Menopause Matters Forum
General Discussion => This 'n' That => Topic started by: Joyce on May 15, 2012, 09:39:53 AM
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If the language of Adam & Eve was Hebrew, why are we all speaking different languages? Where did English, French, German, Spanish etc come from? It's one of those questions I've always wanted an answer to. Wouldn't it have been so much easier if we all spoke the same language?
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Cubagirl....Languages are creative like people. They are there for us to express outselves. We don't share the same backgrounds, ideas and concepts. So life makes us be creative and find some new words for things we don't have in our environment or for things which are slightly different.
Why do dialects exists? Why have British English and American English develop in two different directions? Because of people who are individuals and who don't share the same environment, they do share a language but they don't share the day-to-day use of it.
Take it as an example - I have studied Applied Linguistics and am an interpreter. For some concepts and ideas, there aren't any words in the other language. For example HOUSE. You have the idea of what a house is in your mother's tongue. There are semi-detached ones, mansions, three bedrooms....etc...When I look at what my mother tongue German expresses when it mentions the word "HAUS" I find a complete other idea. People don't own necessarily their houses, they don't count the bedrooms, but the rooms. The houses look different and so on.
Languages simply exist to express our inner pictures and ideas which differ from where we come from.
It would be all so easy if we shared one language....one belief....one everything...unfortunately it doesn't work like this....
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The root of the Romance languages such as Italian, Spanish, French is Latin.
I find it interesting that words in one language have a slightly different meaning in another language but have a similar 'base'.
eg. Il pavimento in italian is not the pavement but the floor.
Spanish and Italian are very similar languages.
I think Music is the universal language CG. :)
Ghiro x
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This is what wikianswers says....
Distinct languages develop as people spread throughout different places and populations become isolated from one another. Over time, minor changes in a language will accumulate allowing different civilzations to develop their own distinct languages. In the earliest years of human existence, when the human population was still small and everyone lived in the same region, there was probably a common language. However, over time people began to migrate to different places and develop their own cultures and lifestyles, as well as languages.
A language is rarely created from scratch, it usually evolves from a previous older language. Languages are also never fixed, they change over time by the will of society. That's why we have Old English, Middle English, and Modern English. All it takes is a reading of a Shakespearian play to see how much the English language has changed.
Spanish, Italian, and French are considered romance languages which have a common ancestor in Latin. This is why we see so much similarity between them. When the Roman Empire collapsed, the population fragmented into isolated societies and gradually formed their own distinct languages.
Cultures, national rivalries, geography and different ruling bodies or people also affect the development of languages. If a political body fragments, different dialects can sometimes be intentionally developed to create distinction. Also, if two languages mix (when different populations live together) they will often influence one another.
In the USA, English has drastically changed in the last century because of technological/medical/scientific/progress advances; those types of words have added to the the English vocabulary.
Popular slang affects languages too. So the local colloquialisms affect the words and the accents used by the local population and the immigrants to the areas.
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Mrs Purple that actually rings a bell! Must have remembered something from way back when. Makes sense really.
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There's no Welsh word for 'sick' as in vomit ::)
I was only thinking along the theme of this thread last night, can't remember what triggered the thoughts oh I remember: a book I'm reading about a girl marrying a Tibetan ........
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fascinating stuff. Thanks for starting this thread. I love language and am so happy that languages are different and diverse and that they evolve. As for English ( I taught TEFL for a bit) - well, I'm glad I'm a native speaker as it's a b**ger to learn, although spoken English is still the same "language" as written, unlike french for example. And we just have 'you', not 3 or 4 versions of it.
I read that the Inuit people have many different words for 'snow' - so wondered why we in England have only one for 'rain' :D ?
As for Ghiro's point about the same word meaning different things in different languages, this was so interesting when I lived in France, especially as the words are all derived from Latin. I used to collect examples of 'french' words commonly used in English that have an altogether different meaning
eg occasion - in french, this means 'used' (as in car, bike etc)
deception - in french, this means disappointment.
All I can remember for the moment!
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I agree. It is hard to learn English as a second language. There are no rules in relation to spelling or pronunciation. Yet, I love English more than my mother tongue. English has so many words - often several for the same concept and is so creative a language.
