The origins of language - how was language created?

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How did language appear and how come humans are the only ones on the whole Earth to have it? The question of language origins is one of the biggest mysteries of human evolution. There is a countless amount of theories that try to explain it. Here I present my take on this problem.
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Stardriver by ELFL
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Your Vibe by Yomoti
Sumatra by Bonsaye
Daba by Balafola Suedi
#linguistics #evolution #humanevolution

[@magellanicspaceclouds]

Historical linguistics was my favorite linguistics course in college by far. More like this please!

[@jorgeabrahamhernandez1209]

Toda América sería un solo país es México en un futuro próximo el idioma oficial sería en español México va ser el primer mundo México será potencia mundial vivA México querido México kzbin.info/www/bejne/baatmZ2Hq693npY kzbin.info/www/bejne/g6HOlKl4j7mUaa8 kzbin.info/www/bejne/jZXPg4ucl6agatk Con amor se paga todo ❤️ con amor al pueblo Unido ❤️🇲🇽❤️ Con democracia Con socialismo La grandeza de México Atentamente libertad 🇲🇽🌎💯🌍🇲🇽 Ya verás que sí 🙂 lo positivo es lo más importante del mundo ☺️😊

[@voxtur__7]

Could you recommend some textbooks on it please?

[@magellanicspaceclouds]

@@voxtur__7 I believe we used "An Introduction to Historical Linguistics" by Claire Bowern and Terry Crowley in class, but I'm sure there are plenty other ones that will give you a good intro.

[@hglundahl]

This is not "historical linguistics" at all.

[@magellanicspaceclouds]

@@hglundahl So what branch of linguistics is this?

[@herblison3374]

Julie and other KZbin presenters like Physics Girl are real treasures. There should be a special category either in the Oscars or the Emmy's to acknowledge their accomplishments.

[@LeeGee]

imo they're both so good because they are so unlike anything such award ceremonies and institutions value

[@white-wq3eu]

i hate physics julingo is better than math female

[@uNIVERSEmAN76]

Their beauty helps 😅

[@skepticalfaith5201]

@@uNIVERSEmAN76 Unfortunately. I was disappointed when I noticed most of the female youtubers I followed were extraordinarily pretty. I would like to think knowledge, insight and communication skills would trump that, but alas. Women are still judged first and foremost on their beauty. P.S. successful male youtubers are also routinely good-looking - although not as exclusively as women.

[@LunkFM]

@@skepticalfaith5201 what if it is that women are taught more, due to old social traditions requiring women to be exceptionally beautiful to have a rich husband, how to make themselves beautiful, without fully relying on genetics, like men tend to do

[@deewesthill1213]

I love the study of words -- etymology, ancient origins, history, lore, and changes in meanings over short to long time periods. Years ago i went through an English dictionary and noticed that words beginning with consonant clusters have meanings related in some way, closely or not so closely. Two obvious examples are gl- and sn- words whose meanings have something to do with reflective light or a smooth reflective surface (glacier, glance, glass, gleam, glint, glisten, glitter, etc.), and a nose or snout, mucus, or to grab something to eat as if with a snout (snack, snap, sneeze, sniff, snore, snort, snot, snub) respectively. But there are a lot more, and it is a really interesting thing to study. Rhyming words sometimes have related meanings too, such as bright and light and bump, clump, hump, lump; there are many more of those too. There are also single-consonant related words, some examples out of many are "rounded shape" -- bag, ball, batch, bell, boll, bowl, bud, bug, bulk, bullet, bump, bun, bunch, bush, bust, butt etc.; "something hard" or "something wooden" -- back, bake, bar, barge, barn, bash, bat, German Baum ("tree"), beam, beat, bench, board, boat, French bois ("wood"), bone, build; "young or small animal" or "fertility" -- calf, canine, cat, colt, coney, cub, cur, kid, kit (small fox), kitten.

[@MarcosElMalo2]

If you have not studied linguistics, have a look at the research on Proto Indo European, which is the progenitor of almost all European, Central Asian, Middle Eastern, and Indian languages.

[@deewesthill1213]

@@MarcosElMalo2 I'm aware of PIE and have been all my life. No one can study words in unabridged dictionaries without seeing in the etiologies all the hypothetical PIE word roots.

[@bavinbalan]

Just have a check with Ancient Tamil ( Brahmi ) language

[@toasty_chakra]

Amazing that you discovered this all on your own.

