Social Different languages startup date

[Your Account]

Was there a time on Earth when there was only one language , or people just started to talk differently because they born in different area of the world ?

 

[fungi]

Linguists theorize there was a proto-language.
No one can prove it.

 

[Alphaboy]

Tower of Babble if you believe in the word. Don't @ me.

 

[Your Account]

So we don't know
Even chat gpt says it's belived that there was never a single universal language
I guess that would mean that humans emerged in different locations not in one place

 

[aunshi189]

So we don't know
Even chat gpt says it's belived that there was never a single universal language
I guess that would mean that humans emerged in different locations not in one place

I've always thought it was more a case of early humans emerged without anything that we would recognise as language. As they spread and developed different languages starter to emerge.

 

[Jack Reacheround]

Was there a time on Earth when there was only one language

I would seriously doubt it.
I’m pretty sure that by the time language was coming into existence, even in its most primitive form, humans were spread out enough across different regions that they developed their own sounds for things in their respective regions.

 

[dc007]

I'm guessing all cavemen grunted the same

 

[TheTickG]

Tower of Babble if you believe in the word. Don't @ me.

Thought Tower of Babble was an attempt at unifying language that failed and led to a collapse?

 

[Takes_Two_To_Tango]

I guess languages become different when you are born in a different region on the onset. Just like religion is in a way.

 

[Your Account]

I guess languages become different when you are born in a different region on the onset. Just like religion is in a way.

its strange that it looks like language was not used so to say at all at the time when humans were living in only one location in the world
maybe only when they started to divide and relocate to different areas on Earth, they started to develop a language specific to them in the area where they were ?

 

[Wetarmpits]

I would seriously doubt it.
I’m pretty sure that by the time language was coming into existence, even in its most primitive form, humans were spread out enough across different regions that they developed their own sounds for things in their respective regions.

This. We already have different dialects or languages in whale and ape groups of the same species.

 

[Long Dark Blues]

It's amazing to me that humans bounced back so successfully after the Toba eruption 70,000+ years ago nearly made us extinct.

Between 3k and 10k surviving individuals that we are all descended from

 

[William Huggins]

Linguists theorize there was a proto-language.
No one can prove it.

It was very similar to today's English, only the words are mixed up.

 

[gspieler]

Off the top of my head, the only way I can see there ever having been only one language(unless you consider primal grunts/noises to constitute "language"), would be if language developed prior to humans dispersing throughout the entire. Put another way; why would languages that were created and evolved, independently of one another, be uniform, or even similar?

 

[Jack Reacheround]

This. We already have different dialects or languages in whale and ape groups of the same species.

Ah, that’s right. So there is precedence in nature.

 

[Alphaboy]

Thought Tower of Babble was an attempt at unifying language that failed and led to a collapse?

I think they were trying to build a tower to get to God or something.

 

[syct23]

Do they not teach this in public schools anymore?

 

[fungi]

It was very similar to today's English, only the words are mixed up.

 

[TheTickG]

I think they were trying to build a tower to get to God or something.

That's what it was! You're right.

 

[ralphc1]

So we don't know
Even chat gpt says it's belived that there was never a single universal language
I guess that would mean that humans emerged in different locations not in one place

The question would be was there an early human language before humans went their separate ways? Our ancestors, the apes, don't have much of a spoken language even now. Languages change over time. There are differences in what are supposedly the same language in the same country. Even a relatively small country like Great Britain has dialects of English that I have difficulty understanding. Different languages around the world even use different sounds. You can sometimes tell what a person's native language was by the sounds they use for certain letters or combinations of letters.