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The emergence of language: signs, symbols and language

The emergence of language

1 - Some language expressions arise first from imitation of calling sounds. Most languages ​​contain vowel letters such as (ya), (a), (ay), (aya), and (haya), which are completely similar to natural human sounds.

2 - Some words also arise from imitating the sounds of nature, for example: Thunder in the Greek language is called (Freundi), in Latin (Tonitru), in French (Tonnerre) and in German (Donner), and they are all imitations of the sound of natural thunder. Children of all nations refer to a dog by imitating its barking, and to a cat by imitating its meowing, and these traditional terms are called (onomatopée).

The Arabic language is rich in these traditional words, such as: the murmur of water, the rustle of branches, the croaking of frogs, and the neighing of horses. Etc.. They are all similar to natural sounds. Such as the resemblance of the verbs to break, cut, home, beat, and tear, to the sounds that indicate them.

Then similarity has an effect in forming words, because imitating calling sounds and natural sounds is not enough to generate all words. Thought expands the meanings of sounds by applying them to similar things. No matter how distant and dissimilar things are, thought reveals some similarity between them. Darwin mentioned that one of the children saw a duck swimming on the surface of a stream and called it the word “Quack” in the English language. Then he expanded the meaning of this word and applied it to the entire stream. Then he also used it by association to refer to other streams of water and types of birds that do not... He knew it before, and he also used it to refer to the eagle (Napoleon), whose image he saw on a French coin. This indicates that realizing the similarity leads the mind to generalize the meaning of the word, and transfer it from one thing to another.

There are many similarities in nature. They may be between tangible things, or they may be between abstract images, or they may be between tangible things and abstract images together. This makes one word have several meanings, and explains how words are derived from each other. For example: the word (Coq) in the language French is an imitation of the natural sound of a rooster, so thought derived the words from it: Coquetterie, Coquet, Cocarde, all of which indicate different meanings, Coquelicot, among which there is a simple resemblance that is not hidden from the observer.

The word (hoopoe) in the Arabic language denotes a bird with many stripes and colors, and it is an imitation of its natural voice, so the thought was derived from it: the camel’s hoopoe, roaring, and the fasting hoopoe, meaning its movement to sleep and rocking to such-and-such, meaning it imagines “such-and-such,” and you say something like that: The hen qaq also vocalized in imitation of its voice, as did the cicada, the starling, the cormorant, the qaq, a water bird called the cicada, and others.

Invention of terminology
Then we invent some words to indicate new meanings in science, literature, industry, and commerce. New meanings require new words, and this invention is accomplished by reviving some old words, or by quoting words from foreign languages. Such as borrowing the French, German, English, and other languages, Latin and Greek, and the Turkish language borrowing from the Arabic and Persian languages, or by inventing some new words in the same way as algebraic, chemical, and other symbols are invented. The clearest of these words is what indicates simple abstract meanings. The transition of a pronunciation from one language to another often leads to changing some of its letters. The Arabs changed the letter “(”) in their translations to (F), and the English cannot pronounce the letter “U” as the French pronounce it. Just as the French are unable to pronounce the letters “ha,” “kha,” and “ayn.” And the opposite.

Reasons for rapid or slow language development. The natural signs and words of early humans change rapidly. Even a child changes his words and his dialect as he moves from one country to another. If his father is absent and he stays with his grandfather for a year or two without mixing with anyone, he has a thousand special languages ​​that his parents do not understand, and he often invents words in his games without anyone teaching them to him. All of this indicates a strong tendency toward innovation, but there are reasons that delay this development: including the tendency toward imitation, the need for understanding, and the desire to preserve the old. If people only understand through language, how can they achieve understanding if words are constantly changing, and every man has his own sign that no one else understands? Writing also confirms words and determines their meanings, and by writing I mean phonetic and alphabetical writing, not depicting meanings. And draw it in sensual shapes and nothing else.

What helps to confirm words: literary and scientific works, because written methods are models that learners imitate. There are also limits and definitions in science that lead to confirming the meaning of the word And clarifying its meaning. These terms and their definitions have been collected in various languages, and their collection consists of national languages ​​and fixed linguistic dictionaries whose words do not change with the change of whims, but rather according to law, balance, science, and measurement.

The result
- The shortest thing to say is that language has both natural and social causes.

Natural hibernation. Actual movements, emotional forces, and conditional reflexive actions have an impact on the generation of signals. We have shown in the study of agitation that organized agitation phenomena are natural signals through which the animal expresses its needs (p. 239). Speech is generated from natural screaming, and the language of signs precedes the language of words. A sign has no meaning unless its owner uses it with knowledge of the relationship that connects it to the thing referred to: it is necessary, therefore, that the sign be abstracted from the thing, and independent of it, even if in this emotional role it is inherent to it.

Social reasons. Social life transforms natural sounds and physical movements into real signals, and makes them a suitable instrument for exchanging ideas. M. Vendres said: Language was born in society from people’s feeling of their need to exchange ideas, so they used signs when verbal expression was lacking, and blinking with the eye, and gesticulating with the eyebrow, when gestures were lacking.

The social organization then affects the natural language and changes the phenomena of excitement, making some of them idiomatic or artificial. Look at the drawings, memories, customs, rituals, and rules approved by society. It is a symbolic language added to the natural language. It is true that one of the social scientists said: The idea of ​​the symbol. A social and religious idea in particular.