Speaking the lingo by Trevor Homer:

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The Origins of Language Earliest Origins Until the eighteenth century and the Enlightenment (a European intellectual movement), most thinking about the origin of language had assumed it began with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

The most recent theory of the origin of language is that simple hand gestures were used as long ago as six or seven million years, shortly after the first humans diverged from the apes. Shouting would have been used as alarm calls or emotional outbursts. About five million years ago, an early hominid, started to walk upright, and a more complex form of gesturing was probably used. Then, two million years ago the brain size increased and hand gestures were used in various combinations as the primary means of communication. As recently as 100,000 years ago, Homo sapiens may have changed the main means of communication from hand and facial gestures to vocal-isations and the use of differing sounds to convey meanings. Gradually the use of gesturing diminished, although we still use it today to emphasise speech, even during telephone conversations, when the person at the other end cannot see the gestures.

The First Word "In the beginning was the word." John 1: 1 After studying 1,000 languages, researchers in Paris have come to the conclusion that ‘papa’ was the first word ever used. They discovered ‘papa’ in 700 of the languages studied. Oldest Spoken Language The oldest of all spoken languages is almost certainly Mayan, which seems to have been in existence 7,000 years ago when the Maya migrated south into South America. First Written Language Cuneiform, the first written language, was developed by the Sumerians more than 5,000 years ago. The strange wedge-shaped letters were a development from earlier pictograms and were formed by pressing shapes into wet clay with a special pen. There were only two numbers in cuneiform, a vertical wedge for 1 and a sideways wedge for 10. Greek The Greek language is widely regarded as the mother tongue of Western civilisation. The Minoan civilisation developed on the island of Crete in about 2000 bc, and with it developed the beginnings of the Greek language. Minoan civilisation was brought to a dramatic end around 1400 bc following the devastating effects of the volcanic eruption on the island of Thera and then the conquest by invaders from the Greek mainland. Classical Greek From around 1200 bc the Dorians migrated down from north-west Greece to occupy central Greece. The remaining vestiges of Mycenaean and Minoan culture were swept away and the country fell into its own Dark Ages, when writing disappeared altogether. Modern Greek The modern Greek language has the longest continual existence of any of the Indo-European languages, having begun to emerge in the fourteenth century bc and continued through to the present day. The language which evolved came from ancient Greek, then Koine, which was the common language from the fourth century bc to the fourth century ad, then on through Byzantine Greek, from the fifth to the fifteenth century ad. Greek as we know it today has been spoken since the fifteenth century.

Linguists place the actual starting date at 1453, the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks. The Greek Alphabet This was the first recognisably modern alphabet, the revolutionary feature being the use of five letters to signify the five vowel sounds. Latin "The Romans would never have had time to conquer the world if they had been obliged to learn Latin first of all." Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) One of the Indo-European languages, Latin is the ancestor of the modern Romance languages: Italian, French, and Spanish. It was first spoken from the seventh century bc by small groups of people living along the banks of the river Tiber. The use of Latin rapidly spread as the Roman Empire conquered Europe and the Mediterranean coasts of Africa. The Roman (Latin) Alphabet This alphabet is now the most widely used writing system in the world, including as it does, English and most of the European languages. It was developed around 600 bc from the Etruscan alphabet and can be traced right back to the North Semitic alphabet which was in use in Syria and Palestine in around 1100 bc. The earliest surviving example of the Roman alphabet in use is on a seventh-century bc cloak pin. It says, MANIOS MED FHEFHAKED NUMASIOI, which means ‘Manius made me for Numerius’. The pin was probably a little love token. There were only 23 letters in the Classical Latin alphabet. During medieval times the letter ‘I’ was used for both ‘I’ and ‘J’, and the letter ‘V’ was used for ‘U’, ‘V’ and ‘W’. Hence the 26 letters in the modern English alphabet. English English is a member of the Indo-European family of languages, which includes most modern European languages. Old English Also called Anglo-Saxon, it is thought to have been spoken by King Alfred (the king that burnt the cakes) in the ninth century ad. The language had three genders, male, female and neuter and was spoken from around ad 500 to 1100. Roughly 15 per cent of modern English can be directly traced back to Old English. Middle English The Norman Conquest of England, beginning in 1066, introduced Old French (also known as Anglo-Norman).

This quickly developed into Middle English, which was in use from around 1100 to 1500 ad. Middle English would be recognisable today as English. Early Modern English William Shakespeare (1564–1616) strongly influenced early Modern English (1500–1800). He not only recorded certain words for the first time, but also invented words such as ‘dwindle’ and ‘leapfrog’. In total there are around 2,000 words that can be attributed to Shakespeare. Late Modern English The many new territories in the British Empire, which at its peak covered a quarter of the globe, influenced late Modern English (1800– present). For instance, words such as bungalow, shampoo and jodhpur are Indian. New technologies have brought new words to describe things that hadn’t previously existed; words such as vaccine, nuclear, typewriter and microchip. American English "England and America are two countries divided by a common language." George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) The English spoken in America began to change immediately after colonisation began in around 1600. The American lexicographer Noah Webster (1758–1843) compiled dictionaries and what he called ‘spelling books’ specifically to help Americans adopt their own standard of language, and to create uniformity.

Webster’s books were published between 1783 and 1828, and he named the language, which he was institutionalising, ‘Federal’ English. There are three periods in the development of American English: Colonial: 1607 to 1776 National: 1776 to 1898 International: 1898 to present Sign Language It is almost certain that simple sign language, in the form of shoulder shrugs, pointing with the arms and fingers, and facial grimaces, is older than speech itself. The first form of sign language, which is known to have been specifically created for the deaf, was developed by the Italian Giovanni Bonifacio in 1616. American Sign Language (ASL) was developed in 1816 and is now the fourth most common language in the USA. Strangely, deaf sign languages are independent of their spoken counterparts. British and American are almost unintelligible to users of the other language, and yet their spoken counterparts are almost identical.

Braille uses raised dots on paper or metal to enable blind people to read. In 1821, French Army captain Charles Barbier invented what he called ‘night writing’. The invention made use of a 12-dot code which had been developed for battlefield conditions specifically to eliminate the need for speaking during the hours of darkness, when silence was vital. Louis Braille (1809–52). was very interested in the system, but considered it too complex, so he set about simplifying it down to six dots. The Braille system has now been adapted into almost every language in the world. Slang "Slang is a language the rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands and goes to work." Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) It is thought the use of slang harks back to animism, the first religion. In animism, it was believed that all objects had an external aspect which could be perceived by the senses, and an invisible aspect, which could only be perceived by a specially gifted person. Thus the use of slang was developed to refer obliquely, rather than directly, to an image. The first dictionary of slang was published in Australia in 1819 by a convict.

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Trevor Homer

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