[@raylocke282]

I learned Vietnamese as a P.O.W.As a prisoner during the Vietnam war we were isolated from each other.I forgot my own language but picked it up again when released.It took me awhile to lose the Vietnamese accent. Weird or what.A person doesnt realize how quickly one can lose his mother tongue.

[@nHans]

Small correction: In the graph of loudness v frequency, the x-axis is incorrectly labeled as GHz. That's a billion times higher than the correct label: Hz.

[@derlaschi1325]

Hi Julie. I'm watching your videos almost from the beginning, and I'm deeply impressed about how they have evolved over time. Technically, as well as content-based. This one is absolutely stunning! Keep on doing so!

[@Coteoki]

Could you do a video covering the Elfdalian language? The Swedish government doesn't recognize it as a separate language even though it is completely different and has a lot of archaic features from old norse

[@njuvanrui2951]

Must be them very different, just like Entlish and English...

[@rsfaeges5298]

Thanks! This video is especially informative about aspects of the evolution of human language that I have heard of, but haven't heard/seen explained before.

[@KrishnakumarRa7797]

How easy you've made the understanding of the complex factors required for speech! Linguistic big history is one giant, amazing thought experiment. I love it.

[@yourhighness6457]

Please do a video on Mayan Language!

[@evanashworth490]

Hi Julie. I'm going to make a video on the origins of language and wanted to get a sense of how others have approached this topic. I had never heard of you before the other day, but I just wanted to say that this, and all of your videos, are really great. Keep up the good work!

[@wilhelmsarasalo3546]

That was good. I grew up in a Finnish speaking household in Helsinki and later had friends in Stockholm where I even later lived a few years. Then I have lived in California by far the most of my life. Today I have an accent in all of those languages, but my Swedish friends sound more native in English that I do. In Japanese (where I used to know some words and grammar (surprisingly similar to Finnish -ko, -ka to make a question, -n, no (の) for possessive etc. ) to get by a little) I don't have that much of an accent, they say. I think it is called synaptic pruning. As far as how language came to be I think it is like any evolutionary thing. It builds on what came before and thus accelerates. Goes for biology, technology etc. For humans, coordinating as groups is important. And whatever gives us a survival advantage is important and we find pleasurable as that encourages that kind of behavior. Eating,, sex, safe shelter are the obvious ones. Pushing the envelope of communications is there, too. The joke we almost don't get, but do, is the best joke. The same goes with music, visual arts, whatever. Those are not frivolous, those help us with a very important survival skill. Thus we find them pleasurable. Me thinks.

[@jeffanderson2426]

My mother spoke multiple languages. By 8 months old I could speak French..her 'mother tongue' in simple 3-4 word sentences. By 14 months I also understood and could reply in Cree ..My mother is native so I guess you could say they were a dual mother tongue family. It took me until 4 to be comfortable in speaking and comprehending English even though we had lived in a mainly English speaking community from the time I was 6 months old. Over the years I have acquired competency in Spanish and am able to get the gist of a person's meaning in German if the spoke a bit slower. My questions for you are: I understand this was early. Why and how? also of 5 children I am the only one who acquired this ability. Additional info...for approximately 3 generations before me about one third of the people spoke early and or spoke multiple languages. My son also is fluent in the same languages as me. So the question is why some and not all? Last question is English took me the longest even though I lived in a mainly English community; my step dad and sibling only spoke English fluently. Why would that be? I thoroughly enjoy your videos . they are well put together easy to understand and very informative. Merci pour vos efforts. Vous êtes une personne très admirable. Je te souhaite le meilleur Julie

[@angelawhitehead6187]

I hope you get a reply

[@dsm5d723]

I'm jealous. I could learn to read other languages, but fluency never came. But, you could never learn to speak the N@me perfectly.

[@solconcordia4315]

How did you know how old you were when you as a young child achieved a linguistic milestone? As for how quickly a new language is acquired, one's age certainly seems to make a huge difference in acquisition speed. I was in a very complicated linguistic environment in which everybody talked differently. I acquired new sub-languages very quickly when my Dad stayed home for an extended period and mandated me to speak to him in what he could understand. Another time was because of an in-law. Languages are mostly cultural artifacts. What languages we use are somewhat malleable but acquiring the *NUANCED* meanings of vocabulary can be a very tricky endeavor. Accents also change as we pick up new languages. My kid once told me that I had a "strange accent." Well, we were actually closer in languages than my Dad and I. 😂

[@harshaddivekar2331]

Very descriptive and analytical video !👌 It covers historical, evolutionary, scientific and almost all other aspects of human languages. Thanks for sharing the video !💐

[@mamarnaogozar]

one of the best chanel that recommendation by youtube, i always liked to learn about the etymology of some words and now, because of your videos, my curiosity go beyond my first language to other languages

[@21bywater]

Hi, Julie. Nice to see a new video from you! Hope you are well.

