Ms. Keneally spoke about the evolution of language in the reading last night. It’s weird because this thought has crossed my mind sometimes. I’m taking a foreign language, and sometimes I think. ‘How do they translate all of these things from one language to another? I know it’s possible, but it must take forever…’ It just makes you think where words really come from. What I find amazing is how people came up with so many different kinds of language. According to Wiki (Sorry Wendy T-T), “As of early 2007, there are 6,912 known living human languages.” That’s 6,911 different ways to say the word “rock.” Fascinating 0_o.
And of course there’s the whole issue of language evolving itself. I’m not sure how long it took, but we went from grunts to future tense in language. We also made different words from words themselves; like how the word ‘participate’ is just a bigger word for the phrase, ‘to take part in.’ If you were to ask me right now, I would say we are at the peak of language as of now. Maybe we add new words to the dictionary every year, but in terms of using and understanding language, I always thought we’ve reached the height.
But I’m probably wrong. Language is a factor of evolution. So if people keep evolving, won’t language evolve as well?
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