1. Leading Questions
CEN 6102, First Session

2. 1. What is LANGUAGE?
2. How is it originated?
3. What is LINGUISTICS?
4. Who are LINGUISTS?

3. Session II: Sounds of Language
1. What are the suprasegmental aspects of Sounds?
2. What are important features of acoustic phonetics?
Session II: Sounds of Language

4. The origins of Language
There is no direct evidence of the origins of human languages. Jespersen (1921) has speculated that human language originated while humans were actually enjoyed themselves. Yule (2003) has developed the speculation for the origins of human speech in six different sources.
The origins of Language

5. In most religions, there appears to be a divine source who provides humans with language. There were attempts to carry out a few experiments on the hypothesis but derived only conflicting results.
Around 600 BC, Psammetichus, an Egyptian Pharaoh, made an experiment with two new born infants and claimed that Phrygian must be the original language but several commentators have pointed out that this language is similar to the goat’s sound.
The divine source

6. A divine source (continued)
Around AD 1500, King James of Scotland
conducted the similar experiment on Hebrew and found no evidence to support the divine origin hypothesis.
A divine source (continued)

7. The nature-sound source
Another speculation of the origin of the human language is the nature- sound source, or as called as the Bow-Wow theory and the Yo-Heave- Ho theory. Primitive words could have been the imitations of the nature sounds which early men and women heard around them. Such words as “cuckoo” was named after the bird’s sound, and other English words as splash, boom, rattle, buzz, hiss which are called “onomatopoeic” are all echoing natural sounds.
The nature-sound source

8. The oral-gesture source
The connection between physical and oral gestures can develop a means of communication, for example, the movement of the tongue, lips, and so on can connect to the waving of the hand or arm. The expressing of “Good-bye” performed by the movement of tongue as “oral gesture” is a good example of connection of the message to the waving of the hand or arm as
“physical gesture”
The oral-gesture source

9. This term focuses mainly on the biological basis of the formation and development of human language. Some of the human physical aspects are not shared with any other creatures, for example, man can produce and manipulate the sound through some organ such as “uvelar” in the larynx or the “voice box”, while animals do not have.
Glossogenetics

10. Physiological adaptation
The lack of physical adaptation in animals prevents them to utter speeches like human’s. The human brain is lateralized which has specialized functions in each of the two hemispheres. The left hemisphere of most human brain performs as a tool to produce language.
Physiological adaptation

11. Interactions and transactions
Humans can use language to interact with each other socially or emotionally. This ability indicates such behavior as friendliness or pleasure, hostility and co- operation. However, humans can use language to perform transactions to communicate and transfer knowledge, skills and information. Such modern transactions as in doing business has derived from human’s ability in using the transitional function of language.
Interactions and transactions