I've heard from my German teacher that Latin and other languages of that time were more "complicated". One can argue that linguists don't operate with such categories as "simple" and "complicated" but you know what I mean. If not - read this post Why is the grammar of old languages so complicated?
Linguists rather speak in terms of "inflectional morphology", "morphological variation", "variation in phonemes"... They even counted these and other language features in each of the languages (2,236 to be precise and 504 in another study) and found out that the older the language - the more "complicated" it is: Babelicious! Bigger languages are also simpler ones and Where on Earth did language begin? And the most complicated language in terms of phonemes variation is !Xu - a language spoken in southern Africa which has 141 phonemes opposed to 44 in English. That correlates with the idea that Homo Sapiens evolved from Africa and confirms what my German teacher said. But
How did ancient languages get complicated in the first place?
Linguists suggest three theories:
1. Children learn languages easier if the language is more complicated (has more redundant "features"). Ridiculous!
2. Complex languages are more precise in expressing the small peculiarities. This is generally true, but doesn't answer the question at all.
3. Smaller language groups (total speakers of !Xu is ~45,000) teach their children their language more carefully. Could be, but doesn't answer the question at all.
Having no better explanation I tend to refer to the works of Zecharia Sitchin and Nicolai Levashov which insist that human languages, culture and human themselves are seeded on Earth by the aliens. As astounding and naive as it may seem this theory does answer how did ancient languages get complicated in the first place.
Please comment.
Linguists rather speak in terms of "inflectional morphology", "morphological variation", "variation in phonemes"... They even counted these and other language features in each of the languages (2,236 to be precise and 504 in another study) and found out that the older the language - the more "complicated" it is: Babelicious! Bigger languages are also simpler ones and Where on Earth did language begin? And the most complicated language in terms of phonemes variation is !Xu - a language spoken in southern Africa which has 141 phonemes opposed to 44 in English. That correlates with the idea that Homo Sapiens evolved from Africa and confirms what my German teacher said. But
How did ancient languages get complicated in the first place?
Linguists suggest three theories:
1. Children learn languages easier if the language is more complicated (has more redundant "features"). Ridiculous!
2. Complex languages are more precise in expressing the small peculiarities. This is generally true, but doesn't answer the question at all.
3. Smaller language groups (total speakers of !Xu is ~45,000) teach their children their language more carefully. Could be, but doesn't answer the question at all.
Having no better explanation I tend to refer to the works of Zecharia Sitchin and Nicolai Levashov which insist that human languages, culture and human themselves are seeded on Earth by the aliens. As astounding and naive as it may seem this theory does answer how did ancient languages get complicated in the first place.
Please comment.
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