Language is wine on the lips: Virginia Woolf
Some attribute humanity’s greatest invention to fire and others to the wheel. His claims may carry the weight of the scientific community, but for the masses, language is the real innovation.
Language brought the dawn of knowledge; turning the leaf on doubting, questioning, reasoning, explaining and understanding against the centuries-old follow-up animal instinct. Of what use would any scientific invention be to the human species if we could not communicate? Despite being a product of human invention, language encompasses all human needs for communication and expression. That is the true beauty of language.
Since the time when there is solid documented evidence, language has been used as a basic tool for communication. As the literal definition of language says, it is a set of symbols, figures and/or rules that can be manipulated to give meaning to vague ideas. Jane Wagner once said, “Personally, I think we develop language because of our deep inner need to complain.”
We don’t know that this theory is true, but what we do know is that “words live longer than facts.” Pindar (522 BC – 443 BC). Who started using the language, or who developed it into its present form, we don’t know, but we definitely know that the language and its rules arose in the 5th century BC. C. in present-day India for the Sanskrit language. The rules for the Persian language were formed in the year 760 AD The development of the language has fluctuated but not its use over time.
Modern natural language, which is the language humans use for general communications, arose nearly 50,000 years ago in Africa before spreading to other parts of the world. There are almost 6,912 languages currently spoken in the world. The five most spoken languages in the world are Chinese at number one with 1.209 million people speaking it, Spanish with 332.3 million, English 309.4 million, Arabic 206 million and Hindi with 180.8 million. of speakers. Urdu, Pakistan’s national language, comes in at number 20 with 60.5 million speakers. Another 60.8 million people in Pakistan speak Punjabi, which is very similar to Urdu.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Thought is the flower, language the bud, action the fruit behind it.” Civilization in general has made use of the language in many ways. Language, on the other hand, has reciprocated its effect on civilization. Language brought a sense of perfection and purpose to civilization. It has been used as a tool to manipulate the inexperienced. The interpretation of the laws, the reading of the death sentence, the imagination of the poets, the fiction of the writers, the dealings in the market, the schooling, the charm of the politicians, everything depends on the language. By endowing civilization with all its characteristics, language has been forced to accept the norms and rules formulated by civilization in response.
The notable features with which the language resplendents vary in their usage, degree, and conformity. Chief among them may be its ease and adaptability. This can be seen in a small child. As a child learns some words in any language, he also learns to use them and put them into meaningful phrases or sentences. The child can form a large number of sentences from a small vocabulary. This strange phenomenon of ease in the use of language has kept many sociologists, psychologists and linguists busy with research.
The relationship between man and society is known through their customs, uses, norms, traditions, laws, ethics, music, religion, language, rituals; collectively known as culture. These customs, uses or norms are transmitted from one generation to another through a learning process. The term learning process uses language primarily, though not completely, as its vehicle. Consequently, language has not only become part of culture, but also a carrier of culture. “Language shapes the way we think and determines what we can think”,
The words of Benjamin Lee Whorf, an American linguist known for his hypotheses on the relationship of language with thought and cognition, support this theory.
Scalability is another feature that has made its mark. Scalability means that a particular language or language usage can be expanded to any extent required. The important point in doing so is not to lose its functionality. In earlier times, when science had not progressed as much, the use of language in the scientific field was also limited. But with the growth of science in many fields and subfields, the language has also grown to meet the required needs without losing its functionality.
“Language is the archive of history,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson truly. Change is essential in a vibrant and active society. To what extent a change in a society can affect its culture is also seen first in its language. Language in this role acts as a historian recording changes in behavior, traditions, rituals, laws, ethics, and other ingredients of a culture. “Change your language and you will change your thoughts,” said Karl Albrecht. Language can also sometimes be used as a catalyst for change. When Turkey replaced the Arabic alphabets in its language with the Latin alphabets in 1928, it not only represented the change in Turkish culture, but also turned out to be a catalyst for the social change that Turkey was experiencing in those days.
“Language is the means to get an idea from my brain to yours without surgery”, Mark Amidon. This sure is true in today’s world. The world with such a diverse population also meets your language needs. The diversity of languages makes it possible for all human beings to interact and communicate. Almost 7,000 different languages are alive in the world in the sense that they have followers in spoken and written form. All basic human communication needs are being met efficiently, naturally and without any interception. This diversity of languages owes much to the flexibility of a language to accept and improvise new ideas.
Another feature of language is its universality. All the world’s languages basically offer almost the same facilities (reading communication) and try to achieve the same goals (reading comprehension). Walking in the same line, many linguists affirm that there is a universal grammar and a universal language from which the current modern languages have evolved. Noam Chomsky also stated this in his work on generative grammar.
Perhaps the most misused or overused function of language is manipulation. As one masters the language, one’s mastery of using it for one’s purpose also increases. In this way, a person can manipulate a language in the way that best suits them to achieve their goals. History is full of examples in this context. Carl Marx, Hitler, Mao Zedong, Khomeini, Osama, Bush, and many others have used this language ability for their own ends, regardless of the social value of their ideas.
Whatever language is, it is also the representation of truth and reality. Language represents nothing more and nothing less than ideas and thoughts. Words; the building blocks or the unit of language, are meaningless unless we attach some reality or some abstract idea to them. The American short story writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe has rightly said that words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.