They have made 3D models of chimpanzee vocal tracts and shown that they can produce practically all the same sounds as us. They just lack the mental capacity. So it's likely that mental capacity for language was a later evolved trait.
I'd heard about this. You might be right, but what you're talking about was from one very recent study, and even the results of it seem to still be up for some interpretation, At the very least they seem to lack the necessary detailed motor control in their mouthes, which I figured I'd lump in with "physical ability." As opposed to, for instance, parrots, which can be trained to mimic human sounds relatively easily.
I imagine the process could have been like this: Simple sounds for emotional expression -> pre-humans able to use greater number of sounds can express greater number of things, increasing with time -> intelligence increasing results in development of basic grammar -> use of language makes intelligence itself more useful by transmitting new technology and concepts intergenerationally -> increasing intelligence leads to further complexity of grammer. Basically at some point there was a feedback loop where language and intelligence both complimented and accelerated the growth of the other.
There's an ancient Greek legend about a king in Greece and a king in Phrygia arguing about whose language was the first. Back and forth they argued. Then the Phrygian king proposed an experiment of taking two newborn twins and isolating them in the forest with a mute shepherd, to see what language they would speak first. The babies grew, and the mute shepherd tended his sheep and fed the babies sheep milk. Day after day the kings observed the babies from a window, but they didn't say anything, until one day, one baby made a noise... "Baaaaaaaaaa!" "Hey, that's not a Greek word!" "It's not a Phrygian word either. There must be a language older than yours or mine..." :-)
It's a legend, but it's actually a variant of a legend about an Egyptian pharaoh making such an experiment with babies, and they cry out, "Bekos!" which is the Phrygian word for bread. Just a legend. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psamtik_I#Discovering_the_origin_of_language
I am always amazed by the ancient Greek understanding of the universe, even though they had no way to really discover anything. They just thought it was somewhat obvious, which is fascinating. The legend you explain here clearly understands divergent change over time (multilinear evolution) in terms of language, but they just assume it is obvious that this happens. It seems to suggest the reason that the baby is saying "Baaaaaa!" is because the "language" of sheep came before the language of humans, in the way that sheep are more simple, and complexity builds over time. Obviously, we know now that there is no such hierarchy of nature as Aristotle argued, where humans are the pinnacle of creation, but given what they knew then, it's ridiculously accurate. The pre-Socratic philosopher known as Anaximander of Miletus believed that humans had to have come from other animals (in fact, he thought we came from fish, because human embryos look like fish), because our period of nurture is too long compared to other animals, and the first humans would have died if humans had always been humans. He thought nurturing had to have progressively become longer over time. It just blows my mind that someone in 600 B.C.E. came up with this, even despite the flaws with it. He thought that the first humans were just overdeveloped fish babies that weren't hatched at the usual time and had to free themselves from the parent fish as fully grown adults. Still a better explanation than creationism though.
@@norgepalm7315 Would you like to explain to everyone how the ancient Greeks would have gone about discovering quantum mechanics or population genetics, you dimwit? Also, you misquoted me. I did not say, "they had no way of discovering anything." I said, "they had no way to really discover anything." You'd think someone on a linguistics video would have enough cognitive function to pick up on subtle connotations without taking things too literally.
Dolphins can communicate extremely well. They can comprehend abstract thoughts such as "red ball" or "blue ball" without seeing a ball at all. I've heard that they even develope certain languages within their pods.
@@egg9605just like us humans! just goes to show how consciousness and intelligence can give life forms the ability to make morally good and bad choices.
They probably won’t get nearly as complex of a language as us considering how barbaric they are compared to us with the largest being known to rip shark livers out and swim away
Welcome back! Such a good topic, especially when you one-up me and go even FURTHER back in time. ;) I think you have at least a half-dozen more gems buried in here. One interesting thought, as those charlatan long-rangers use the term, the reconstructed Proto-World would be our latest common ancestor, splitting "language origins" into two separate issues: "origin of [modern] languages" and "the origin of language". To borrow a Xidnafism, "MADNESS!"
:) Thanks! I thought about covering Greenberg and the rest, but figured that there was enough other stuff to talk about I could just link to your video and call it a day :P
Hey NativLang, Xidnaf! You guys should do a collaboration video sometime! Two of my favorite linguists on TH-cam working together is just a mental euphoria.
@ㄉㄎㄉ • ꨆꨟꨮꩆ ꨣꨰꨕ thats a natural human thing, all babys will eventually say something like mama and papa for their mom and dads, its less of all languages and more of all humans
Most animals were already able to convey emotional meaning through vocalization, if not complex semantic meaning. The most interesting idea to me is that the proto-human language is music. Music communicates emotions much too effectively to be a purposeless spandrel.
I once picked up from a linguistics student in some comment section that language may have evolved from boredom so we simply started telling each other stories, but they couldnt point me to any resources
@@jumefoc In my native language, Tamil, music is considered part of the language. Tamil (lit. Self expression) is divided into three parts, Iyal (Prose/Speech), Isai (Music) and Aattam (Drama/Sign language). While, the word Tamil in modern contexts usually refer to Iyalttamil (written/spoken self expression), other forms of self expression aren't considered inferior or anything. But it must be said, prose and speech is more efficient and precise though in expressing oneself.
Having increased intelligence seems to promote a natural desire to communicate things in greater detail. My best guess is that language evolved somewhat in tandem with our general intelligence. Tribes with both increased intelligence and the ability to articulate would have a much easier time organizing hunts, gatherings, alliances, communicating that theres danger nearby etc etc whereas those with weaker communication abilities would struggle far more at doing any of those things. My best guess is that language originated with just codes, like a short low grunt was understood by locals as someone saying "rock" and then eventually a short low grunt followed by a slightly higher pitched short grunt would mean "sharp rock" as they developed the intelligence to specify which rock they were referring to.
I know the word "mama" is at lest the same in English, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, and Quechua. "Baba/papa" is a least the same in English, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Malay, and Zulu. For this reason I believe in a limited Proto-world language. What do you all think?
@Džudžan Worked in kindergarten + read a lot about children's development...can confirm. It's the easiest simplest sounds to pronounce. TBH I do wonder if there's a language in which its the other way around lol
Nope. M and P sounds are easier for children to articulate (the parts of the mouth that make those sounds develop first). And because of the positive reinforcement they get, they say it more and more. Various languages have independently developed those words with same or similar meaning. BTW that is why there is often a simple word for older sibling but not for younger sibling (they don't exist at the time of the development of child). In my language, older brother = dada, older sister = didi, younger brother = Bhai (complicated) and younger sister = baini.
The coolest thing is that we possibly do know two words of Proto-World. Those being the words for mother and father, with them being some variation of 'mama' and 'papa', because those words are similar all throughout the world and are probably based on the universal way of babies babbling nonsense, which parents mistakenly believe to be the baby talking to them, and then reinforce it.
