why are there different languages? if you can't answer intelligently, just a guess will do...?

Question

or you can invent your own theory.

Answer 1

I can.

Suppose a group of people speaking the same language (A) is divided into two groups who never afterwards meet each other. (A1, A2).

Now suppose that group A1 meets other people (group B) and, as humans will, tries to communicate and trade with them. After a while, the language of A1 will have several words borrowed or adapted from B's language because people in group A1 find those words expressive of concepts and objects they never previously had in their culture and of nuances not previously available to them in their own language.

Meanwhile, group A2 has met and traded with different foreigners, Group C. They pick up words from C's language in a similar way. Within 100-200 years, there are 2 distinct languages, A1 (an A-B hybrid) and A2 (an A-C hybrid).

In real life, simplified, prior to the age of TV and movies, A = English, A1 = British English, influenced by French. A2 = American English, influenced by Spanish.

Now introduce a second variable, conquest. In our hypothetical world, part of the territory of Group A1 and part of that of Group B in invaded and conquered by outside warriors (Group D). In order to get on in society, speakers of languages A1 and B learn language D. Speakers of D, the ruling class, do not need to learn either A1 or B, they give orders and punishments in language D. But language D still acquires some words from A1 and B, especially words that servants and employees use a lot and bosses don't. In time, language D in the empire (call it D2) is different from language D in the original territories the warriors-turned-settlers came from (D1).

Historically in the period c AD500-700, D = Old Frisian, D1 = Frisian, D2 = Anglo-Saxon English, A1 = Brythonic, B = Gaelic.

Now expand the process in your mind over thousands of years and the whole globe and lo! You have 7000 world languages.

Answer 2

The bible states that humans were trying to build a tower to reach the heavens (Tower of Babel). God created languages so the tower cannot be completed due to the inability to communicate with one another. Intelligently, the spacial distance between societies cause the languages to change. An example is if you live in America. Just being a few states apart, you know the different types of accents people have (New Yorkers, Southerners, Urban, etc...). Europe is another great example. There are similar systems (la, le) Now picture the earlier humans. They barely knew how to speak. Somehow ended up far apart. They created their own society and language. They adapted to their surroundings. Then poof, societies integrate with one another during Europe's curiousity of the world.

Answer 3

It is natural for language to change over time. Where different groups of people are not in day-to-day contact, their language will change and, over many years, develop into separate languages. Some groups encourage language differences to differentiate themselves from other groups. The real question is why a small number of languages (English, Chinese, French, Hindi etc) have come to be spoken millions of people. The answer is the development of large nation-states that have imposed uniformity on their citizens through the education systems, colonisation, the development of literacy, and mass communications.

Answer 4

The fact that there are so many types comes from the fact that they all evolved and changed over time, but it's likely that many groups of early humans evolved language seperate from eachother, which is why some groups are so different from eachother.

Answer 5

The tower of Babel - in the Bible. God got mad and made people speak in different languages so theycould not build the thing

Answer 6

All languages stem from a common tongue spoken in biblical times. The bible story tells us at Genesis 11 that bcos ppl wanted to build a tower up to heaven, God created languages to confuse them.

Answer 7

basically i think that different languages are like different accents, when we started to communicate vocaly one side of the world said ug and the other side said ugh they mean the same but sound different and it goes on from there, take french for example chaise/ chair simular sound simular spelling means the same chat/cat hope ive not rambled too much but thats my oppinion hope it makes sense.