Saturday, July 28, 2012
Tower Of Babel part I
The Tower of Babel (Hebrew: מגדל בבל Migdal Bavel Arabic: برج بابل Burj Babil), according to the Book of Genesis,was an enormous tower built in the plain of Shinar (Hebrew: שנער).
According to the biblical account, a united humanity of the generations following the Great Flood, speaking a single language and migrating from the east, came to the land of Shinar, where they resolved to build a city with a tower "with its top in the heavens...lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the Earth." God came down to see what they did and said: "They are one people and have one language, and nothing will be withholden from them which they purpose to do." So God said, "Come, let us go down and confound their speech." And so God scattered them upon the face of the Earth, and confused their languages, and they left off building the city, which was called Babel "because God there confounded the language of all the Earth." (Genesis 11:5-8).
The Tower of Babel has often been associated with known structures, notably the Etemenanki, a ziggurat dedicated to Marduk by Nabopolassar (c. 610 BC).
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Origin Of Language
I cannot doubt that language owes its origin to the imitation and modification, aided by signs and gestures, of various natural sounds, the voices of other animals, and man’s own instinctive cries.
The origin of language in the human species is a widely discussed topic. Despite this, there is no consensus on ultimate origin or age. Empirical evidence is limited, and many scholars continue to regard the whole topic as unsuitable for serious study. In 1866, the Linguistic Society of Paris went so far as to ban debates on the subject, a prohibition which remained influential across much of the western world until late in the twentieth century.[1] Today, there are numerous hypotheses about how, why, when, and where language might first have emerged.[2] It might seem that there is hardly more agreement today than there was a hundred years ago, when Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selectionprovoked a rash of armchair speculations on the topic.[3] Since the early 1990s, however, a growing number of professional linguists, archaeologists, psychologists, anthropologists, and others have attempted to address with new methods what they are beginning to consider "the hardest problem in science"
— Charles Darwin, 1871. The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex.
The origin of language in the human species is a widely discussed topic. Despite this, there is no consensus on ultimate origin or age. Empirical evidence is limited, and many scholars continue to regard the whole topic as unsuitable for serious study. In 1866, the Linguistic Society of Paris went so far as to ban debates on the subject, a prohibition which remained influential across much of the western world until late in the twentieth century.[1] Today, there are numerous hypotheses about how, why, when, and where language might first have emerged.[2] It might seem that there is hardly more agreement today than there was a hundred years ago, when Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selectionprovoked a rash of armchair speculations on the topic.[3] Since the early 1990s, however, a growing number of professional linguists, archaeologists, psychologists, anthropologists, and others have attempted to address with new methods what they are beginning to consider "the hardest problem in science"
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