With noche/noite and ocho/oito, you so nearly showed the right thing. It's actually that Spanish corresponds to Portuguese in those cases which in turn derive from earlier Latin . By the time western vulgar Latin has diverged, this has become (cf. French nuit, huit) and then, in Spanish, became when it follows a vowel. Mucho/muito seems to be a bit different because they derive from Latin multus with a not a and the development parallel to is specific to Western Iberian (Spanish, Portuguese, Galician, Extremaduran, Leonese etc.). French and Catalan both preserve the Latin . In both old spanish and old portuguese, a has appeared (hence the parallel development) but the reason for this is unclear; an equivalent process does not take place in the phonologically identical tumultus. It's also worth noting that Extremaduran is odd here in that it actually has munchu instead of the expected *muichu
My theory is that when humans first started talking, no one really spoke an entire language, everyone only spoke several words, however the words used heavily differed from group to group and region to region, but as time went on though people from one group met people from other groups and discovered the words each other were using, later many series of words got unified and became bigger and bigger
Time traveling linguists:*peaking out of bush at entrance of cave* Caveman 1: Wassup, can a loc come up in your cave? Caveman 2: Man fuck you, I'll see you at food hunt. Caveman 1: Ah, neanderthal don't hate me cause I'm beautiful unga bunga Maybe if you got rid of that yee yee ass hair cut you get some bitches on your dick. Oh, better yet, Maybe Tanisha'll call your dog-ass if she ever stop fucking with that trepanning surgeon or shaman she fucking with, Oooggaaaa Caveman 2: Booga?!
2 ปีที่แล้ว +13
_'when'_ time travel becomes available...?? the _'first'_ to get access...?? what do we want? --- TIME TRAVEL! when do we want it? --- IT DOESN'T MATTER!
Astronomy487 Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The Hee, of course, flies anyway, because Hees don't care what humans think it's impossible.
Such a great video! Subscribed! As a Hungarian I would love to express my appreciation for consistently leaving a tiny blank hole for us in the middle of Europe! It means a lot!
I think it did exist cause 1: humans have a part of our brain dedicated to launguage 2: human anatomy has existed exactly like this for 150k years-ish 3: we only started migrating out of where we were all started 50k-ish years ago, 4:conclusion, we had 100k-ish years to develop launguage before splitting apart, and I’d say we could do it cause those humans had a launguage part of thier brain and it existing at all is clear evedencw of this (I made this theory up on my own, sorry if I got something wrong but I do know everything about what I said before 4 was right)
That's logical. What do you think of the problem that even say 150k years ago all the little groups of the first humans would have been close, but still distinct geographically? The proto language still had to spread through this small initial group for it to be ubiquitous. So did one group develop more of a language than others and it simply slowly and without resistance spread within the still relatively small lands of humans by the various methods it could have? Or was there multiple unique seedling languages in competition even then and one may have finally win out? Language might be a sort of freak accident, a step that happen very rarely/uniquely in evolution. But then again the second option, which is more in the vein of convergent evolution, makes sense for language. Since language feels like a very natural adaptation that would happen multiple times. So the question comes down to, is language so natural that it would evolve individually multiple times in a short timeframe, or is too complicated to quickly initially evolve multiple times.
@@pseudonymousbeing987 Here's a thought, what if one or two groups kind of started making a quasi-language, with "words" for water, or lion, and what have you. Then bits and pieces of it leaked out into nearby groups, who each expanded on those bits to make their own quasi-languages in accordance with their needs, which then had bits spread to even more groups, and so on until what you had was a a ton of quasi-languages spread out around many groups. At that point, as groups start slowly combining into distinct societies, their language too would combine into distinct full languages. Maybe just the act of becoming a complex society necessitates that your barebones protolanguages evolve into something much more fleshed out, and so they do.
That neurologic argument actually favors the posibility that humanity did not inventend language at all bu rather learned it from someone else (was sort of tamed). Dogs have a specific part of their brains as well dedicated to human language that they evolved from continuated interaction with our species. So it would make some sense that we actually learned the first language or languages from an older hominid. Kinda of like ancient aliens but without the alien part nor the conspiracy. This would neither be a first as for example many of the more primitive tools we have are known to not be human inventions
@@leonake4194 Even if homo-sapiens at the time didn't learn language from older human species, its likely the first language was spoken by something other than us. Who knows, maybe homo-erectus had some kind of primitive language long before our species descended from them. Its possible language is older than humanity itself (humanity as in our species of humans).
Ooh: I have food Ee: There's a predator Oooh: There's other people over there Ah: Can you hand me that? Aah: Take this Ting: Help me with this Tang: Be quiet Walla Walla: We're going to fight Bing: Stay low Bang: Stay here
I should just pull a Khmer and call it "Origin", "World" or "Human". But I do like the sound of "Proto" Rather than "Proto-World", "Proto-Humans", or "Proto-Sapiens". Proto... Just sounds interesting.
I once was out for a walk in the woodlands and thought, "What if I lived before there was any culture at all? How would I interpret things?" After a good while trying, I managed to clear my mind completely and view things as if I were the first person ever to experience them. It is incredibly difficult to stay in that state of mind, your brain automatically wants to throw a bunch whatever culture you've absorbed all over every thought you have. I had to recentre myself a few times but had some interesting thoughts and even came up with a word for water, "!na", almost like a sort of suckling noise, which is where it came from because I was thirsty at the time. So I wonder if the first words evolved in a similar way to this, more like sounds associated with an action, creature or thing?
Imitating natural noises to communicate the idea of what it sounds like seems a natural starting point. Like how the Egyptian word for cat is essentially a meow
Some family terms like "Ma" and "Pa" for mother and father seem to be common in completely unrelated languages. Baby babbling could be the closest thing to "proto-world".
You are close my friend .... and hingarian is the answer .... a baby says double somthing to prove that he knows what it is .... like papa, mama and first only oooo , aaaa .....just sounds , but when he start know things adds other letters .... watch Kiss Dénes .... hungarian is the mother language
I've always been of the mind that the ability to use language proficiently is the combination of several independent characteristics that evolved bit by bit into how we communicate today, and that other animals have pieces of what we have, but not the totality and complexity. Heck some kinds of communication, like symbolism, might be very ancient indeed if other animals have the capacity to understand symbols. Some very simple parts of language might be incredibly basic to multicellular life in general, like maybe symbolism is just advanced pattern recognition.
Feels weird to reply to a 5 year old comment, but hey! Yeah, what seems BY FAR most likely to me is that human communication became more complex as our brains did the same, and that the first major form was body language, as that seems to be the most fundamental way humans communicate even today, and what we have managed to get dogs to instinctively understand. Then from there it would make sense that basic body language gave rise to simple signs, and i would hazard that proper vocal language might have kicked off around that point.
I feel like proto-world must have used all or some basic plosives. For example, some of the first sounds human babies do are "papa, tata, kaka" and stuff like that, and besides, the polynesian culture is one of the most ancient, originally from prehistoric Asia, and after going around conquering islands, because of the ocean, their language family rarely came into contact with other language families, so, in my opinion, if proto-world is a thing, then it is likely that polynesian languages would be the thing most resembling it, and polynesian languages have some very simple sounds, so my guess would be that proto-world phonetical inventory might have been similar, like say, only unvoiced plosives and a set of two (or at most three) nasal consonants, and a simple set of consonants as well, like "A, I, U" and maybe "E and O"
Also, Austronesian languages have that language feature where they repeat syllables? I think it is called reduplication. For example, araw means day, araw-araw means everyday. It kinda reminds me of toddlers' language before they learn to speak a language. Those double syllables like papa, dada, mama. Is this just a coincidence?
Actually tongue evolved from tungōn - proto Germanic. Does any German know why tongue was called tungōn, does that have any meaning or is it just a random word. Surprisingly tungōn தொங்கு(tongu) means to hang in Tamizh, like the tongue hangs from the mouth.
@@craftah dolphins can communicate complex ideas to each other. There’s a lot of researchers who think they might actually use language, we just don’t have enough data yet to prove if they do or not.
