Who came up with the first language?

Question

People speak many different languages. All of them have some words in common, and some of the words are just completley different. My question is, who sat down one day, and just decided to make a language on which nearly all of our languages are based on today?

@Preggers- you know, that ain't a bad idea, if you didn't get arrested for it.

@Jon T- Yeah, but where did Latin come from??

Answer 1

the cavemen, thats why they do gieco auto insurance commercials now

Answer 2

We don't know exactly, and there's no shame in that. If you go back more than 6500 years, there's no writing, although there must have been speech. So we are limited in what we can learn about the origins of language.

We can make intelligent guesses about the history of language and language families; for more information, you can look up 'Indo-European' for the history of English and its relatives.

How well can you communicate with someone who doesn't speak any languages you know? You can still point, gesture, smile, frown, look threatening or friendly, or any number of other things. Language is a social thing; it takes two people at the minimum to be useful. So I don't think one person 'sat down' and decided to make language.

One possibility is that language was helpful in organizing hunting parties - "You go over there and hide in those trees, and we'll circle around and drive the animals toward you" or something like that. But we don't know, because writing came after speech.

Answer 3

The first written languages are stone tablets in the area around what is known today as central Iraq in the 'fertile crescent' then known as Messopotamia. Nobody just sat down and decided to make a language. The far Asian and the African languages have different roots from the Indo-European languages. The Indo-European languages derrive from Messopotamia. Modern Indian comes from Sanscrit, English and German come from the Germanic language family. The only Gaelic still spoken today is in Ireland, but Welsh and Scots and Irish Gaelic come from the Celtic language family. Romanian, Rhaeto-Romance (spoken in Switzerland), Italian, Spanish, French, and Portuguese all derive from Latin. Languages such as Russian and Albanian, which are Cyrillic branched off from Greek.

Many English words come from Latin. If you read the original text of Beowulf, written in the Anglo-Saxon period, you realize that Old English was really only modified German, as most of the inhabitants of Britain were tribal and spoke no Latin despite having been ruled by the Romans for a time. The natives and Romans didn't socialize with each other. In 1066, the Normans won the Battle of Hastings and ushered in the Medieval era. This brought in feudal rule, chivalry (from the French cheval or horse, so horseman's code of honor), and a lot of new words, including words from Latin for medicine and law. To descend comes from the French 'descendre' which itself is from the Latin 'discedere.' The Medieval era ended with the War of the Roses, but the influx of Latin words did not because the Renaissance was a time when art and science flourished throughout Europe, and this brought more French and Italian words into English.

Other words, such as possum (from Native American), Sushi (from Japonese), and algebra (from Arabic) came from trade and colonization. Some words, mostly offensive ones, such as that term beginning with a 'g' that Americans often call Asians, especially Koreans, are incorrect. THAT word is a Korean word for 'country'. Durring the 1950s, American GIs serving in Korea began hearing the word used by Koreans and didn't understand it, so they called the Koreans that because they seemed to say it so much. Who knew?

Answer 4

As far as I know it a language originated from the Bushman Tribe in Africa. They speak with a series of clicking noises. This tribe still survives till this day. Besides language all humans are supposed to be traced back to this tribe. Also from what I know all current languages across the world are traced back to Latin. The Bushman Tribe is a one of a kind language. Latin is in no way related to thier language though. Also it wasn't Jesus.

Answer 5

Actually Latin is a one of the base languages and the others branched out because of cultural dispersion. So the languages changed and became inconsistent creating many new ones.

Answer 6

Well, all I recognize is that it began as historic Turkish, it used to be a entire one of a kind language than others. Than as Turks traveled and increased in Asia Minor it combined up with Latin, Greek, farsi and Arabic... One of the fundamental causes why turkish has plenty of Arabic phrases in it's given that of Islam, i believe arabic even grew to be the moment language on the ottoman empire someday.... ataturk attempted flip it again to Turkish language somewhat bit however many remained... French: kompozisyon, aksiyon, pozisyon...randevu(by and large spelled one of a kind) Arabic: selamin aleykum, insallah,Allah,Rab...

Answer 7

Why that's elementary my dear, the first people came up with the first language. There is a some disagreement that the poeple themselves developed the language or they were given the language by alien visitors from another world. Some believe that God gave human kind it's first language. That Adam and Eve were given the Lord's language, but that language was lost when they were cast out of the garden of eden, so now the Lord's language is lost forever. Thanks Eve!

Answer 8

have two kids and raise them isolated together ...then see how they learn to communicate. there you go. try it, you'll be locked up after word gets out, but if you really want to know ...

Answer 9

Adam and Eve

Answer 10

god when he spoke to adam