Why is it impossible to reconstruct the first language, or even prove that there was one?
Focus on concrete reasons. What evidence do we have? How old are languages and how fast do they change?
Instructor solution
It is impossible to reconstruct a first language because language is too old, records of language do not go back far enough, and languages change too much, too quickly to reconstruct them far back enough. To be specific, it is believed that fully developed human languages probably existed at least 50,000 years ago, when there is first a lot of evidence for culture, such as paintings, ritual graves, and other meaningful symbolic artifacts. And language might go back as far as 250,000 years when anatomically modern humans first existed. But records of language only go back a little more than 5,000 years to Egyptian, Sumerian, and Hittite. And languages change so fast that if they're not written down they can change completely within a few hundred or, at most about ten thousand, years.
Think you've got it?
Which of the following claims about language origins is most provable / disprovable?
- A.
The Indo-European languages originated near Turkey 6-8,000 years ago.
- B.
Language first developed to facilitate hunting during the stone age.
- C.
Human beings had languages 50,000 years ago.
- D.
All languages are descended from one mother language.
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