Until now, linguists argue about how human language originated. There are many theories explaining the origin of language, but none of them have been proven, since they cannot be reproduced in experiment or observed. But how the ancient proto-language was divided into several types, from which various languages originated, scientists have more idea, since the process of separation of languages can be observed even today.
Instructions
Step 1
Even ancient people were interested in the problem of the origin of languages; in ancient Egypt, philosophers and scientists tried to find out which language was the most ancient in the world. Ancient Greek philosophers laid the foundations for the emergence of modern theories of the origin of language. Some defended the natural character of language, which is closely related to nature, others said that the signs of the language do not reflect the essence of things, but only name them. Throughout the entire period of the development of linguistics, new theories of the origin of language appeared: sudden emergence as a result of genetic mutation, the theory of gestures, onomatopoeia, and religious theories. It has not yet been precisely established how human language originated.
Step 2
Today there are several thousand languages in the world, united by kinship in language families. There are two main concepts that describe the existence of many human languages. One of them - the theory of polygenesis - suggests that initially there were several centers of the emergence of language, that is, on Earth at the same time in several places, groups of people began to use the sign system for communication. The concept of monogenesis suggests that the focus was the only one, that is, all modern world languages have common roots, since they descended from a single proto-language or proto-world language. So far, linguists have not come to a consensus on this matter, since modern research methods make it possible to establish the relationship of languages that separated no more than ten thousand years ago, while the proto-language existed long before that.
Step 3
From a common proto-language, languages were separated in the same way as dialects diverge today, gradually turning into separate languages. Groups of people constantly migrated, moved from place to place, became isolated from each other, and changing conditions forced languages to improve. Gradually, the differences became so significant that it became more and more difficult to establish kinship. Most of modern European languages descended from ancient Indo-European, but today only linguists are able to see similarities in these languages. The study of the relationship of languages is engaged in the field of linguistics called comparative historical linguistics.