[@bradbyers7505]

Excellent! Thank you for preparing and delivering this fascinating segment.

[@xarastewartmusic]

Such a wonderful and well paced out video ☺️

[@Kunztmann]

best video ever!! amazing content as always Julie, Saludos desde Chile

[@highmountaingee]

Hello Juli. Your channel is very interesting and you presentation makes it entertaining. I learn a lot. Looks like you are close to 100k subscribers. I hope you reach it before the end of 2022!

[@acosmicotaku8525]

A correction for a claim about ape communication via sign language. No ape has ever actually managed to obtain a working grasp of any sign language. Rather, ape communication specialists looked for evidence in support of their hypothesis and ignored the evidence contrary to it. Soup Emporium actually has a deep dive into how the idea of Koko learning sign language came about, was spread, and how linguists conclusively showed that the field of ape communications was founded upon fraud in his video "Why Koko (Probably) Couldn't Talk (Sorry) | The Deep Dive" [published May 5, 2021]. Moreover, as mentioned in the aforementioned video, ape hands lack the dexterity to learn ASL, so a modified sign language based off an untrained English speaker's understanding of ASL was used in order to facilitate the alleged sign language training, and even that didn't stick as the animals were unable to grasp grammar, syntax, or even the representational nature of the elements of the language.

[@acosmicotaku8525]

@Bear No, but it is a [non-podcast] video because I was pressed for time when I made the previous comment. That said, the citations for the claims of the video are given throughout it's runtime. It's easier and quicker to just link to an aggregate of relevant material than compile a list from scratch, so that's what I deigned to do. Especially since my interest was never in ape communications, because I was never particularly impressed by what came out of it. Moreover, you can simply show a video of any of these apes "talking" using "sign language" to a deaf or mute person, or an interpreter and they'll confirm that there's no structure to an ape's use of sign language.

[@61Ldf]

This is one of your very best vids. Great job!

[@davirochaaulasonline8224]

Amazing, as always. As a language teacher, your videos are an amazing source of inspiration. I would love to see you making a video about peculiar brazilian indigenous languages, like the pirahã.

One of your best videos!!

[@konstantinavalentina3850]

I love your videos. We also NEED more Mr. Gabby. :)

[@Dhi_Bee]

I’m so glad you were in my recommended videos today! I definitely subscribed, especially since I saw you did a video on Quechua (which my grandma from Bolivia speaks). :-)

[@larsbitsch-larsen6988]

Hi Julie. This is the best explanation I have seen in more than 15 years. As a doctor I have studied medical history and found that many medical concepts were developed as medicine advanced. Hippocrates the founder of modern medicine (using observation as an important tool), did not have a word for observation. This word only shows up many centuries later etc Good work.

[@gaufrid1956]

Excellent Julie! My take on language learning as an adult is that you learn the particles first, because they are paramount to the structure of any language. I've learned Cebuano and Tagalog this way. My wife is a true polyglot. She was fortunate to have two mother tongues (Higaonon Binukid, her tribal language, and Cebuano). As a result, she has also been able to learn three more Filipino languages, and learned English at school.

[@Rosannasfriend]

What do you mean by particles?

[@gaufrid1956]

​@@Rosannasfriend The list is very large! They are used all the time in conversation and can alter the meaning of what is said. Common ones are "Na" which means "Now/Already"), "Pa" ("Still/Yet"), "Ba" for questions, "Ra/Da/Lang/Lamang" ("Just/Only"), "Gyud/Gayud/Bitaw/Lagi/Gani" ("Indeed"), "Usab/upod" ("Also/Too"), "Man/ugod" (expressing new information or contradicting previous information), "Diay" (indicates the speaker has new information), "Siguro/Tingali" ("Probably/Maybe"), "Unta/Mayta" ("Hope"), "Mao" ("Is/Was/Will be"), "Gani" ("Even"), "Bisan" ("Even though/Even if/Although"), "Intawon" ("Pity"), "Puhon" ("In the future/God willing"), "Ha" (only at the end of a sentence, "Do you understand?/Right), "Ay" (follows a word to call attention to it) and "Uy/Oy" (expresses annoyance or surprise). I have to say my favorite is "Murag" ("Like/Seemingly" which is Mao+Ra+Og}. I use that one in the place of the English phrase "Something like that". I haven't even mentioned "Sa" which covers most English prepositions, or the words "Nga" and "Og" which link phrases. Of course in Cebuano spelling is variable and shortening words is very common.

