Unit 5: development of language

Introduction to linguistics

The development of language

It is a relatively recent phenomenon.

Writing

Writing which is based on some type of alphabetic script can only be traced back to inscriptions dated around 3.000 years ago.

Ancient precursors of language

Pictographic writing and idiographic writing

Ancient precursors of language (definition)

Pictograms and ideograms are not considered as writing systems as such because they do not represent words or sounds in a particular language.

Pictograms and ideograms (difference)

The distinction between them is essentially a difference in the relationship between the symbol and the entity it represents.

The more “picture-like” forms are pictograms.

The more abstract, derived forms are ideograms.

Pictographic writing

Pictures and images started to be used at some point in time to refer to particular entities in the real world. This is called a pictographic system because the symbols or signs (images) were direct images of the things they referred to.

Picture-writing or pictograms

When some of the “pictures” came to represent particular images in a consistent way, we can begin to describe the product as a form of picture-writing or pictograms.

Pictograms (conventional relationship)

An essential part of this use of a representative symbol is that everyone should use similar forms to convey roughly similar meaning. That is, that a conventional relationship must exist between the symbol and its interpretation.

Pictograms (relationship)

Pictographic writing is not arbitrary, there is a natural or iconic relationship between the symbol used and what it represents.

Pictogram

It is a symbol that conveys meaning through its resemblance to a physical object.

Modern pictograms

Pictograms are still used nowadays in everyday language. They are universal and can be understood by anymore since modern pictograms are language-indepedent. For example, road signs or emoticons.

Idiographic writing (definition)

When the symbol takes on a more fixed symbolic form, it is considered to be part of a system of idea-writing or ideogram.

Ideograms

They are symbols that represent ideas.

Ideograms (example)

o come to be used for “heat” and “daytime”, as well as “sun”

Ideograms (relationship)

The relationship became arbitrary because there is not any direct representation of the entity or object in the real world.

Logographic writing system (definition)

When the relationship between the symbol and entity or idea becomes sufficiently abstract, we can be more confident that the symbol is being used to represent words in a language.

Word-writing or logograms

When symbols come to be used to represent words in a language, they are described as examples of word-writing or “logograms.”

Logograms (arbitrary relationship)

The form of this symbol really gives no clue to what type of entity is being referred to. The relationship between the written form and the object it represents has become arbitrary.

Logographic writing system (example)

A good example of logographic writing system is that used by the Sumerians, in the southern part of modern Iraq, between 5.000 and 6.000 years ago.

Cuneiform writing

Because of the particular shapes used in their symbols, the Sumerians inscriptions are more generally described as cuneiform writing.

The term “cuneiform”

It means “wedge-shaped” and the inscriptions used by the Sumerians were produced by pressing a wedge-shape implement into soft clay tablets.

“The earliest known writing system”

It is the Sumerian cuneiform inscriptions which are normally referred to when the expression is used.

So, by the time of the Sumerians, we have evidence that a writing system which was word-based had come into existence.

A modern writing system which is based, to a certain extent, on the use of logograms.

The Chinese writing since many written symbols, or characters, are used as representations of the meaning of words and not of the sounds of the spoken language

Chinese writing

It has the longest continuous history of use as a writing system (i.e. 3.000 years)

Chinese writing (advantage)

One of the advantages is that two speakers of very different dialects of Chinese, who might have great difficulty understanding each other’s spoken forms, can both read the same written text.

Chinese writing (disadvantage)

One of the disadvantages is that an extremely large numbers of different written symbols exists within the writing system, and remembering large numbers of different word-symbols does seem to present a substantial memory load.

Phonographic writing system

A set of symbols which represent sounds in a language.

Phonographic writing systems (types)

Rebus writing, syllabic writing and alphabetic writing.

Rebus writing (definition)

In this process, the symbol for one entity is taken over as the symbol for the sound of the spoken word used to refer to that entity. That symbol then comes to be used whenever that sound occurs in any words.

Rebus writing (example)

Working with the sound of the English word eye. We can imagine how the pictogram - could have developed into the logograph -. This logogram is pronounced as eye, and with the Rebus principles at work, you should be able to refer to yourself as - (“I”)

Rebus writing (symbol)

One symbol can thus be used in many different ways, with a range of meanings.

Rebus writing (accomplishment)

What this process accomplishes is a sizeable reduction in the number of symbols needed in a writing system.

Syllabic writing (definition)

When a writing system employs a set of symbols which repesent the pronunciation of syllables, it is described as syllabic writing.

Syllabic writing (example)

The symbol - which is used for the pronunciation of parts of a word represents a combination (ba) of a consonant (b) and a vowel (a).

Syllabic writing (The Phoenicians)

The full use of a syllabic writing system does not appear until that used by the Phoenicians, inhabiting what is modern Lebanon between 3000 and 4000 years ago. By about 1000 BC, the Phoenician had stopped using logograms and had a fully developed syllabic writing system.

The phoenicians (example)

The Egyptian form g, meaning house, used logographically for the word pronounced “BETH”, came to represent syllables beginning with a B sound.

Similarly, the Egyptian form-meaning water, turn up as $, and is used for syllables beginning with a M sound.

So, a word which might be pronounced MUBA, could be written as g$, and the pronounciation BIMA as $g.

Syllabic writing (modern Japanese)

There are no purely syllabic writing systems in use today, but modern Japanese is often described as having a (partially) syllabic writing system, or a syllabary.

Alphabetic writing (definition)

The basis of alphabetic writing is that the symbols can be used to represent single sound types in a language.

Alphabet

An alphabet is essentially a set of written symbols which each represent a single type of sound.

Alphabetic writing (semitic languages)

This is what seems to have occured in the origins of the writing systems of Semitic languages, such as Arabic and Hebrew. The alphabets of these languages, even in their modern versions, largely consist of consonant symbols.

Alphabetic writing (modern alphabets)

This early form of alphabetic script, originating in the written systems of the Phoenicians, is the general source of most other alphabets to be found in the world.

Alphabetic writing (Greeks)

The early Greeks took the alphabetizing process a stage further, by also using separate symbols to represent the vowel sounds as distinct entities.