Nice video! Since there are already videos about the _Proto-Indo-European language_, I'd like to see a video series about the *Proto-Uralic language* and its descendants.
Hente Hoo I'd personally love to learn about the differences between Finnish and the surrounding Uralic people's since I can't seem to find many resources on it.
humans did first communicate by singing. this is why songs can make you feel a certain way even if you don't understand the lyrics. you can tell if a song is sad, cheerful, aggressive, etc. there was a documentary that i watched many years ago that talked about this. i forgot the name but it was about music from a neurological standpoint.
I've heard chimps give each other unique names in the wild. I think it makes sense that it would start there and combine with gestures and grunts until words like "here" and "no" and "give" were invented out of necessity, possibly by different individuals, or maybe by one particularly intelligent individual who ate a bunch of psychedelic mushrooms.
I like that idea that language could have come out of nursery rhyme types of songs. It’s not unheard of something having a different function before it becomes used for something more complex and it’s a fascinating idea.
I like the idea that language came from when we first descended from the trees and started roaming the plains of Africa, where we started experimenting with new kinds of food, one being the hallucinogenic mushroom that grows readily in animal dung (psilocybe cubensis). The state of synesthesia that resulted was what was necessary to make the neural connection between noises made with the mouth and pictures in the imagination. We may have discovered even greater forms of mental technology had the plains not dried out.
The Portuguese word for night noite does actually make the /tʃ/ sound. It may be an exception in the development of Portuguese but words ending in -te make that sound. Otherwise a great video glad to see you back.
"Te" is pronounced as a "ch" in *most Brazilian dialects* (it didn't medieval (and also doesn't in European Portuguese and many Brazilian dialects), the language modern Portuguese's orthography is based in). It it pronounced like a "ch" in these dialects because of a (somewhat recent) palatalization process (a type of sound shift in languages).
1:36: As a reconstructed Latin speaker, in all these examples, I can conclude that originally it was pronounced as a "t" ES PO LA Noche. Noite. Noctibus. Ocho. Oito. Octo. Muchos/Muchas. Muitos/Muitas. Multi/Multae
It is very likely that languages evolved seperately and independently of each other. Side note:Some linguists think that some very basic words in Proto-Austronesian,match those of Proto-Indo-European,suggesting a contact between the two or the contact of the two;with a third party.Who knows?
"Some linguists think that some very basic words in Proto-Austronesian,match those of Proto-Indo-European" Got a quote or a reference on that? I'm curious now.
+Rodrigo de Alencar books.google.com.ph/books?id=afOjDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15&dq=Tagalog+D+to+R+rule&source=bl&ots=y4w9ROaYS1&sig=WAtOgy1JHpw7rCfskhVZJho4B2s&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjqhdCap4HOAhVBnpQKHbG1BP44FBDoAQgeMAE#v=onepage&q=Tagalog%20D%20to%20R%20rule&f=false Page 16 of it. Granted,Tagalog borrowed some words from Sanskrit,an Indo-European language.
While the concept of "Linguistic Genetics" is both fascinating and very useful, the use of the word "genetics" makes it confusing, especially in the context of describing human biological evolution and how it impacted the evolution of language. I think linguists would benefit from taking a cue from sociology, and how they handled the concept of sociological evolution through the use of "memes" instead of "genes" and "memetics" instead of "genetics". I think "Linguetics" has a nice ring to it!
Edoboss101 I definitely think most proto languages are related to others. Indo European and Uralic. Basque and Dene-Caucasian, etc. I highly doubt everything was isolate until 6000 years ago, and I highly doubt the related languages to proto languages were totally replaced, because both are less likely
Personally I think the most likely possibility is that language first evolved with a common ancestor we had with neanderthals (who i believe we're pretty sure spoke?) and since Dolphins have names, I think it makes sense that the first language was probably just names and the vocalizations that meant certain things, like "danger". It makes sense to me that after naming ourselves it was easier to name other things, then verbs probably happened after that, then adjectives. Just my thoughts though.
I once read a very interesting, and in my opinion convincing description of how some humans might have established words for things. The idea was as follows: Animals make certain noises for when they are attacked by a predator and so on, and obviously early humans have done the same. Now imagine a fireplace with some people around. One of them thinks he is seeing a tiger. He is scared and warns the others about it using whatever noise or gesture nature dictates him. They all run away, but for some reason or other, the one giving the warning falls down and can't get away. He is scared, but suddenly he realizes that there is no tiger. He was fooled by his eyes. But then he realizes that all the other people are gone and he can take all the food for himself. Obviously, next time when he is sitting around the fire with the others again, he remembers what happened and that the results were good for him. So this time, he uses the "there's a tiger!"-cry again to scare the others away so he can eat the food. This is the first step towards a real language: using the cry/gesture/whatever not because nature dictates it, but intentionally and to reach an aim. Of course the trick works and so he uses it again and again until sooner or later the other people realize they have been tricked. Next time around the fire and the first one tries his trick again, but nobody reacts. So his "predator noise" is useless to him. He tries some more times, but by then they know the truth, so he stops using it. Some weeks or months pass by. Then one day when they were out hunting, the first one sees an actual, real tiger in the distance. He knows, he has to warn the others, but does not know, how. But he is a smart human and remembers what he had done some while ago. He hopes that the others will remember, too. So he goes to the others and makes the noise. At first they are confused, because there is no fireplace and so no food to get for the first one. So they don't know why he should make the noise to warn them of a predator. But then the first one points out the tiger and the others see it, too and react properly. Only then the second step to a language is made: noises meaning the same thing in different contexts. The original was longer and I am not sure whether I retold everything correctly, but it gives you an idea on how spontaneous noises slowly and over time became words.
The beginning of language was lying. That actually... makes sense. Because telling a lie introduces a concept that is unique to humans: displacement. Talking about things that aren't actually happening.
guys every language was has evoloved from latin except for sand script which was evolved from tamil. you can prove it because some words have the same letters.
rzeka holy mother of Baby Jesus, no! Chinese, Japanese, Cyrillic (Russian), Hewbrew, Greek all use fundamentally different letters. And I don't know about Africa and there's probably a shitton of interesting languages
I have a guess for one phoneme if Proto-World existed: The mid-central vowel. It's unrounded and pronounced with your tongue in it's natural position, or where it is when you aren't moving it. So it only requires opening your mouth and vocalizing.
I am under the idea that the first language was some form of number system to organize communication more efficiently. Numbers could answer most simple issues when faced with survival. How many animals. How much food. How many trees. You get the point.
There's actually a lot of research going into linguistics and how to construct language being done on crows and ravens. These birds are *incredibly smart*; they're able to use tools, solve puzzles, communicate to other birds about things those other birds didn't directly experience (there's a facial-recognition experiment done with President masks and feeding regiments). Research on crows and other animals show that they use these skills and other behavioral actions that indicate animals can have a proto-language, even if it doesn't involve syntax or recognizable morphology. Chimps and Bonobos currently observed display these tendencies as well, through vocalizations and body language combinations that are independent from human involvement, but convey contextualized meaning to one another, and even behavioral variations among regionalized groups.
I saw this documentary searching for what could be our first ancestors by looking at genetics, and the conclusion was that it was possible we could have come from some people that came from those people in Africa with the clicking language.
I love the way u use easy to understand symbology like colors and shapes to demonstrate complex topics! It’s a great learning tool and the way you use it seems pretty unique!