[@MickeyGSinger]

“Cat, i know you’re very busy …”😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣😾😾😾

[@davidclark682]

Excellent video. I have always enjoyed studying languages and marvel at how easily a baby can learn its mother tongue. The ability of humans to communicate is but one miracle of our ancient history. Other quite remarkable talents we have are opposable thumbs, stereo vision, conquest over fire, burying our dead, art, music, philosophy, mathematics and pondering life’s great questions. The Wycliffe Bible Translators are dedicated people who live in isolated areas where rare dialects are spoken. Their mission is to live with the people and learn their language so perfectly that they can produce a translation of the Bible in their native tongue. I do pretty well with Spanish. Less with German and Italian. But I’m nowhere fluent enough to preach the Gospel. Keep up the good work! I’m in the process of watching my first two grandkids begin to speak. One is 9 months and the other is 12 months. My daughter and Brazilian son in law will have their 9 month old son learning Spanish, Portuguese and English.

[@MrAdriansnny]

Thank you so much!

[@Sakura-zu4rz]

❤Your channel is literally my comfort place. You make me so happy. ❤😁❤

[@chiarac2747]

you are an amazing source of knowledge!

[@michaelzapletal4638]

Thank you for your channel! Love from Austria❤

[@MemphiStig]

A tiny thing: in the word "diaphragm" the g is silent, the m is not. so it's "di-a-fram" not "frag" Love your videos, and taking on such a task is admirable. We have a lot of words from a lot of languages which makes ours very hard to pronounce, even for native speakers. And you do a really good job, all things considered.

[@pablodelsegundo9502]

Yes, much like the word 'phlegm'.

[@murissantos]

Yeahh, in Portuguese we say Diafragma and the G is actually pronounced, I would do the same in English if I hadn't read your comment 😂

[@RandomNonsense1985]

@@pablodelsegundo9502fleggum /s

[@RandomNonsense1985]

Blame William the Bastard and the Normans for a lot of English’s irregularities.

[@drewalhanifa4452]

Kudos to you and your team.

[@kenthpedersen3220]

Very nice video Julie, possibly your best. Quite information dense. Have to watch it again. Ideas for future work - are there any indications that some languages may have evolved from lost civilizations, a notion which you clearly alluded to with imagery used in your Sumer vid; would also love to hear of research on language used by the other sentient (possibly even more advanced than humans) species on planet Earth, sperm whales.

[@shanahmed6956]

Very informative. Thank you for sharing the information. 👍👍👍

[@huonglarne]

great video. Thank you so much

[@NomadicCreator]

This is exactly what I am interested in. So happy I just happened to come across your channel today! I have been wondering if there are languages close enough that can be somehow blended together to make one language for all, such as an Asian dialect, or Norse, or or or, haha. I don't know enough yet about global regions to make logical guesses, lol. Thank-you for sharing your knowledge, 🙏❤️🥲.

[@drcanoro]

A language was created called Interlingua, obtaining the sounds that different languages have in common to create a language that most languages would understand.

[@NomadicCreator]

@@drcanoro THANK-YOU! Has it been put into practice? Are there samples I can hear and and and, lolol. Where may I learn about it if you know please?!!!!!! 🙏🤗🥰

[@josem.deteresa2282]

@@drcanoro Esperanto was an earlier attempt, I guess

[@lesact]

This is one of your best videos, thank you so much! The question of the when language began, and how, bothers me a lot ...

[@skepticalfaith5201]

It’s “irreducibly complex”. i.e. Intelligent Design

[@jeandeboishault6380]

For me, this topic is one of the most interesting. Thanks for your video.

[@levilivengood4522]

my favorite theory is that language originated as a game between children which they passed onto their own children, finding it useful

[@_datapoint]

I like Juli’s pronunciation of Noam Chomsky. I think I will use it from now on.

[@paulmills1084]

great job!!

[@drewalhanifa4452]

You are one of the greatest if not the e. I study several different languages in my spare time and your insights and outfits are always refreshing.

[@jamesshearer9616]

Fascinating. Thank you!

