How did language begin?

Question

Who decided what would be named what? And how did people decide on syntax and conjunction words and words that don't have a specific meaning by themselves (like 'do' in present day english).

Answer 1

You seem to assume that language began at some specific moment, like 9:00 a.m. on Monday or on December 1st or something like that. Language has no proper beginning or end. People communicated whatever they needed to say in a way that the people around them would understand. Initially, language was primarily a mix of body movement and sound, where one was impossible without the other. Over a period of millions of years, the elements of language got separated into dancing/acting, singing/speaking and reading/writing. Nobody decided anything. Languages simply evolved. Some languages died. Some languages got blended in with other languages until you could not tell which words came from which language. Some languages are spoken but have no alphabet. Some languages (like programming languages) are written but never spoken.

Answer 2

Language began because people needed to communicate - there are different languages because groups of people were more isolated. There are different accents and dialects because there were sub-groups who had different contacts than others.

Syntax, conjunctions etc evolved through time and usage. If you look at the English language, it has constantly evolved, borrowing words from other languages. Look at texts from Chaucer, Shakespeare etc to see how much the language has evolved. The only languages that don't change are the dead languages like Latin.

No simple answer, I'm afraid, but good question.

Answer 3

Answer to your question requires a thorough evaluation of the history of language. In short, one may say, language may have begun when people then began to have difficulties giving expressions to their thoughts and feelings in action!