Scientists have found that there are currently more than 5,000 languages in the world, , but when did these languages be formed? When did it really become a local communication term?
Many scientists have done special research, but in the end they can only provide some assumptions. During the exploration process, Egyptian Pharaoh once had this idea: humans can learn local hometown dialect from their birth.
But if no adults teach children to speak, puts together a few newborn babies. Can these children produce a brand new language?
comes from infant experiments 2000 years ago
Very early in human society, the birth of language is considered a symbol of sacredness. According to the records in " Bible ", language was created by God. In addition to , there are many other versions of the birth of language, all related to myths and legends.
After a long period of time, until the early 20th century, a foreign philosophical thinker named Sapel and his students had strong doubts about the theory of language mythology, and used a variety of research methods and hypothetical experiments.
finally came up with a new set of theories: language is determined by human thinking, and human thoughts and ideologies determine their historical humanistic forms.
In order to verify that this idea is correct, Sapel looked up a lot of information, and finally he found out,
In the 6th century AD, more than 2,000 years ago, Pharaoh Busametikus from Egypt had a strange idea, although this idea is very unrealistic today.
Among these historical materials of ancient Egypt, Sapel was surprised to find it.
One day more than 2,000 years ago, because Busametikus's rights had reached its peak, and it was very boring all day long. suddenly had a whim to know whether his nation is the oldest race in the world. How to prove this? At that time, culture itself had just formed a system, and there was no further verification of the past, so Busametikus decided to use language to test it.
In order to prove his authority, he thought of putting two newborn babies together and not letting any adults teach them to speak to see if a brand new language can be produced.
So, Busametikus found two babies of ordinary people and asked someone to raise them, and paid the person a generous reward, on the condition that the fosterer must not say a word in front of these two babies.
Faced with the temptation of money, this person agreed immediately.
In the blink of an eye, more than two years have passed. Because these two babies have been in an isolated environment, the raising people also abide by the agreement and have never said a word to the baby.
But suddenly one day, a baby shouted a note, and the raising the man was very surprised, so he ran into the palace to report the matter to Busametikus.
. Busametikus was very excited when he heard this. He thought his experiment might be successful, so he personally checked a lot of materials to see if this note was an ancient Egyptian vocabulary.
, but the result disappointed him. This note did not appear in Ancient Egyptian documents and related historical records. , but in the older Phrygian language, the meaning of this note was found.
From the description of the caregiver, the pronunciation of the baby is very close to "bread". So Pharaoh Busametikus believed that although his nation was not proved that it was the oldest nation, Phrygia was indeed the oldest nation.
Now it seems that this experiment is actually not valid at all. From the perspective of Sapel's academic view, infants are about 2 years old and are the golden age for learning language.
In the experiment in ancient Egypt, the baby was not taught any language, but he made a sound on his own. This cannot be called a language, but it is just a vocalization of learning language instinct.
It seems that the two babies who were tested at that time seemed very inhumane now.
However, it was such an inhumane experimental behavior that was once again implemented in Rome during the Roman period.
This time, when Frederick II was imitating the baby experiment in ancient Egypt, in order to make the experiment more effective, he searched for more than a dozen newborn babies.
also does not allow the caregiver to communicate with the baby in any language. This time, Frederick II conducted the experiment twice as long as 4 years later than the ancient Egyptian experiment.
During these four years, the raising staff had no linguistic communication with the baby except for feeding the baby, and Frederick II also discovered a problem four years later.
None of these babies can speak, and their IQ is very low. If you walk out of the closed environment, it will be a problem to continue to live.
Among them, several babies died because they were sick but could not express it in simple language, which led to the dissatisfaction of many people in the Roman Empire at that time.
Under heavy pressure, Frederick II was finally forced to stop this cruel experiment.
Coincidentally, ancient India also conducted the same experiments on babies, but the Great of Abak of ancient Egypt was much more "kind" to babies.
He sent people to find some babies from the people and put them in a room with a good environment but no sound, and found a professional nanny to raise the babies. These babies grew up slowly after a few years.
Due to the professional nanny raising, the babies are able to survive, but no one can speak.
However, Emperor Abak discovered that these babies would express themselves through some body language, and their behavior was closer to that of ancient primitive people. This made Emperor Abak wonder what they expressed through their body?
At the same time, Emperor Abak had a bold idea that these babies had a new way of expression through their limbs. Then, the next case proves the idea of Emperor Abak.
In 1993, a small country in the Americas called Nicaguara was completely liberated under the rule of the United States for many years. The one who liberated here was a young man named Sandino .
But the then President of the United States Roosevelt sent someone to brutally kill the young man. Nicaragua lost his leader overnight and was always under the control of the United States.
During the 40-year rule, Americans banned children here from receiving education, which led to many people here having very poor learning and language expression abilities, and it is even more difficult for some disabled children who are deaf and dumb to learn.
It was not until many years later that Nicaragua was liberated again that a deaf and dumb school was established here for deaf and dumb students.
