THE THEORETICAL STAGE IN THE SCIENCE OP LANGUAGE.—ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE

2014 ◽  
pp. 329-378
Author(s):  
F. Max Muller
Keyword(s):  
Language Origin ◽  
Origin Of Language ◽  
Theoretical Stage

L'origine del linguaggio puň attendere

PARADIGMI ◽  
2009 ◽  
pp. 163-172
Author(s):  
Francesco Ferretti
Keyword(s):  
Recent Literature ◽  
Empirical Treatment ◽  
Viable Alternative ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Cognitive Perspective ◽  
Evolutionary Theories ◽  
Language Origin ◽  
Origin Of Language ◽  
Naturalistic Approach ◽  
The Subject

- Starting from a discussion of Sylvain Auroux's new book (L'origine des langues... 2007), the paper develops a critique of the anti-naturalistic approach to the study of language. The rejection of the quest for language origin as a theory unsusceptible to scientific empirical treatment is an aspect of the idealistic consequences of anti-naturalist positions. A survey is presented of recent literature on the subject. In our opinion, evolutionary theories, revisited from a cognitive perspective, have radically changed the terms of the debate and made naturalism a viable alternative. Keywords: Evolutionism, FOXP2, Innateness, Linguistic variation, Nature-nurture debate, Origin of language.

scholarly journals Language Origin and the Nature of Language: A Linguistic Interpretation of Dante's De Vulgari Eloquentia

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Stong-Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Negative Answer ◽  
Species Specificity ◽  
Basic Relation ◽  
General Nature ◽  
Language Origin ◽  
Original Language ◽  
Sociological Factors ◽  
Origin Of Language ◽  
Unique Nature ◽  
De Vulgari Eloquentia

This interpretation of the De Vulgari Eloquentia is limited to Chapters I-VIII of Book One, which deal with language origin and the nature of language. I discuss four topics: (1) the species-specificity of language, (2) the possibility that thought may occur without language, (3) the form of language, and (4) the origin of language. In section (1), I show that Dante bases the species-specificity theme on the claim that man has a unique nature. I describe Dante's comparison of Man to the other beings in creation, the angels and the beasts. Dante concludes that Man shares reason with the angels, and emotions with the beasts, and differs from both in possessing individual differences. The implications that I draw for language concern semantic creativity, inter-translatability, and the basic relation between meaning and sound. A negative answer to (2), i.e., a conclusion that thought must take place by means of language, would imply that all thoughts can be expressed by language. Although I discuss this problem, I can draw no conclusions from the De Vulgari. In section (3), I discuss the three entities considered under form: names, semantic order, and syntactic order. I interpret Dante as saying that sociological factors are extra-linguistic, and that dialect differences are a result of social differences. Two interpretations emerge in my discussion of the origin of language. First, I give evidence that Dante presents the original language as equal in complexity to modern languages. Second, he implies that all languages have a common origin. Dante's De Vulgari Eloquentia treats of many ideas about language that are still problems for modern linguists. Since several of these concepts are couched in mythological terms, careful interpretation is required to make them explicit. In this paper I limit my discussion to Chapters I-VIII of Book One, which examine language origin and the general nature of language. While many of the ideas brought out in these chapters were also advanced by the contemporaries and predecessors of Dante, it is beyond the scope of this paper to trace these relationships.

Chapter III: Rousseau (1712-72): the Old and the New

1980 ◽  
Vol 25 (S1) ◽  
pp. 12-13
Author(s):  
Richard Albert Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Education Society ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
Language Origin ◽  
Origin Of Language ◽  
The People ◽  
Divine Origin ◽  
Points Of View

During the middle ages, and up to the middle of the eighteenth century, the theologians’ mutilated version of the Genesis account of language origin, the divine-origin theory as it came to be called, was the theory held by Christian Europe. In the eighteenth century, however, the question of the probability of a natural rather than a supernatural origin of language began to stir in men’s minds. Rousseau’s essay on the Origin of Languages, about 1750, might be taken as the historical landmark which stands between the old and new points of view. This essay is in itself disappointing to one who is acquainted with Rousseau’s other works. His mental interests were practical rather than speculative, and he had no real convictions about the question of language as he had about education, society, and government. He was interested in language, and the changes in language, in relation to the practical needs of the people in social and national groups, and in diverse climatic conditions, rather than in the origin of language itself as an instrument of human reason. As a consequence his essay on the Origin of Languages—not ‘Language’—is hardly more than a series of disconnected reflections upon various aspects of languages, including a discussion of the relation of language to melody and harmony in music which occupies about one-third of the essay.