[@andrewadius142]

One really important concept to survival is the idea of direction. From this comes past , present and future. Then comes, story, organizing and planning. Very fun to think about. I really enjoy your videos. Thank you!

[@iamleoooo]

Hi Juli, do you have any thought or maybe willing to make a video where the entire people in Bengkala village in Bali Indonesia speak sign language?

[@njuvanrui2951]

You guys do realize that only those people who pay as a patron get to choose the topics of her next episode? This is the origin of language maybe: people are trying to do more things with money less than what's due. So they talk.

[@yourhighness6457]

@@njuvanrui2951 lol what a bunch of simps

[@RegnarRasmussen]

Dear Julia, The idea of giving you an Oscar or Emmy (or both) is a very appropriate idea. Your ability to present scientific knowledge in a competent manner is outstanding. I assume that you spend a lot of time preparing each video. In spite of this I would like to whisper a humble request into your ear: Would it be possible for you to produce these highly valuable videos in Russian as well? A lot of people out there may have difficulties with English - and yet they are very interested in learning interesting new facts. I studied linguistics through Russian myself and I see in your way of presenting things a brand new approach to didactics which I beleive will open the doors to science for many Russians of the younger generation. The world needs to progress - and this goes for the русский мир as well. Best wishes, Regnar

[@streifzugeledermann3039]

Hello Julie! You know a lot about the nature, relationships and origins of languages. Your extensive knowledge makes me curious if you would be willing to do a little experiment. Maybe you'd like it. It is all about: At some point in my youth I began to occasionally name things in my own language or to say something I wanted to express in my own language. I tried to empty my mind and free it from what was already known. My aim was to put into words the feelings I experienced when I looked at things and situations. The results was a language like this: "Biga de, miga bonna! Biga donka thi thoi biga?" (Welcome followed by a question.) "Isingaya" (A specific garden plant.) "Bellikikli belli a wi?" (Question about an observed process.) Do you have any idea of what I wanted to express with each word and sentence?

[@Figue-]

Really interesting video !

[@sjoc6162]

Awesome video, thanks!

[@toonatr356]

The best video you have ever done 👏🏻👏🏻

[@kunatix7033]

Hello! Could you do a video on the berber languages of North Africa (called Tamazight locally)? I think it would be a very interesting video on an unknown language with a unique history!

[@fredwood1490]

Something I've been working on, a philosophical study of primal language in Humans. Simply put, before you learned your native tongue, what langue did you use, in your own head? What language does a baby speak to themselves in? Some say they speak in flashes of ensite, of images and situations. If this is so, then what language do we speak to ourselves in as adults? To use a cultural language, you have to translate an idea into a symbol called a word, translate again for a written word, a read word, a sung word and so forth. You also have to control muscles and airflow, hand and finger motion, body language, hearing and sight and that's just for auditory and written language. A very complex and time consuming task. We can speak somewhat faster, use abbreviations and jargon or slang but, mostly, we have to slow down our thinking language. You might call it training our minds or, more likely, domesticating our minds. But, in times of need, we can and do use the original primal language to get us out of a dangerous situation, to tell ourselves what to do, sometimes called instinct or reflex. We see no inner conversation but that doesn't mean there isn't one, it's just too fast to translate to conscious thought and logical construction. Now, another part of this study concerns those with learning and language disabilities like ADD, ADHD, or Autism. Could it be that they are still using that primal language and have not learned the complex translation process to native language. They may not be thinking language disabled, but be thinking at a rate so fast we can't relate. Too, lacking communication skills means their experiences are limited and so their primal vocabulary might also be limited. My question here is, what can they communicate with at lightning speed and share perspectives with? Computer code comes to mind, simple 1s and 0s, in a sequence, but here my ignorance is very great. What sort of inner face could they use to talk with? Babies sometimes seem to talk with each other, in a primal language, how can those we call ADD and ADHD and so forth use the language they have to communicate, at least, with each other? I see these people as not disabled but, possibly, Homo Superior, the next step in Human evolution. the problem with Human-computer inner face, that I see is that, computers are fast but really stupid, they can't make leaps of logic or play hunches or, guess, everything needs to be precise and simple for them. (I am a firm believer that, until a computer can go crazy, they will never match human mental ability.) At this point, my ignorance overcomes my philosophy and I am at a loss for the next step.

[@pierresaelen3097]

It will be ethically incorrect, but one wonders what we would see if one would study the parts of the brain that are being activated (and in which sequence) per stage of a child's development towards speaking.