The Japanese and Polish words for "old wo/man"/"grandfather/mother" are really weirdly similar. In Japanese they're "baba" and "jiji" (thus "obaachan" and "ojisan"), and in Polish, "baba" and "dziadzia", pronounced "jaja" (cf. Russian "babushka"). Whether this means anything is debatable, but it's pretty weird given Polish and Japanese have no common ancestor language that we know of.
Yes! I also noticed that japanese has similar adjective endings in い (like with russians й). The similarities are very subtle but it's like slavic languages and japanese had similar ancestor, even tho it all could be just coincidences.
Tens of thousands of years ago human tribes were fairly isolated from one and other. Each tribe probably had it's own culture and its own language. I don't believe there was ever a time when language was invented. It would just be too much of a jump for grunts and moans to suddenly turn into grammar. Rather, I think grammar itself evolved. The arrangements of grunts and moans became more structured over time with the exact sound of each grunt and moan varying from tribe to tribe. However, I actually do think there probably was a single language that most languages today across the world all descend from. The reason I think this is because the invention of agriculture seemed to be the point that transformed human life away from hunting and gathering and into something more like the way we live today. Agriculture seems to have been invented in one region and then spread across the world rather than being independently invented multiple times. Due to this, I think there would have been a first king. Essentially, whatever tribe it was that discovered the agricultural method would not only have had an advantage over other tribes but would be the first people to really have power over others. Farming produces a surplus and this would have allowed the leader of this tribe to pay members of other tribes in food to do work and to protect their land, etc. Whoever this tribe was, their language was probably learned by members of other tribes seeking work. I genuinely think it's likely that the language spoken by the oldest known civilization will be close to the initial language that languages today all descend form. The oldest known civilization would have had a language descended from the first civilization. The first civilization required agriculture to emerge, therefore the language of the first civilization was probably the language of the tribe that invented agriculture. The oldest known civilization is Mesopotamia. So there might be some truth to the whole tower of Babel thing. Not that I think the myth is actually true, simply that there may have been a language in Babylon that others wanted to learn and that promoted mythology around Babylon and language. While I'm on the topic of myths. I also wouldn't be surprised if the story of the garden of eden was initially a mythology around the first agricultural lands and that myth eventually made its way into the bible. But that's a whole other can of worms.
Funny how the graphic at the 6:30 mark basically points to the Atlantis and Plato Seamounts which would have been above sea level during the last glacial maximum If there was really a 'nostratic' proto-language that's ancestral to all modern languages it was probably spoken in the Middle East
I just found this channel from this episode on my feed. I really really like this stuff!! I marathoned every video on the channel already. great work xidnaf!
They have made 3D models of chimpanzee vocal tracts and shown that they can produce practically all the same sounds as us. They just lack the mental capacity. So it's likely that mental capacity for language was a later evolved trait.
I'd heard about this. You might be right, but what you're talking about was from one very recent study, and even the results of it seem to still be up for some interpretation, At the very least they seem to lack the necessary detailed motor control in their mouthes, which I figured I'd lump in with "physical ability." As opposed to, for instance, parrots, which can be trained to mimic human sounds relatively easily.
Xidnaf mental abilities also are physical abilities. it gets really confusing if you try to find out what exactly they lack.
+Xindaf you are back!
+Xindaf I'd love to believe that there did exist a common language for all the world's languages :P and I though linguists called it BOREAN
I imagine the process could have been like this: Simple sounds for emotional expression -> pre-humans able to use greater number of sounds can express greater number of things, increasing with time -> intelligence increasing results in development of basic grammar -> use of language makes intelligence itself more useful by transmitting new technology and concepts intergenerationally -> increasing intelligence leads to further complexity of grammer. Basically at some point there was a feedback loop where language and intelligence both complimented and accelerated the growth of the other.
There's an ancient Greek legend about a king in Greece and a king in Phrygia arguing about whose language was the first. Back and forth they argued. Then the Phrygian king proposed an experiment of taking two newborn twins and isolating them in the forest with a mute shepherd, to see what language they would speak first. The babies grew, and the mute shepherd tended his sheep and fed the babies sheep milk. Day after day the kings observed the babies from a window, but they didn't say anything, until one day, one baby made a noise...
"Baaaaaaaaaa!"
"Hey, that's not a Greek word!"
"It's not a Phrygian word either. There must be a language older than yours or mine..."
:-)
Dracopol wow is this an actual story?
It's a legend, but it's actually a variant of a legend about an Egyptian pharaoh making such an experiment with babies, and they cry out, "Bekos!" which is the Phrygian word for bread. Just a legend.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psamtik_I#Discovering_the_origin_of_language
I am always amazed by the ancient Greek understanding of the universe, even though they had no way to really discover anything. They just thought it was somewhat obvious, which is fascinating. The legend you explain here clearly understands divergent change over time (multilinear evolution) in terms of language, but they just assume it is obvious that this happens. It seems to suggest the reason that the baby is saying "Baaaaaa!" is because the "language" of sheep came before the language of humans, in the way that sheep are more simple, and complexity builds over time. Obviously, we know now that there is no such hierarchy of nature as Aristotle argued, where humans are the pinnacle of creation, but given what they knew then, it's ridiculously accurate.
The pre-Socratic philosopher known as Anaximander of Miletus believed that humans had to have come from other animals (in fact, he thought we came from fish, because human embryos look like fish), because our period of nurture is too long compared to other animals, and the first humans would have died if humans had always been humans. He thought nurturing had to have progressively become longer over time. It just blows my mind that someone in 600 B.C.E. came up with this, even despite the flaws with it. He thought that the first humans were just overdeveloped fish babies that weren't hatched at the usual time and had to free themselves from the parent fish as fully grown adults. Still a better explanation than creationism though.
@@shadow_of_thoth "they had no way of discovering anything"
Literally any person plucked from that society would be smarter than YOU.
@@norgepalm7315 Would you like to explain to everyone how the ancient Greeks would have gone about discovering quantum mechanics or population genetics, you dimwit?
Also, you misquoted me. I did not say, "they had no way of discovering anything." I said, "they had no way to really discover anything." You'd think someone on a linguistics video would have enough cognitive function to pick up on subtle connotations without taking things too literally.
Dolphins can communicate extremely well. They can comprehend abstract thoughts such as "red ball" or "blue ball" without seeing a ball at all. I've heard that they even develope certain languages within their pods.
@UTubeFekUrself and they’re a darn good swimmers
@@alqaadi9858 And they are good at being cute....and evil
I was waiting for that
@@egg9605just like us humans! just goes to show how consciousness and intelligence can give life forms the ability to make morally good and bad choices.
They probably won’t get nearly as complex of a language as us considering how barbaric they are compared to us with the largest being known to rip shark livers out and swim away
There's 3 words that we know for a fact prove the proto-world language:
Ouch
Yeouch
Gneurshk
What the heck is “gneursk”?
i understood that reference
That’s a human person
Ma was definitely a word
@@allisond.46 You don't get the reference...
Welcome back! Such a good topic, especially when you one-up me and go even FURTHER back in time. ;)
I think you have at least a half-dozen more gems buried in here. One interesting thought, as those charlatan long-rangers use the term, the reconstructed Proto-World would be our latest common ancestor, splitting "language origins" into two separate issues: "origin of [modern] languages" and "the origin of language". To borrow a Xidnafism, "MADNESS!"
