Angol nyelvi szakszöveggyűjtemény [antikvár]

The Nature and Origin of LanguageLike most words that are often used, the world language has many senses. We will do well to begin our discussion by sorting out the main ones and seeing how they are related to one another. The English language, the language of mathematics, deaf-mutes' language, "the subtle language of a woman's eyes" -all these legitimate senses differ so much that some of them, at least, must represent special uses, extensions, or generalizations that have grown up in the course of time, presumably from some basic core of meaning. What is that core? Without indulging in the etymological fallacy of thinking that the earliest meaning of a word must necessarily be the "right" one, we may yet note that language is derived from lingua, the Latin word for tongue, which in this case correctly emphasizes speech as the basic thing in language. For our present purposes we may define as follows: Language is the vocal and audible medium of human communication. And, having stated this definition, we must next consider each part of it, clarifying where necessary."To say that language is vocal and audible immidiately puts aside everything written - and that is as it should be. For writing is a record of language, and is therefore on a different plane altogether. People spoke long before any means of record was invented, and the records we make today (in print, or on disks, wires, tapes, photographic film, and so forth) would have no meaning if they could not be translated back into speech. True, they do not always need to be translated so; communication may take place altogether on this second level, as when a deaf person leams to read silently the new "visible speech. " For to a practised reader the words on a page need not suggest sounds at all. He has learned to respond directly to what he sees: he has a short cut through the eye that eliminates the ear. This does not change the system, however, which began as a record of speech, and is always potentially retranslatable.The dots and dashes of the Morse Code are on still a third level, since they are substitutes for the letters with which we spell out our records of speech; and with them are the gestures of the deaf-mute, also substitutes for the letters of a system of writing. In short, our definition recognizes that the basis of language is speech, whatever other structures may be built upon it.Since gesture has been mentioned, we may ask here whether it is not language. The American Indians had a system of signs once widely used as a kind of diplomatic code by tribes whose dialects were mutually unintelligible. TTie gestures were conventionalized, and they served for communication, but- 3 -