• Question: why do we have different languages

    Asked by ledw to Christina, Colin, Jess, Samaneh, Steve on 18 Jun 2013. This question was also asked by spacenut1982.
    • Photo: Christina Pagel

      Christina Pagel answered on 18 Jun 2013:

      Hi,

      an excellent question! how about if i asked “why do you think we would speak the same language?”
      Even different bits of england have very different accents and different words for things (these are slowly being ironed out by tv).

      Basically, originally when humans were all gathered in a much smaller area there most likely was a single mother of all languages.. as people spread out across the world, gradually language shifted (like how our english is very different to the english Shakespeare used) and languages shifted in different ways for different communities and that became, over several thousands of years, different languages…

      there are still some super words that are almost the same across most known languages – i think they’re things like words for “mother” and “one” and “you” and “me”… I think the evolution of language is fascinating!

Comments

  • Photo: spacenut1982

    spacenut1982 commented on :

    So do you think that say in 200 years time we will view our “current ” language as we view Shakespeare’s language now?

    • Photo: Christina

      Christina commented on :

      I don’t know! maybe not in 200 years but probably in a 1000? I think because the world is so connected now and i think will only get more so, and everyone wants to communicate with everyone else, there’s a lot of things making languages get more similar instead of getting further apart… so it could be that in a 1000 years everyone will speak the same language – which might be aversion of English? or smething else entirely. I often get annoyed that i won’t get to see what the world will be like hundreds of years in the future – I want to know what will happen!!