When teachers in school tutored their children, they found that although these children used body language when expressing each other.
But there are actually logical relationships and common meanings in these body languages, which shocked the teachers. In the end, after years of evolution, this body language has been recognized by the world as the official sign language in Nicaragua.
Through this case, we can find that if different children can communicate physically, it is possible to produce a brand new language.
American girl who can’t speak
Comprehensive the above, is it possible to create a new language? The answer is possible, but it takes a very long time, and at least one person's life is definitely not enough.
At the same time, if a person still cannot speak after living for many years, it will be defined as "low IQ".
For example, in Las Vegas, USA in 1970, an unmarried couple gave birth to a daughter. In order to prevent others from discovering her existence, the couple imprisoned the girl since she was born, and she had been in the process for more than ten years.
One day many years later, a patrolman passed by the livestock shed at the couple's house and found strange screams inside, so he walked into checked it alertly. He found that the girl was naked and tied with a cow, with a disheveled face.
The police officer immediately called the police station to control the couple and rescued the girl. But through communication, it was found that the girl could not speak and could not take care of herself.
Its behavior is like a baby, and he can only express himself by crying. . Except for the appearance of a girl in her teenage appearance, this girl has an IQ and behavior that is exactly the same as a newborn baby.
The police were very surprised, so they asked the couple. According to the couple's explanation, they had been locking the girl and Niu during the past ten years of imprisoning the girl, and had never taught her to speak or know, and they did not let her contact the outside world.
After hearing this, the police taught the girl to the local welfare home and often visited the girl. A few years later, with the help of the welfare home, the girl still did not learn to speak and could only know a few simple words.
The police were also surprised and asked the doctor. According to the doctor, the girl has a low intelligence level and has missed the golden cycle of learning language. It will be very difficult to learn now.
And if a person is in a long-term closed environment, his language talent will be completely buried. So, in the end, the girl completely lost the best opportunity to learn to speak.
Scientists conducted an experiment to verify the doctor's diagnosis.
A foreign scientist put a newborn kitten in a very dark environment for a few months, then released the kitten and placed it under the light source, but the cat had no reaction to the light source.
You should know that cats are very sensitive to light sources. After many attempts, the cat did not respond to light. The scientist also verified that the cat missed the intensification period of light after birth.
So after staying in a dim environment for several months, he completely lost his ability to perceive light.
Through the cases of American little girls and cats, we can find that the initial living environment is the basic element of language formation.
I believe everyone has seen the rumors of "wolf child": they can't speak, they can only imitate the call and movements of wolves, and their living habits are the same as wolves...
The initial environment determines the formation of language
A foreign expert once discovered the case of "wolf child". In the United States in 1920, two children were found living in the wolf's den in the forest, and wolves are also very friendly to children.
Local people thought it was the wolf who took the child away, so they drove the wolf away and sent the two children to a welfare home. However, the living habits of the two children were exactly the same as those of the wolf. They liked dark environments during the day, but they didn't sleep at all at night and liked to eat raw meat.
At the same time, the two children did not have language skills, but imitated the call of wolves. It took 8 years for the people in the welfare home to learn simple words.
However, due to the forced changes in living habits, the two children did not survive for too long and died one after another. The case of also proves that the initial environment determines the formation of language, ideology, and living habits.
The most important thing in expression and communication is the human brain, because the brain is the core that controls all organs in the human body. Once the brain has problems, the language expression will also occur .
In addition to external or disease factors, problems in the brain are also caused by congenital formation or acquired. Because two children live in the wolf group since they are born, both in their behavior and brain, they are affected by the wolf.
So their brain genes were changed, forming a growth pattern like a wolf, and body hormones also changed, and black hairs like wolves grew on their bodies, even imitating wolf habits.
thus leads to irreversible growth in acquired conditions. Once you adapt to the life of the wolf pack and return to the civilized society of human beings, you will be very uncomfortable and ultimately unable to survive.
The experiments of the Pharaoh and many ancient emperors can fully interpret this view. The two babies under test at that time were very healthy and had no problems with their intelligence.
But they were kept in a silent environment and were raised, and no one taught them to learn to speak, which led to them not being disturbed by any external behavior from the beginning, resulting in the fact that they could not speak in the end.
The process of children learning to speak from an early age actually relies on imitation. This is why doctors require parents to talk to their children more often when they are young so that their children can learn to speak faster.
The environment also determines the type of language. For example, the first sentence that children living in China, who have been young must learn is Chinese, and the first sentence that children living in the United States must learn is English.
But since childhood, parents are indeed American children, and the first sentence they say must be in English. This further proves that babies will not create language by themselves, but are formed by interference from the outside world.
Finally, although the experiments of ancient pharaohs were not successful, the environment was definitely a prerequisite for determining a person's language.
When we teach our children, we must use high-quality and high-level methods to teach language so that they will become high-quality talents in the future.
