• Question: why is there different languages?

    Asked by the wheeler dealer to Angela, Claire, Ian, Robert, Sarah on 18 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Angela Stokes

      Angela Stokes answered on 18 Nov 2014:

      Good question.
      Language developed because teaching another person how to use tools and do things like hunt, share and protect resources like food and shelter needs an agreed vocabulary, so small groups of people living together would develop their own way to communicate with each other. So language 1 develops.

      A similar group of people living in a different part of the world from them, would do the same but the languages would probably not be even similar as they had developed separately. This could be language 2

      So these small groups of people, living in isolation from one another, had their own ‘language’ but if another group migrated into the area, or came to trade, the groups had to find a way to communicate so the languages sort of merged. This merged language could be language 3.

      Over time, some languages have developed, and as some races conquered others, some languages have died out. So you can see how many languages could have developed;
      even now if you consider the UK and the USA we both say we speak English – but there are words in both languages that mean different things eg if you asked for a biscuit in USA you would get a scone!

    • Photo: Ian Cade

      Ian Cade answered on 18 Nov 2014:

      Not much to add to Angela’s answer… but its interesting to note that within Europe almost every language is quite closely related (Everyone speaks ‘Indo-European Languages’… except for the Finns, Estonians, Hungarians, who speak ‘Fino-Ugaric Languages’ and Turks who speak a ‘Turkic language’).

      It may be difficult to see that English and Greek are similar (they are not *very* similar)… but for example, English, German, Danish and Norwegian are clearly fairly similar. English and French are also quite similar. And Italian and Spanish are perhaps even more closely related.

      These close similarities are obviously the result of the invasions and intermarriages between for example the English, Germans, French and Vikings.

      The general similarity of all Indo Eropean languages however, dates from much earlier. This similarity presumably means that there was a group of people from somewhere near the Black and Caspian Seas that colonised Europe and India, thousands of years ago bringing with them their common language.

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