:) Thanks! I thought about covering Greenberg and the rest, but figured that there was enough other stuff to talk about I could just link to your video and call it a day :P
Hey NativLang, Xidnaf! You guys should do a collaboration video sometime! Two of my favorite linguists on TH-cam working together is just a mental euphoria.
NativLang I'm your sub :)
We need a crossover
@ㄉㄎㄉ • ꨆꨟꨮꩆ ꨣꨰꨕ thats a natural human thing, all babys will eventually say something like mama and papa for their mom and dads, its less of all languages and more of all humans
Most animals were already able to convey emotional meaning through vocalization, if not complex semantic meaning. The most interesting idea to me is that the proto-human language is music. Music communicates emotions much too effectively to be a purposeless spandrel.
Limey Lassen yeah, I really liked the idea that language evolved from music too.
you’d be interested in the book ‘this is your brain on music,’ it goes into how music and language are really intimately connected!!
I once picked up from a linguistics student in some comment section that language may have evolved from boredom so we simply started telling each other stories, but they couldnt point me to any resources
@@jumefoc most of this shits so ancient its just using your imagination anyway
@@jumefoc In my native language, Tamil, music is considered part of the language. Tamil (lit. Self expression) is divided into three parts, Iyal (Prose/Speech), Isai (Music) and Aattam (Drama/Sign language).
While, the word Tamil in modern contexts usually refer to Iyalttamil (written/spoken self expression), other forms of self expression aren't considered inferior or anything.
But it must be said, prose and speech is more efficient and precise though in expressing oneself.
Oh my God, gather round the children, a monumental event! Xidnaf actually released a video
Willimations :V
Xidnaf will "xidnaf" your mind. It's a xidnaffing.
Dracopol what does xidnaf mean
lol this comment aged poorly
The guy is busy
Having increased intelligence seems to promote a natural desire to communicate things in greater detail. My best guess is that language evolved somewhat in tandem with our general intelligence. Tribes with both increased intelligence and the ability to articulate would have a much easier time organizing hunts, gatherings, alliances, communicating that theres danger nearby etc etc whereas those with weaker communication abilities would struggle far more at doing any of those things. My best guess is that language originated with just codes, like a short low grunt was understood by locals as someone saying "rock" and then eventually a short low grunt followed by a slightly higher pitched short grunt would mean "sharp rock" as they developed the intelligence to specify which rock they were referring to.
rock 🪨
I know the word "mama" is at lest the same in English, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, and Quechua. "Baba/papa" is a least the same in English, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Malay, and Zulu. For this reason I believe in a limited Proto-world language.
What do you all think?
Džudžan yea
@Džudžan Worked in kindergarten + read a lot about children's development...can confirm. It's the easiest simplest sounds to pronounce.
TBH I do wonder if there's a language in which its the other way around lol
Nope. M and P sounds are easier for children to articulate (the parts of the mouth that make those sounds develop first). And because of the positive reinforcement they get, they say it more and more. Various languages have independently developed those words with same or similar meaning.
BTW that is why there is often a simple word for older sibling but not for younger sibling (they don't exist at the time of the development of child). In my language, older brother = dada, older sister = didi, younger brother = Bhai (complicated) and younger sister = baini.
Amiya Vatsa oh cool! Thank you!
Arabic too
The coolest thing is that we possibly do know two words of Proto-World. Those being the words for mother and father, with them being some variation of 'mama' and 'papa', because those words are similar all throughout the world and are probably based on the universal way of babies babbling nonsense, which parents mistakenly believe to be the baby talking to them, and then reinforce it.
Not always for example in Fijian the word for mother is 'tina', in Kurdish (Sorani) it is 'daik'
With noche/noite and ocho/oito, you so nearly showed the right thing. It's actually that Spanish corresponds to Portuguese in those cases which in turn derive from earlier Latin . By the time western vulgar Latin has diverged, this has become (cf. French nuit, huit) and then, in Spanish, became when it follows a vowel.
Mucho/muito seems to be a bit different because they derive from Latin multus with a not a and the development parallel to is specific to Western Iberian (Spanish, Portuguese, Galician, Extremaduran, Leonese etc.). French and Catalan both preserve the Latin . In both old spanish and old portuguese, a has appeared (hence the parallel development) but the reason for this is unclear; an equivalent process does not take place in the phonologically identical tumultus. It's also worth noting that Extremaduran is odd here in that it actually has munchu instead of the expected *muichu
6:30 R.I.P. United Kingdom and Iceland lol
Same to the entire caribbean.
However there is a New Zealand, Usually the first to be left out.
It was weird seeing New Zealand but not other, smaller islands.
logosloki lol, like Tassie?
Greenland too
X-xidnaf? *raises from wheelchair, takes oxygen mask off* I-is it really you?
Wait, is this referencing Saw Gerarra?
My theory is that when humans first started talking, no one really spoke an entire language, everyone only spoke several words, however the words used heavily differed from group to group and region to region, but as time went on though people from one group met people from other groups and discovered the words each other were using, later many series of words got unified and became bigger and bigger
Don't worry. We'll know for sure when time travel becomes available to linguists.
Honestly they should be the first to get access
Time traveling linguists:*peaking out of bush at entrance of cave*
Caveman 1: Wassup, can a loc come up in your cave?
Caveman 2: Man fuck you, I'll see you at food hunt.
Caveman 1: Ah, neanderthal don't hate me cause I'm beautiful unga bunga
Maybe if you got rid of that yee yee ass hair cut you get some bitches on your dick.
Oh, better yet, Maybe Tanisha'll call your dog-ass if she ever stop fucking with that trepanning surgeon or shaman she fucking with,
Oooggaaaa
Caveman 2: Booga?!
_'when'_ time travel becomes available...?? the _'first'_ to get access...??
what do we want? --- TIME TRAVEL!
when do we want it? --- IT DOESN'T MATTER!
And then some Hindu nationalist will teach the first ever cavemen Sanskrit and be able to claim that Sanskrit was the mother language
@@jfrfilms6697 Man, that one sure came out of left field.
5:05
according to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a Hee should be able to fly
Xidnaf's video, but every time he says "language" he speaks faster.
Zaqq lmao
Now THERE'S a good meme
BlueUmbrella!
tiz you
Astronomy487 Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The Hee, of course, flies anyway, because Hees don't care what humans think it's impossible.
Such a great video! Subscribed!
As a Hungarian I would love to express my appreciation for consistently leaving a tiny blank hole for us in the middle of Europe! It means a lot!
He's back.... after so long... praise 2017...
The first good emblem of 2017.
Thankfully 2016 didn't get him! :D
*omen, not emblem
lol
@@heathdionne7717 lol
I think it did exist cause
1: humans have a part of our brain dedicated to launguage
2: human anatomy has existed exactly like this for 150k years-ish
3: we only started migrating out of where we were all started 50k-ish years ago,
4:conclusion, we had 100k-ish years to develop launguage before splitting
apart, and I’d say we could do it cause those humans had a launguage part of thier brain and it existing at all is clear evedencw of this
(I made this theory up on my own, sorry if I got something wrong but I do know everything about what I said before 4 was right)
That's logical. What do you think of the problem that even say 150k years ago all the little groups of the first humans would have been close, but still distinct geographically?
The proto language still had to spread through this small initial group for it to be ubiquitous.
So did one group develop more of a language than others and it simply slowly and without resistance spread within the still relatively small lands of humans by the various methods it could have? Or was there multiple unique seedling languages in competition even then and one may have finally win out? Language might be a sort of freak accident, a step that happen very rarely/uniquely in evolution. But then again the second option, which is more in the vein of convergent evolution, makes sense for language. Since language feels like a very natural adaptation that would happen multiple times.
