, having descended to a lower position as part of our evolutionary development. This descent has led to the creation of a longer pharynx, which serves to enable us to produce a broader range of sounds and enhance the clarity of our speech.

5. The Tool Making Source:

_ From the physical perspective, besides the development of using our body parts like mouth or lips not just for chewing and sucking but also for creating better sounds, humans also have a change in the way we use our hands and body gestures in communicating are also considered to be the beginning of languages. As humans learn how to handle and create tools, this development forces our brains to work harder, and many believe that this is the reason languages were born.

_ The human brain: the parts of our brains that are responsible for complicated vocals and the ability to utilize objects positioned close to each other. The result was as humans' tool-handling proficiency increased, our vocal capability also upgraded at the same time.

_ A foremost example of this assumption is humans can not create a tool from just one rock, but they also need another rock in the process. In term of language structure, humans used to name items by using the system: use one type of noise => bring another specific noise => build a complex message => hone this message-building capacity.

6. The Genetic Source:

_ Human babies have some in the first few years have some physical changes. At birth, humans have relatively light brains compared to their size and our larynx is located at a much higher place. In a short period, the child assumes an upright posture and starts walking and talking.

_The Innateness Hypothesis proposes that humans' capability to develop language skills may be attributed to genetic mutations. This hypothesis suggests that our ability to digest starch from food, leading to increased glucose levels, has contributed to improved blood flow in the brain, resulting in its enlargement and complexity. This, in turn, is believed to enhance our language development abilities.

[phamlegiahuy-sa192390]

The Origins of Language

 

Humans do not know the exact origins of languages, however, we do understand that the ability to produce different patterns of sound that humans did in ancient times comes from a part of our brains that we share with vertebrate animals like fish, frogs and other mammals. Even though humans have never found direct evidence about how languages originated, we do have suspicions or theories.

The Divine Source:

Many religions believe that humanity received languages from a specific god in their respective religion. For example, in Hinduism, people believe that language is a gift from Sarasvati, who is a god in Hinduism.

A hypothesis said that if human infants were brought to life and grown up without hearing or learning any languages around them, they would eventually start using the original God-given language. Although there are recorded experiment results which support the hypothesis, one experiment stands out because it is more likely to happen in real life. In the experiment created by the Mogul emperor Akbar, the babies, who were raised in an environment where there was no human speech, could not speak at all.

The Natural Sound Source:

Humans can hear their surroundings before they are even born. This ability helps us to identify different sounds and noises from very early days. The process of identifying sounds helps humans to be able to connect the sound with the object which creates that sound. And it results in the idea that ancient words came from the natural sounds that early humans had heard. 

A linguist, Otto Jespersen, called this idea the “Bow-Wow” theory. According to his theory, humans would prefer objects by mimicking the sounds of them flying over like Caw-Caw or Coo-Coo. Additionally, he used the fact that different languages today have words which sound similar when naturally echoing to support his idea.

The Social Interaction Source:

This idea said that the sounds that early humans made when lifting heavy animals, especially when they do it in a group which needs coordination, like hums, grunts or curses are the origin of language.

This theory is reasonable to some people because it puts the evolution of human language with our way of living socially. Humans from the early days needed to form groups for a better chance of survivability and this created a need for a better way of communicating. However, many do not believe this theory because apes and monkeys also make grunts and noises to express themselves like humans in ancient times, they do not show any development in communication capability.

The Physical Adaptation Source:

In this perspective, it is believed that our languages came from the way our bodies evolved. For example, when humans have a big change in the way we walk, from utilizing 4 legs to bi-pedal (on two feet). This transition changed the way we breathe, and as a result, this helped us to have long articulations on outgoing breath, with short-in breaths. 

Major differences which help us to produce variable sounds compared to other primates are:

1/ Our teeth are much smaller and evenly in height which means we can produce f and v sounds. 

2/Humans' lips are also much more flexible thanks to the fact that we have more intricate muscles so we can make the p, b and m sounds.

3/ We have smaller mouths which can be opened and closed quickly. 

4/ Humans possess a much smaller, thinner and more flexible tongue. It helps us to produce a wide variety of sounds.

5/ Our larynx position is also different from animals, in which our voice box dropped to a lower position as we evolved. As a result, a longer captivity, or a pharynx, was created. It acts as a way for us to produce a wider range of sound and also increase the clarity of it.

However, some of these major transitions did negatively affect our survivability in exchange for a better and more powerful vocal power. In other words, our bodies evolved this way because they thought that these vocal advantages were more important and needed for our lives.

The Tool-Making Source:

From the physical perspective, besides the development of using our body parts like mouth or lips not just for chewing and sucking but also for creating better sounds, humans also have a change in the way we use our hands and body gestures in communicating are also considered to be the beginning of languages. As humans learn how to handle and create tools, this development forces our brains to work harder, and many believe that this is the reason languages were born.

The human brain: the parts of our brains that are responsible for complicated vocals and the ability to utilize objects positioned close to each other. The result was as humans' tool-handling proficiency increased, our vocal capability also upgraded at the same time.

A foremost example of this assumption is humans can not create a tool from just one rock, but they also need another rock in the process. From the language structure standpoint, humans used to name items by repeating one type of noise (eg. b E E r or g O O d).

The Genetic Source:

At birth, humans have relatively light brains compared to their size and our larynx is located at a much higher place. But as we grow, the larynx gets lower and the brain size expands. We also adjust to a more upright posture when we start to walk and converse. 

A hypothesis which follows this source is called “The Innateness Hypothesis”. This presumption says that humans' ability to develop languages is related to one or more mutations in our genes. The cause for this is because of our diet, our bodies can digest starch from food and an increased amount of glucose. Scholars believe that those portions of our diet are what help our brains to have better blood flow, which results in our brains becoming bigger and more complex.

[ulkaralakbarova]

Asphalt Burning

The third and final instalment in the Burnout trilogy. This time, the road leads through Norway, to Sweden, Denmark and finally Germany to race on the famous racing track, Nürburgring. Credits: TheMovieDb. Film Cast: Roy: Anders Baasmo Christiansen Nina: Ida Husøy Doffen: Sven Nordin Nybakken: Otto Jespersen Phillip Mørk: Henrik Mestad Romy: Ruby O. Fee Robyn: Alexandra Maria Lara Tyske Roy:…

[agp]

a modern english grammar on historical principles: volume 1, otto jespersen