[@asoaziz9745]

thank you so much, lady you helped me well to find BUSSU is very important to me

[@jamesquigley9762]

I agree that making stone tools requires absract concepts so teaching the skill would give an evolutionarty advantage to developing language. The spin-off advantages in social skills would have accelerated the selection.

[@MrKaido93]

Awesome insightful video to make people think. The Tower of Babel comes to mind as the major dispensing of major human language.

[@DE-iv8if]

Super interesting Video !! :D

[@deanthroop8054]

I greatly appreciate that you recognize humans are not the only ones able to communicate. Orcas are able to communicate very complex messages, same with whales, and we are just starting to understand that plants communicate as well. Given plants super evolved biology, the potential is massive.

[@jodane6186]

Japanese floored me, too. The grammar! It's something, circular? Where English and German, which I do speak, are kind of linear, you go down a path. Sometimes I feel grammar is like music, the timing, the rules, the rhythm. What do you think?

[@rudolfo9697]

Your language videos are a world treasure, always exactly the important / interesting information and nothing else! You mentioned problems learning Japanese? OMG, Japanese has a clear simple grammar ... the opposite of Russian and (I guess) Latvian! Here's two hints I wish somebody had told me about learning Japanese: o Learn Chinese first! Chinese must be the simplest language, it's great! It is unrelated to Japanese, *but* Japanese absorbed vast vocabulary and some grammar from Chinese. Once you can identify the Chinese inside Japanese, you can subtract it out and see the clear Japanese structure. Plus, the huge portion of Japanese vocabulary that comes from Chinese will be familiar! o Know the 5 levels of spoken Japanese grammar! These are said to be: - imperial -- forget about it - formal - polite -- what us gaijins must use - casual - cursing -- forget about it For "formal", you will only need the dozen fixed social phrases that you must learn first anyhow, such as "yoroshiku onegai itashimasu". For "polite", this is for people who are not your relatives or intimate friends ... i.e. everybody you will meet. For "casual", you cannot use it since you have no Japanese relatives or intimate friends ... but it is well worth being able to understand what people are actually saying! Just walking down the street in Tokyo, I heard a mother say to her small child: Nani shteru no?! In polite form, which is what *we* must learn and use, that translates to: Nani wo shite imasu ka?! -- "What are you doing?!" Once you can separate the Chinese parts out of Japanese, and recognize polite vs. casual levels ... Japanese becomes a super friendly language.

[@solconcordia4315]

The U.S.A. State Department has a rating of how easily a language such as Japanese can be learnt by someone who speaks English. Both Chinese and Japanese are rated rather hard to be learnt by an English speaker. I wonder why Julie picked such a difficult language, Japanese, to learn. Maybe she wanted it as a challenge.

[@SzymonWeiss]

Great video. Thank you. Important remark is pronouncing Chomsky with tʃ⁠. +having in mind he's a sophisticated Russian troll.

[@GustavoLadeira42]

Great video, as always! I would just like to point something out, though... Primates like Koko, who have supposedly learned how to communicate through signals, actually didn't. Everything related to her life is shady, and all the works published by the "researchers" involved were not peer-reviewed. I think there's even a good video about that on KZbin. I was going to work with primates (more specifically, golden-headed tamarins) communication for my masters course, but I decided to quit Biology and learn JavaScript. :p EDIT: I also see you mentioned the inability of other apes to articulate words, but according to a 2016 study, their vocal tracts are actually 'speech-ready'. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1600723

[@videoreon]

Julia, thank you for new video! It's very interesting and stunning topic. Also, still it's unclear, was it once or many times, so have all currently existing languages some common ancestor proto-language? But, regarding brain functions, my point is that according to the new investigations, the scheme of separating functional areas inside our brain is incorrect, different areas could support different functional roles, so in very rough interpretation it is like multi-processor computer, where no special processors for particular type of calculations.

[@lawrencemckeon6802]

This is deep. And well presented.

