The Human Language

Giovanni Coyotecatl
December 2, 2013
Anthropology
We can all agree that language is a fundamental basic of being human. Language has been around for centuries, there are no primitive languages, and the documentary video"The Human Language", talks about just that. It brings about the question on how language functions within each and every society. Its amazing how we as organisms create sound and body gestures to make words, by what we call "Language". I say body gestures, because although being non-verbal, it is still a way of communication and it comes to an understanding. Yet this video's main intention is answering how our minds can tell the difference of words, pauses, and how it can organize basic logical sentences (syntax). Syntax isn't really taught, its embedded in us, our brain naturally does it to try and make sense of things. One main question came across; how did words and meaning ever get linked? Language is arbitrary meaning that it was a combination of sounds to meaning, upon agreement with two or more individuals. Its a system our brain learns from a very young age it automatically puts things in order so that we can make sense of them. Each language has its own composition and if changed it becomes inflected, for example if you translate a sentence word for word, the meaning may not be the same. A joke may not even make sense in a different language. That's the thing with having a voice, the tone, the different variations of sounds, the accents, all manipulate how your being perceived by another individual. If I speak the sentence: "I have a Soda.", its understood between a certain group of people because it was implied that this is the way we are going to say it, while another group identifies it as "Pop." It still has the same meaning, just said differently. As long as it is in that order it makes sense, once you move around words like Yoda, there's confusion, you can't say "Soda a have I", or "Pop a have I" spoken it sounds like a different language. Sapir Whorf hypothesis: Language creates reality, I feel like that's true in a way.
Language also allows us to be able to layout a picture to show meaning. Take hieroglyphics for example, I have no idea what they mean, but I bet many of the inhabitants of that region in that era, had some idea. Nowadays there are symbols, emoticons, logos, brands, etc. Its part of our culture now, because those symbols were agreed upon and we chose to adopt those meanings. I knew what the big yellow M was before I knew who the first president of the U.S. was, the M meant a happy meal and a cool Pokemon ball, and a ball pit that gave you pink eye, or getting pushed by a fat kid because he wanted to go down the slide first. I associated pain with pleasure and all because of the McDonalds logo, talk about mixed feelings. Its sad but true, we are taught how to identify the meaning of words and symbols even when we don't know were learning them just because our brains want us to understand.
We don't have narrow minds, we have abstract minds. Since we are not only tied down to one single subject of communicating, we have that everlasting effect that does not limit our imagination, but allows us to come up with new ideas and languages, adopt symbols, gestures, and sounds to create a culture. I think this video highlights those aspects. It made me think about how we are very peculiar creatures; intelligence is what fuels us, imagination keeps us alive, and ambition drives us.