Language

Katherine A. Robertson-Spencer 12-01-2009 History 151 Take Home Exam Second Paper “LANGUAGE” When did we begin to develop a need for writing as a tool of communication' How ancient is our language and who created the alphabet that we use today' Beginning c. 10,000 BCE in the Amazon Basin during the Neolithic period when the development of agriculture changed our way of living. Creating the need for keeping track of goods traded with other cultures. Our language has developed into a sophisticated system of communication with people all around the world. Without the ability to write and communicate, we would be unable to interact with other cultures. It’s an important tool used to keep records of our past and the ability to know what’s going on in the world we live in. Technology wouldn’t be what it is today if our earlier ancestors had not attempted to format a way to communicate. It was a useful tool in recording one’s wealth and keeping track of one’s trade goods when bartering with other cultures. Thousands of years ago early modern man looks just like us. They develop a strong language skill and speaking is possible. We have the unique ability to create an image and imprint it upon a surface. It allowed humans to enter into another dimension unique among the animal kingdom. Giving us the ability to be the dominate animal on earth. When people started to diversify, they developed “complexity.” The development of river civilizations in Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, and China; allowed for transporting goods along the river thus enabling them to trade between cultures. The bartering of specialized items such as: weavings, pottery, and animals produced a need to account for what was traded, thus “record keeping.” The beginning of civilization happens when things are written down called “Historical Records.” The shift from Neolithic [no writing system] to Civilization [record keeping] begins. In Mesopotamia {c. 3200 – 1200 BCE} they created a pictographic writing system using wet clay then firing it to make a brick tablet. Writing wasn’t common, used by the rich to record important transactions and used only for necessity. The ruler “Hammurabi” [c. 1700 BCE] created a government with laws. He carved into hard stone 300 laws written this way so they stay the same for everyone, based on a concept of “retaliation”. The Phoenicians developed a system of reading and writing by sound called “Phonics”. They developed hard consonant sounds and the Greeks added the vowels thus, alpha-beta. The Minoans had a writing system called Linear A [not deciphered] and they lived on the island of Crete. The Mycenaean people were of Indo-European speaking people. They occupied mainland Greece seeking agricultural lands. They conquered the Minoans in c. 1600 BCE who used a writing system that was deciphered in 1960 called Linear B. They conquered Troy in c. 1250 BCE. The story was written in Greek called “Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.” Eventually they become less powerful and another wave of Indo-European speaking people called Dorians who are illiterate move in forcing the Mycenaean people off the land towards the sea. During the Hellenic Civilization the writing system in Greek returns. The Greek language is common to all Polis States. The Greek alphabet emerged in the mid-eighth century after the fall of the Mycenaean civilization. The Greek alphabet of today arose after the Greek Dark Ages. An adaptation of the Phoenician alphabet was the introduction of vowel letters without which Greek would be illegible. Most of Phoenician names were modified slightly to fit Greek phonology. Early examples are:  The Hebrew text of the Bible which was written in Greek letters.  An 8th century Arabic fragment preserves a text in the Greek alphabet.  Some Gaulish inscriptions in modern France use the Greek alphabet [c. 300 BC].  Ancient Macedonian, isolated works are preserved in Greek text. Greek letters are used in mathematics, science and engineering. In Neolithic China [c. 1600 – 1027 BCE], this is where the true river civilization began. The first written recorded dynasty was the Shang dynasty located along the Yellow River. Their writing system which was developed around c. 1300 – 1200 BCE wasn’t “phonetical”, but based on characters. There were about 4000 characters {a word, part of a word, markers, etc.} which could be overlaid into different spoken languages. The system used common symbols, understood by all cultures such as the symbol of the sun. You may not understand it if spoken in their language, but the symbol represented the same object used in all languages meaning “the sun.” It was an inventive idea that brought unification between different peoples. North of the Black Sea in southeastern Europe, a language called Proto-Indo-European which is no longer spoken, yet is believed to be the ancestor of most European languages. These include languages that became ancient Greek, ancient German, and ancient Latin. Latin disappeared as a spoken language but integrated into modern Spanish, French, and Italian. Ancient German became Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, German and a language that developed into English. It developed as a result of the invasions of the island of Britain. The invaders lived along the northern coast of Europe. The Saxons, Anglos, and jutes mixed their languages resulting in a language called Anglo-Saxon or Old English. It’s difficult to understand. “Beowulf” is a story about a great king which is told in modern English. The Vikings invaded Britain from the north [c. 1100 CE] raiding the coastal areas. They were looking to capture trade goods, slaves, and anything of value. Words like sky, leg, skull, egg, crawl, lift, and take come from the old languages of the far northern countries. William the Conqueror invaded Britain called the Norman Conquest [c. 1066 CE]. They were French-speaking people from Normandy and became the new rulers of Britain. French was spoken for several hundred years. It was the language of educated people and commoners spoke Old English. Old English took many words from the Norman French including: damage, prison, and marriage. Most English words describing law and government include: jury, parliament, and justice. “Latinio” an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome, spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe. European languages absorbed much of their vocabulary from it. It was deemed the international language of science and scholarship, gradually replaced by “vernacular languages”. A vernacular language is the native language of a population located in a country or region. English is the state language of a number of countries. Some Latin words still used today are:  Auditorium: It refers to a meeting place like a court of justice or a lecture room. Today it’s a large meeting room for professors to lecture a larger class.  Stadium: Is a Greek measure of length, about 607 feet. Today it’s an open court to a covered passageway.  Atrium: Refers to the entrance room or hall of the Roman house. Today it’s an open court to a covered passageway. The Greek alphabet is a set of twenty-four letters used to write Greek language since the late 9th century. It’s the oldest and first alphabet still used today. It came from the “Phoenician alphabet” and is related to the Linear B earlier writing system for Greek. Letters are used as symbols in mathematics, science, particle names in physics, names of stars, fraternities and sororities. Languages changed gradually over time due to changes in culture, fashion and necessity. Some of the words in English can be traced to our remote past. Slow changes and borrowing from many tongues give us flexibility and power with the most widespread language of all time. Words are tools with which we think, communicate, and learn. If you had a limited vocabulary, you would find yourself at a disadvantage. Survival in our global-economic society depends on it, just as it did for the people of our ancient past. Knowledge through being able to read and write increased our ability and chances of surviving as a dominant species. Words derived directly from Latin and Greek ancestry are in use today. Words are the building blocks of thought. It is the means by which we understand the ideas of others. It’s how we express and communicate amongst one another.