So the question comes down to, is language so natural that it would evolve individually multiple times in a short timeframe, or is too complicated to quickly initially evolve multiple times.
@@pseudonymousbeing987 Here's a thought, what if one or two groups kind of started making a quasi-language, with "words" for water, or lion, and what have you. Then bits and pieces of it leaked out into nearby groups, who each expanded on those bits to make their own quasi-languages in accordance with their needs, which then had bits spread to even more groups, and so on until what you had was a a ton of quasi-languages spread out around many groups. At that point, as groups start slowly combining into distinct societies, their language too would combine into distinct full languages. Maybe just the act of becoming a complex society necessitates that your barebones protolanguages evolve into something much more fleshed out, and so they do.
That neurologic argument actually favors the posibility that humanity did not inventend language at all bu rather learned it from someone else (was sort of tamed). Dogs have a specific part of their brains as well dedicated to human language that they evolved from continuated interaction with our species. So it would make some sense that we actually learned the first language or languages from an older hominid. Kinda of like ancient aliens but without the alien part nor the conspiracy. This would neither be a first as for example many of the more primitive tools we have are known to not be human inventions
@@leonake4194 Even if homo-sapiens at the time didn't learn language from older human species, its likely the first language was spoken by something other than us. Who knows, maybe homo-erectus had some kind of primitive language long before our species descended from them. Its possible language is older than humanity itself (humanity as in our species of humans).
Ooh: I have food
Ee: There's a predator
Oooh: There's other people over there
Ah: Can you hand me that?
Aah: Take this
Ting: Help me with this
Tang: Be quiet
Walla Walla: We're going to fight
Bing: Stay low
Bang: Stay here
subtle reference skills 100
If there was one original language, what would you name it?
Humanian/Humanish/Humanese
I should just pull a Khmer and call it "Origin", "World" or "Human". But I do like the sound of "Proto" Rather than "Proto-World", "Proto-Humans", or "Proto-Sapiens". Proto... Just sounds interesting.
Whatever they called themselves
I'd call it 'Sapien'
We could use the reconstructed word for proto-indo-european, *Hoi(H)nos, meaning one. One language to form them all.
I love how this video was more about the things we don't know, than the things we do. Really got me thinking, thanks!
I once was out for a walk in the woodlands and thought, "What if I lived before there was any culture at all? How would I interpret things?" After a good while trying, I managed to clear my mind completely and view things as if I were the first person ever to experience them. It is incredibly difficult to stay in that state of mind, your brain automatically wants to throw a bunch whatever culture you've absorbed all over every thought you have. I had to recentre myself a few times but had some interesting thoughts and even came up with a word for water, "!na", almost like a sort of suckling noise, which is where it came from because I was thirsty at the time. So I wonder if the first words evolved in a similar way to this, more like sounds associated with an action, creature or thing?
in all likelihood thinking and speaking have so- co evolved as to be inseparable.
One of the oldest feminine goddesses, Inana is associated with water
Our species didn't exist before language. Language evolved with us, not after
Imitating natural noises to communicate the idea of what it sounds like seems a natural starting point. Like how the Egyptian word for cat is essentially a meow
This is some psycho babble bullshit.
Some family terms like "Ma" and "Pa" for mother and father seem to be common in completely unrelated languages. Baby babbling could be the closest thing to "proto-world".
You are close my friend .... and hingarian is the answer .... a baby says double somthing to prove that he knows what it is .... like papa, mama and first only oooo , aaaa .....just sounds , but when he start know things adds other letters .... watch Kiss Dénes .... hungarian is the mother language
I've always been of the mind that the ability to use language proficiently is the combination of several independent characteristics that evolved bit by bit into how we communicate today, and that other animals have pieces of what we have, but not the totality and complexity. Heck some kinds of communication, like symbolism, might be very ancient indeed if other animals have the capacity to understand symbols. Some very simple parts of language might be incredibly basic to multicellular life in general, like maybe symbolism is just advanced pattern recognition.
Feels weird to reply to a 5 year old comment, but hey!
Yeah, what seems BY FAR most likely to me is that human communication became more complex as our brains did the same, and that the first major form was body language, as that seems to be the most fundamental way humans communicate even today, and what we have managed to get dogs to instinctively understand.
Then from there it would make sense that basic body language gave rise to simple signs, and i would hazard that proper vocal language might have kicked off around that point.
Yay your back
What about his back?
+James Pratze only on this channel are grammar nazis, such as yourself, welcome!
ಠ
Riley Smith you're. Sorry, not sorry.
Lorn sorry, English Is my second languege
I feel like proto-world must have used all or some basic plosives. For example, some of the first sounds human babies do are "papa, tata, kaka" and stuff like that, and besides, the polynesian culture is one of the most ancient, originally from prehistoric Asia, and after going around conquering islands, because of the ocean, their language family rarely came into contact with other language families, so, in my opinion, if proto-world is a thing, then it is likely that polynesian languages would be the thing most resembling it, and polynesian languages have some very simple sounds, so my guess would be that proto-world phonetical inventory might have been similar, like say, only unvoiced plosives and a set of two (or at most three) nasal consonants, and a simple set of consonants as well, like "A, I, U" and maybe "E and O"
Peps Deps that was all one sentence
Wow 😯
@@grace-hm9ij sorry I am instense and don't know when to stop
Also, Austronesian languages have that language feature where they repeat syllables? I think it is called reduplication. For example, araw means day, araw-araw means everyday. It kinda reminds me of toddlers' language before they learn to speak a language. Those double syllables like papa, dada, mama. Is this just a coincidence?
That's written as two sentences, but when spoken it would be more.
when you like a channel so much so you skip all your other subscriptions to watch his first video in months.
great new video!
DAMMIT you wrote "Tounge" and not tongue, Kidnap
You're gonna do _what_ to him now?
columbus8myhw kidnap is kinda like xidnaf so he is making fun of him
jgsregrate or auto correct.
try tongue, but hole
Actually tongue evolved from tungōn - proto Germanic. Does any German know why tongue was called tungōn, does that have any meaning or is it just a random word.
Surprisingly tungōn தொங்கு(tongu) means to hang in Tamizh, like the tongue hangs from the mouth.
2:49 dolphins can talk to each other with clicks and whistles
But people speak differently. Cats also communicate with their sounds
@@craftah dolphins can communicate complex ideas to each other. There’s a lot of researchers who think they might actually use language, we just don’t have enough data yet to prove if they do or not.
@@danielmase6722 thats interesting
Xhosa
They don’t use grammar.
Britain and Ireland don't appreciate being left off the globe xidnaf :(
woops
Nice video! Since there are already videos about the _Proto-Indo-European language_, I'd like to see a video series about the *Proto-Uralic language* and its descendants.
Hente Hoo And afro-asiatic, hardly gets any love
Hente Hoo I'd personally love to learn about the differences between Finnish and the surrounding Uralic people's since I can't seem to find many resources on it.
Torille.
Hente Hoo or Proto American languages
Hente Hoo look up youtube Native Lang
Dude you're so good at making these videos. Everything you say gets your point across clearly and concisely.
humans did first communicate by singing. this is why songs can make you feel a certain way even if you don't understand the lyrics. you can tell if a song is sad, cheerful, aggressive, etc. there was a documentary that i watched many years ago that talked about this. i forgot the name but it was about music from a neurological standpoint.