The most difficult language I have learnt is Russian btw. Not only because of the writing, but also because of the grammar. Latin was most beneficial as it taught me grammar as such and I could use this mould for every other language I have learnt thereafter.
And oldsheep....Don't the French always want to have it the other way round when it comes to language??? :D
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I was awful at French in school. Ok with the basics but when it got onto the variations of how to say things well..... my brain was in a spin! My friend desperately needed French and her parents even sent her to a French language school over the summer holidays in Glasgow to help her. She said doing higher French was the hardest thing ever.
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Love it Mrs P! Makes you think doesn't it. Same with the "i" before "e" rule which used to be taught in schools. There are more words which don't fit the rule than do, so who thought that one up.
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Scientists seem to be changing their views on how languages evolved, http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/04/evolution-of-language/ its fascinating subject.
silverlady x
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Mrs P, you reminded me of when OH made a lovely mistake in France. He got a bit miz (hence we are in England ::)) at not having a 'real' job and a friend taught him how to say "je traverse le desert", which means I'm crossing the desert = having a tricky time in my life.
However he mispronounced it to another friend as "je traverse le dessert"...as in pudding ;D
Only one way to really learn a language is to live in the country itself and don't surround yourself with expats, imho. I'd love to do a part time internet based TEFL course. My friend is doing a full time CELTA and is exhausted; I'd not be up to that with the CFS lurgie.
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Silverlady's link mentions Yoda's language - i had a 'fan' of his at home during the first Star Wars era - found this link
http://www.yodaspeak.co.uk/index.php
"I hope that, a nice holiday Mrs P you have".
Ghiro x
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I love this one..... :D
The Chaos
Charivarius (G. Nolst Trenité)
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!
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Hiekey you actually read my link :-* I didn't think anyone did ;D
silverlady x
You should put your poem on the poetry page its very good and I did read it :D
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Thanks Silverlady...I knew it from before and loved it so much that I just put it here.....
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strewth ;D Poem is great but I give thanks that I'm English speaking
If you read that to students studying EFL they'd just up and leave the room methinks!
Our french teacher used to reply when we asked 'why' about anything...parce que. Because. Very useful word.
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Perche in Italian :)
silverlady x
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Can remember french teacher saying "Il y a... and getting the reply "Kuryakin" that really annoyed her. 8)
(http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTVofe2xBRtolMqAmFWK5b0mLFuQ8i2UPKP3GsrvxB90algoAdZ)
Ghiro x
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;D ;D I used to fancy him, until I found out he was a wife beater!
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Thought that was David Soul ???
silverlady x
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It is not o nly about words, but also sounds....just taught the German ch to English students..... ;D In the end we were imitating chasing off a cat.....
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The hard and soft C can be difficult to get the hang of especially in Italian.
silverlady x
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Thought that was David Soul ???
silverlady x
I'm sure it was David soul too. I haven't heard of David Mcallum being a woman beater.
SL, I read your link too, so can I have a :-* as well. :D
cm xx
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It is not o nly about words, but also sounds....just taught the German ch to English students..... ;D In the end we were imitating chasing off a cat.....
;D ;D ;D Lucky you! Miaow! :cat88:
David McCallum was my childhood idol.
The coolest man to walk across a TV screen in the sixties, drool........
Richard Chamberlain as well. He could have been my doctor any day and I'm talking of drooling at age 8/9! ;D His language was one of LOVE! :rofl: I read somewhere once that he was actually gay! Ah well!
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CM for you :-* :-* ;D
Did you catch my "Unexplained Mysteries" Link"? http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/
silverlady x
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Ooh thanks SL.
Wonder what that "pulsating winged being' in Indonesia is all about? :o
cm xx
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It really is odd CM :o
silverlady x
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that s right Silverlady...especially for the English...they also struggle with the r, w and v.
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I had a tenacious Germ in May ……… I call it a 'tenacious little sod' but where does 'sod' come from? For me a sod is a grass/mud piece dug up ………
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http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/sod
Does that help?
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:thankyou:
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:)