The Philological Endeavours of the Early Arabic Linguists: Theological Implications of the tawqīf-iṣṭilāḥ Antithesis and the majāz Controversy – Part I

1999 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mustafa Shah
Keyword(s):  
Opposing View ◽  
Religious Doctrine ◽  
Origin Of Language ◽  
The Way

This article examines a number of issues relating to discussions of the origin of language and related topics among early Arabic linguists. A number of these discussions treated the topic of the ‘revelationist’ view of language (tawqīf), and the opposing view that language had developed as a result of human convention (iṣṭilāḥ). It has been suggested that religious doctrine hampered the development of the linguistic tradition, as theologically motivated views increasingly governed the way in which linguists were able to articulate their positions on this and related subjects. We contend that the evidence does not altogether support this view, and that there was a subtle interplay between theological views and linguistic theories. Individual linguists, whom tradition identifies as having certain theological tendencies, are found to have followed lines of linguistic thinking at odds with what is assumed to have been the religious doctrine to which they subscribed. An increasingly sophisticated tradition of scholarship refined and reassessed arguments based on the Qur'an and earlier thought, with a concern for the theological implications of issues such as ishtiqāq, tarāduf and addād.

The Philological Endeavours of the Early Arabic Linguists: Theological Implications of the tawqīf-iṡṫilāh Antithesis and the majāz Controversy (Part II)

2000 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mustafa Shah
Keyword(s):  
Figurative Language ◽  
Arabic Language ◽  
Metaphorical Language ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
Religious Significance ◽  
Origin Of Language ◽  
Ibn Taymiyya ◽  
The Aesthetic

The concluding part of the article pursues the theoretical arguments which relate to the tawqīf-işṭilāḥ debate on the origin of language and the intricate link with the concept of majāz. The article attempts to show how the question of the origin of language was imported into the controversy relating to the resort to metaphor and figurative language in the exegesis of the Qur'an and Prophetic dicta. Moreover, there was concern in some quarters that religious doctrines were being articulated through a veneer of metaphorical language. Some theologians had, in presenting a hypothesis for the existence of tropical expressions in the idiom of Arabic, referred to the concept of işṭilāḥ to justify their arguments, whilst tawqīf al-lugha was adduced to counter such reasoning. The religious significance of the issue is highlighted by Ibn Taymiyya who advances the thesis that the evolved concept of majāz was expressly formulated at a posterior juncture in the development of the Islamic tradition. He vociferously argues that a developed concept of majāz was insidiously exploited by those with preconceived theological motives. The article shows why Ibn Taymiyya had to discard the perceived sacrosanct doctrine of tawqīfal-lugha in order to refute theoretically the concept of majāz. This also meant that for scholars of the same view as Ibn Taymiyya, the aesthetic features associated with the device of majāz were summarily disregarded. Nevertheless, a concept of majāz was explicitly endorsed as an indisputable feature of the Arabic language by a majority of scholars.

The Ukrainian language: origin, developmentand present-day situation

2020 ◽  
Vol 77 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 159-164
Author(s):  
Olesja Sydorenko ◽  
Lubov Matsko
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Language Origin ◽  
Slavic Languages ◽  
Excellent Opportunity ◽  
Current Trends ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Language Problems

The article highlights the milestones in the development of the Ukrainian language and discusses the current trends observed mainly in the lexical sub-system as one of the first to reflect social, economic, and political changes in the life of any society. We also present main distinctives features of Ukrainian as one of the Slavic languages and discuss selected aspects of the sociolinguistic situation in Ukraine, as well as the language problems of the Ukrainian diaspora that tries to find a balance between adaptation, blending in the environment and preserving one’s identity. The study of changes in the lexical sub-system of Ukrainian from the break of the Soviet Union to the present day gives an excellent opportunity to reveal the influence of extralinguistic factors, such as the emergence of new realities and certain looseness of speech caused by a sense of freedom in the new society on the enrichment of the general vocabulary with revived words, borrowings, and derivatives, significant changes in onomastics in connection with decommunization.

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