[@JLandavega]

#linguistics #julingo Thanks for the informative content 🙌🏽

[@peterstern1375]

on the topic "origins of language" you might find interest in this book by the Italian Linguist Franco Fabbro "identità culturale e violenza". It's a book about the importance of language in shaping identity and he also looks into how religion works in similar ways. If I'm remembering well enough one theory about the origin of language appearing in the book is linked to music and starts about 80,000 years ago in Africa, connected to a major dry period which caused the extinction of pretty much all human species in Africa except for Sapiens (albeit outside of Africa some species would not go extinct yet, e.g. Neanderthal). I'm trying to put it short: during this period it was predominantly homo sapiens women that were feeding the communities by collection of tubers (wich then by cooking would turn starch into carbohydrates), men did not bring back much meat from hunting because of the drought, so conflict in the group would arise. To resolve this conflict the people would dance to a rhythm around the fire (I guess in the evening when cooking the tubers), this favoured the synchronization as they would also make sounds when dancing to the rhythm. Those not able to synchronize with the rhythm and sounds of the group would be marginalized or recognized as not belonging to the group, so there would be a strong incentive to synchronize and this enhanced the grammar/syntax/language capabilities (some rudimentary form of language was already existing before this evolution and present also amongst Neanderthal and Heidelbergensis, possibly even Erectus). There are also some theories that music was not part of the Neanderthal "culture" and that music and language allowed Sapiens to get organised in bigger groups, so when Sapiens and Neanderthal groups met the Neanderthal would dissolve into the bigger Sapiens group.

[@Palimbacchius]

This is a good summary of Sverker Johansson's "På Spaning efter Språkets Ursprung" (The Dawn of Language), though I think in fairness he might have deserved a mention.

[@sardamdar]

Great video

[@frankrault3190]

Hi Juli, Is there anything known about what are the oldest words that are still in use?

[@jamesquigley9762]

mama

[@NicolasRomeroVilla]

Excellent!

[@spark1025]

Man, what a great video! And I’ve noticed that cool green chair you are sitting in before in some of your other videos - can you say who the designer is? I would love to check it out.

[@AJAYSINGH-ns1vv]

Till now even scientist are not agree on any theory of how languages begin.

[@sladjor37]

I watch your several videos about different languages in the world, and I must admit that your approach on that kind of topic, is very professional. But what's about slavic languages ? I don't see anything yet. I will be very glad if you will find time and space ,to make some video on that topic. For the end, sorry for my bad english ,it's not my mother tongue . By the way I'm originally from Serbia, but currently live in Russia . All the best !

[@Serendip98]

I guess the most important verb in Russian language is : уничтожить.

[@TravisTellsTruths]

This is what I'm studying now. Origin of speaking and origin of "Written Alphabet!"

[@MrAdriansnny]

For sure so much thank you!

[@carolnorton2551]

...@2:43......"Chimps have a call for apples and a call for jackfruits".....but , sadly ,the Jackfruits never answered........

[@johnhouston7070]

Dear Julie, I am fascinated by your videos. The origins of language ? The origin of anything is at the same time the origin of purpose. The purpose of life is the creation of identity, this being the case because PREDISPOSITION requires it for self-expression. As the wise Socrates said, we all come into the world ' already equipped ' to do something with excellence. So we are predisposed. We exist for the sake of our predisposition. It was told by an astrologer that I was born to study philosophy, this situation brought about because I had a perfect conjunction of Mercury and Pluto in Leo ( 9th house ) to the same degree. What the astrologer said was correct. I am also a bass player although I have never had any lessons. That's predisposition for you. Everything that we do and which happens to us does so because it is fundamental to a process which is driven by predisposition. The Anthropic Principle is correct. We are unavoidable.

[@magicalflora5349]

Your videos are amazing can u please do an slovenian langauge video pleaseeeeee❤❤❤❤

[@kuzikays6570]

Nice knowledge

[@hantykje3005]

JuLino: I have always wondered why dogs and humans connect so easily. Just by hearing how a dog barks it is very easy for most of us humans to guest correctly how that dog feels at that moment. Do you have any thought on why it is like this?

[@osasunaitor]

Dogs are an "artificial" species. They were bred by humans and for humans, so naturally those humans artificially selected the dogs that could communicate easier with them. If a dog communicated in a way that was impossible to understand by humans, it wouldn't get selected.

[@skepticalfaith5201]

@@osasunaitor Possibly, and you can say the same thing about cats ( another “artificial” specie?). They have about a dozen different sounds they make and they’re very distinctive to their feelings

[@lingux_yt]

great video

[@michaelzapletal4638]

I'm wondering you always have found a beautiful lady for each language 😊. Dear Julie, you are doing a great work! Thank you!

[@aurelijusvijunas529]

Thank you for this video. I like your approach to teaching, and it's great to realize that in a talk like this, not a word was uttered about N. Chomsky (“Xomsky”, that is!).