You cannot be so sure, your theory is simply one of many suggestions
LOL pseudo science through the roof
You're using irrelevant information to back up your idea.
I've heard chimps give each other unique names in the wild. I think it makes sense that it would start there and combine with gestures and grunts until words like "here" and "no" and "give" were invented out of necessity, possibly by different individuals, or maybe by one particularly intelligent individual who ate a bunch of psychedelic mushrooms.
😂 And then we started getting good at hunting by giving specific directions.
Question: What is the thing on "your" head? Is it a bowlcut? A hat? A helmet? I NEED TO KNOW!
DerpNerd most likely a bowl used as a helmet.
He's a soldier from WW1
What!?!? Xidnaf is back? Thanks for uploading, I had just found out about Proto World a couple days ago, and you posted this...
What was up with the 8 month hiatus
Tim Nur He's been focussing on college. And he moved. It's on his "super secret" channel. But shhh, don't tell anyone.
Danny Boy didnt he drop out?
RedstonerProductions He got kicked out.
***** yea thats whaat i meant
college?
Ah yes, Proto-World. Also known as Proto-Human and Proto-Sapiens, the language that I seek to reconstruct.
I like that idea that language could have come out of nursery rhyme types of songs. It’s not unheard of something having a different function before it becomes used for something more complex and it’s a fascinating idea.
YES XIDNAF RETURNS
I was just telling my dad about this channel yesterday but how it's been dead for a year. good timing.
Never clicked so fast in my life. It's been too long, Xidnaf. Welcome back.
1:07 found it touching that he left an empty spot in the basque region of Spain.
I literally had "Fruits of her Labour" open in another tab when I watched this video. Good taste in music Xidnaf.
I like the idea that language came from when we first descended from the trees and started roaming the plains of Africa, where we started experimenting with new kinds of food, one being the hallucinogenic mushroom that grows readily in animal dung (psilocybe cubensis). The state of synesthesia that resulted was what was necessary to make the neural connection between noises made with the mouth and pictures in the imagination. We may have discovered even greater forms of mental technology had the plains not dried out.
The fruit of knowledge was a mushroom :0
The Portuguese word for night noite does actually make the /tʃ/ sound. It may be an exception in the development of Portuguese but words ending in -te make that sound. Otherwise a great video glad to see you back.
"Te" is pronounced as a "ch" in *most Brazilian dialects* (it didn't medieval (and also doesn't in European Portuguese and many Brazilian dialects), the language modern Portuguese's orthography is based in). It it pronounced like a "ch" in these dialects because of a (somewhat recent) palatalization process (a type of sound shift in languages).
It depends on the region
8 long months the world had to survive without Xidnaf. and here he is again!
I'm so happyyyy you're back!!!
1:36: As a reconstructed Latin speaker, in all these examples, I can conclude that originally it was pronounced as a "t"
ES PO LA
Noche. Noite. Noctibus.
Ocho. Oito. Octo.
Muchos/Muchas. Muitos/Muitas. Multi/Multae
YOU'RE BACK WE'VE ALL DEARLY MISSED YOU
You are back!This video seems to have the best drawings.
It is very likely that languages evolved seperately and independently of each other.
Side note:Some linguists think that some very basic words in Proto-Austronesian,match those of Proto-Indo-European,suggesting a contact between the two or the contact of the two;with a third party.Who knows?
"Some linguists think that some very basic words in Proto-Austronesian,match those of Proto-Indo-European"
Got a quote or a reference on that? I'm curious now.
+Rodrigo de Alencar Think ''fir''e(a''poy'').Wat''er(tub''ig).
I will give you the source later.I'm about to go to school.
+Rodrigo de Alencar books.google.com.ph/books?id=afOjDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15&dq=Tagalog+D+to+R+rule&source=bl&ots=y4w9ROaYS1&sig=WAtOgy1JHpw7rCfskhVZJho4B2s&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjqhdCap4HOAhVBnpQKHbG1BP44FBDoAQgeMAE#v=onepage&q=Tagalog%20D%20to%20R%20rule&f=false
Page 16 of it.
Granted,Tagalog borrowed some words from Sanskrit,an Indo-European language.
Daniell Bondad Why do you think so? How could a language be just made up on the spot?
While the concept of "Linguistic Genetics" is both fascinating and very useful, the use of the word "genetics" makes it confusing, especially in the context of describing human biological evolution and how it impacted the evolution of language. I think linguists would benefit from taking a cue from sociology, and how they handled the concept of sociological evolution through the use of "memes" instead of "genes" and "memetics" instead of "genetics". I think "Linguetics" has a nice ring to it!
I have a theory. Perhaps music was the earliest form of communication, and then language kind of just evolved from that.
This is one is one of my favorite channels. I truly appreciate your videos.
New video notification.
At work.
Don't care!
Yes! Xidnaf is back; this is exactly what I need after the crap week I've had.
Dude. Finally.
Nice video tough, I've been wondering too whether there was a proto-language of proto-languages
Edoboss101 I definitely think most proto languages are related to others. Indo European and Uralic. Basque and Dene-Caucasian, etc. I highly doubt everything was isolate until 6000 years ago, and I highly doubt the related languages to proto languages were totally replaced, because both are less likely
scnr: yes, it was. it's called grunting. ;-)
Delighted to see you back after such a long time !!!
Personally I think the most likely possibility is that language first evolved with a common ancestor we had with neanderthals (who i believe we're pretty sure spoke?) and since Dolphins have names, I think it makes sense that the first language was probably just names and the vocalizations that meant certain things, like "danger". It makes sense to me that after naming ourselves it was easier to name other things, then verbs probably happened after that, then adjectives. Just my thoughts though.
I once read a very interesting, and in my opinion convincing description of how some humans might have established words for things. The idea was as follows:
Animals make certain noises for when they are attacked by a predator and so on, and obviously early humans have done the same. Now imagine a fireplace with some people around. One of them thinks he is seeing a tiger. He is scared and warns the others about it using whatever noise or gesture nature dictates him. They all run away, but for some reason or other, the one giving the warning falls down and can't get away. He is scared, but suddenly he realizes that there is no tiger. He was fooled by his eyes. But then he realizes that all the other people are gone and he can take all the food for himself. Obviously, next time when he is sitting around the fire with the others again, he remembers what happened and that the results were good for him. So this time, he uses the "there's a tiger!"-cry again to scare the others away so he can eat the food. This is the first step towards a real language: using the cry/gesture/whatever not because nature dictates it, but intentionally and to reach an aim.
Of course the trick works and so he uses it again and again until sooner or later the other people realize they have been tricked. Next time around the fire and the first one tries his trick again, but nobody reacts. So his "predator noise" is useless to him. He tries some more times, but by then they know the truth, so he stops using it. Some weeks or months pass by. Then one day when they were out hunting, the first one sees an actual, real tiger in the distance. He knows, he has to warn the others, but does not know, how. But he is a smart human and remembers what he had done some while ago. He hopes that the others will remember, too. So he goes to the others and makes the noise. At first they are confused, because there is no fireplace and so no food to get for the first one. So they don't know why he should make the noise to warn them of a predator. But then the first one points out the tiger and the others see it, too and react properly.
Only then the second step to a language is made: noises meaning the same thing in different contexts.
The original was longer and I am not sure whether I retold everything correctly, but it gives you an idea on how spontaneous noises slowly and over time became words.
