Name: The Story of Human Language
Released: 2004-12-20T00:00:00.000Z
Cast: John Mcwhorter

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Linguist Dr. John McWhorter takes you on a fascinating, 36-lecture tour of the development of human language—he unfolds the story of how a single tongue spoken 300,000 years ago may have evolved into the estimated 7,000 languages used worldwide today. Discover why, for the past century, linguistics has been one of the most exciting and productive fields in the social sciences.

Special Interest · 2004 · 28 دقائق

بطولة John Mcwhorter

الحلقة 1

What Is Language?

Professor John McWhorter introduces the course by exploring two questions: What distinguishes the language ability of humans from the signaling system of animals, and when did humans first acquire language?

27 دقائق · 20 ديسمبر 2004
الحلقة 2

When Language Began

We look at evidence that language is an innate ability of the human brain, an idea linked to Noam Chomsky. But many linguists and psychologists see language as one facet of cognition rather than as a separate ability.

30 دقائق · 20 ديسمبر 2004
الحلقة 3

How Language Changes: Sound Change

The first of five lectures on language change examines how sounds evolve, exemplified by the Great Vowel Shift in English and the complex tone system in Chinese.

30 دقائق · 20 ديسمبر 2004
الحلقة 4

How Language Changes: Building New Material

Language change is not just sound erosion and morphing, but the building of new words and constructions. This lecture shows how such developments lead to novel grammatical features.

30 دقائق · 20 ديسمبر 2004
الحلقة 5

How Language Changes: Meaning and Order

The meaning of a word changes over time. Silly first meant "blessed" and acquired its current sense through a series of gradual steps. Word order also changes: In Old English, the verb usually came at the end of a sentence.

31 دقائق · 20 ديسمبر 2004
الحلقة 6

How Language Changes: Many Directions

The first language has evolved into 6,000 because language change takes place in many directions. Latin split in this way into the Romance languages as changes proceeded differently in each area where the Romans brought Latin.

29 دقائق · 20 ديسمبر 2004

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The Story of Human Language

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