[@ponnampalampanchalingam4857]

Thank you

[@doransshield9176]

Your channel is great. I only read about word etymologies because I noticed that the word for 4 almost always has an 'r' in it in almost all the languages. Another one was realizing that Zeus = Deus = Jupiter

[@tomkrehbiel]

Just got around to watching this video. I thought it was a really good summary of the subject. One of the items think is under emphasized when talking about the acquisition of speech is how humans breath. The evolved upright posture of humans required dramatic and unique changes to how humans breath relative to all other animals. This uniqueness was driven not by speech but by the evolution of bipedalism. The changes that occurred result in a decupling of breathing from excursion which gave human conscious breath control that is typically only seen in sea mammals. I believe conscious breath control is the key that lead to speech.

[@SpanishbyFede]

I could list the virtues of this video, but I'm just going to say that if there's any justice on KZbin, it's going to have millions of views soon. Congratulations!

[@pierrej8011]

Hi Juli, can you please vreate a video about irish? that'd be awesome :)

[@stjepanistra5238]

draga cucrie svaka ćast, pozdrav iz hrvatske

[@PlayNowWorkLater]

This is a fantastic breakdown of this process. Have you checked out Daniel Stern’s work, who studied early communications between mother and infant? There is an amazing section that breaks the elements down into musical forms. Pitch (up and down), speed and variation of speed like slowing down and speeding up. Volume level. There are some very interesting and measurable variables with this model.

[@JuLingo]

Thank you! I haven’t come across that work, but I’ll check it out thanks!

[@benjamincobosugarte5569]

The music in the background remind me that probably music was very influencial in the development of language, in some parts of africa the sounds of the drums was used to comunicate one village to the next, by the way i love the sound on f the balafon

[@josem.deteresa2282]

Interesting! However I was hoping to hear some of your thoughts on phonology, and maybe also on the relation from hand sign language to sound streams, not to mention something about the probable geographical origin of the first grammatical languages. So I hope you will comment on these points in later videos. A relative who is a linguist pointed out to me that click sounds, such as those which are common in Khoesan, are also produced by anthropoids.

[@Meditationalchemists]

You should check out the AstroTonality discovery that words, signatures are actually signs or waves of tonal frequency calculated by the Sumerian base of 6 Gematria. For example, Word is 360 as is holy is 360 as it is teacher. The tone of 360 is G All of the planets equal tones according to their signature or sign wave. We have developed a whole system that correlates astrological signatures into signs which are tones. The congruence of the archetypal names geometry and tonal degree frequency is mind blowing that shows the mind is a Monad of frequency sign wave measure.

[@johnfollowerofchrist]

Looks very interesting

[@wdmfan]

I used to think about it, in 1st-2nd grade, when they teach you about human evolution. Language evolution from lines to words, sound into language, etc. And my mind always went haywire, because my mind always went to- So basically words are nothing? Just different agreed upon sounds, by neanderthals? (before stone wheel revolution) & different neanderthals in different regions of the world used different lines and different sounds? Whatever bs someone is screaming at me (as a kid), is artificially created sounds, agreed upon by other humans to use and standardized? And it actually means nothing? My anxiety is fake because adults screaming words at me are just sound, agreed upon to mean something. In actuality is just vibration? And my mind went in weird meltdown, always. 😂😂

[@marrrtin]

Nice review of the evidence, and I believe that your chosen theories are a broadly plausible heuristic. As a mystery, for me, it is comparable to abiogenesis, the emergence of life from prebiotic chemistry. While in both fields we are still in a state of massive ignorance, in both we are groping towards more sophisticated guesses that may or may not be borne out by further evidence. I'm interested in the ways that language can gain and lose complexity, how dominant dialects emerge from conquest, migration and assimilation, and finally, the connections between language and music, another unique communication ability of hom sap, like language implicated in social binding and large cooperative groups.

[@skepticalfaith5201]

As far as abiogenesis and the creation of language, there is a good reason for our ignorance - it’s more likely provable that they COULDN’T happen. (I only add likely, because I don’t *know* that it is provable, but I strongly think it is.) Your comments on languages themselves are much more interesting, especially about the connection between language and music. We might get some answers to those eventually.

[@MonikaMystica]

I bet you'd think :Russel-Jay: Gould- is interesting. He syntaxes grammar. For true meaning via root words. 🙏❤️ Great video. Thank you!

[@henriquekatahira1653]

Hi Julie! If you like cats and languages you’ll love the channel Billi Speaks. Billi is a cat that communicate with her human mom by using buttons. She has a vocabulary of over 60 words and creates compound words.