The beginning of language was lying. That actually... makes sense. Because telling a lie introduces a concept that is unique to humans: displacement. Talking about things that aren't actually happening.
See you soon in 8 months! :D
Ne0dax please be wrong. If he disappears for that long again after only one video I will seriously die. 😨 😭 😂
guys every language was has evoloved from latin except for sand script which was evolved from tamil. you can prove it because some words have the same letters.
rzeka holy mother of Baby Jesus, no! Chinese, Japanese, Cyrillic (Russian), Hewbrew, Greek all use fundamentally different letters. And I don't know about Africa and there's probably a shitton of interesting languages
"sand script".... Did you happen to mean Sanskrit?
Yes, sanskrit came from a non-indo european indian language. yes.
***** no it's true I read it on wipikedia
I hope you're joking because you got so laughably wrong.
What about those monkeys that use different sounds to warn for different threats?
I have a guess for one phoneme if Proto-World existed: The mid-central vowel. It's unrounded and pronounced with your tongue in it's natural position, or where it is when you aren't moving it. So it only requires opening your mouth and vocalizing.
Holy Crap! A wild Xidnaf video appears!
lykury And it's such a rare encounter, as well! It's almost, like, rarer than a shiny at this point.
It's rarer than Pokérus.
It is like a shiny spinda with the same pattern
INDEED THIS YEAR IS MAGICAL!! XIDNAF UPLOADED A NEW VIDEO!!!
You're good because you're Danish
It's the magic of Xidnaf
6:50 "see you soon" hah nice joke
i love that i can have a completely random thought and ask google and instantly get a video that gives a sufficent answer to appease my curiosity
Impressed by the visualization in this video. You did a really good job explaining fairly complicated concepts using simple drawings! Really cool!
Why do you use MLP fan songs all the time?
Because Horse
honestly it's all i listen to
Xidnaf People say i have a pretty good music taste...
what was the 8 month hiatus for.
TheEnderknight it was more like a year
Uh doy, language evolved when some ape accidentally ate the wrong mushroom, everyone knows that.
HOLY SHIT XIDNAF
Using colors to illustrate the divergence of languages is a really cool visualization of the concept
YOU'RE BACK!
Jesus christ, xidnaf.
It's 8 months and you want to let us wait another 8 months for another video?
XIDNAF! My week just gets better and better.
Uploaded 45 seconds ago.
am sonic. fear me.
I am under the idea that the first language was some form of number system to organize communication more efficiently. Numbers could answer most simple issues when faced with survival. How many animals. How much food. How many trees. You get the point.
There's actually a lot of research going into linguistics and how to construct language being done on crows and ravens. These birds are *incredibly smart*; they're able to use tools, solve puzzles, communicate to other birds about things those other birds didn't directly experience (there's a facial-recognition experiment done with President masks and feeding regiments). Research on crows and other animals show that they use these skills and other behavioral actions that indicate animals can have a proto-language, even if it doesn't involve syntax or recognizable morphology. Chimps and Bonobos currently observed display these tendencies as well, through vocalizations and body language combinations that are independent from human involvement, but convey contextualized meaning to one another, and even behavioral variations among regionalized groups.
Wut I just discovered your channel today and subscribed, few hours later you upload first new video in 10 months. Am I secretly Jesus?
Hmm... somebody who goes by Adam keeps sending me spam and claims to be the Messiah... You're not him, are you? :-P
Thank you Adam, you've resurrected Xidnaf!
Adam who is juses
Do it again!
"Or maybe we used singing and nursery rhyme-like stuff to socialize with each other and language developed out of that."
What is this, Spore?
Do the turkic languages?
Great, you are back! :-) Looking forward to watch all your new videos;-)
I saw this documentary searching for what could be our first ancestors by looking at genetics, and the conclusion was that it was possible we could have come from some people that came from those people in Africa with the clicking language.
4:55 Hoo Hee
Hoo Ha Ha
Ting Tang Walla Walla Bing Bang
that's it. we just reconstructed proto-world. it was hiding inside the witch doctor the whole time.
You spelt Tongue as Tounge at 6:42.
Sorry to be that guy xD.
You spelled tongue wrong.
I love the way u use easy to understand symbology like colors and shapes to demonstrate complex topics! It’s a great learning tool and the way you use it seems pretty unique!
The Japanese and Polish words for "old wo/man"/"grandfather/mother" are really weirdly similar. In Japanese they're "baba" and "jiji" (thus "obaachan" and "ojisan"), and in Polish, "baba" and "dziadzia", pronounced "jaja" (cf. Russian "babushka").
Whether this means anything is debatable, but it's pretty weird given Polish and Japanese have no common ancestor language that we know of.
Yes! I also noticed that japanese has similar adjective endings in い (like with russians й). The similarities are very subtle but it's like slavic languages and japanese had similar ancestor, even tho it all could be just coincidences.
6:42 *tongue
Tens of thousands of years ago human tribes were fairly isolated from one and other. Each tribe probably had it's own culture and its own language. I don't believe there was ever a time when language was invented. It would just be too much of a jump for grunts and moans to suddenly turn into grammar. Rather, I think grammar itself evolved. The arrangements of grunts and moans became more structured over time with the exact sound of each grunt and moan varying from tribe to tribe.
However, I actually do think there probably was a single language that most languages today across the world all descend from. The reason I think this is because the invention of agriculture seemed to be the point that transformed human life away from hunting and gathering and into something more like the way we live today. Agriculture seems to have been invented in one region and then spread across the world rather than being independently invented multiple times. Due to this, I think there would have been a first king. Essentially, whatever tribe it was that discovered the agricultural method would not only have had an advantage over other tribes but would be the first people to really have power over others. Farming produces a surplus and this would have allowed the leader of this tribe to pay members of other tribes in food to do work and to protect their land, etc. Whoever this tribe was, their language was probably learned by members of other tribes seeking work.
I genuinely think it's likely that the language spoken by the oldest known civilization will be close to the initial language that languages today all descend form. The oldest known civilization would have had a language descended from the first civilization. The first civilization required agriculture to emerge, therefore the language of the first civilization was probably the language of the tribe that invented agriculture.
The oldest known civilization is Mesopotamia. So there might be some truth to the whole tower of Babel thing. Not that I think the myth is actually true, simply that there may have been a language in Babylon that others wanted to learn and that promoted mythology around Babylon and language. While I'm on the topic of myths. I also wouldn't be surprised if the story of the garden of eden was initially a mythology around the first agricultural lands and that myth eventually made its way into the bible. But that's a whole other can of worms.
My mother language is not English so I really appreciate if you could speak a bit slower, please!
Anyway, your video is great :3
Just use the subtitles.
You can also adjust the speed of the video to 75% of the original. I find this handy if you're having a hard time keeping up.
Wow so I just read every comment and wow, you are really eloquent and kind and take everyone seriously, you're just seriously an awesome person 😅
Funny how the graphic at the 6:30 mark basically points to the Atlantis and Plato Seamounts which would have been above sea level during the last glacial maximum
If there was really a 'nostratic' proto-language that's ancestral to all modern languages it was probably spoken in the Middle East
Read the Bible and you’ll find the answer.
I really enjoy these video's you've done. They have a stream-of-consciousness quality to them I like.
I sincerely really love tge little stick figure graphics. It gets the point across and it's easily definable.
I just found this channel from this episode on my feed. I really really like this stuff!! I marathoned every video on the channel already. great work xidnaf!
5:24 That sounds like the tribal stage on spore.