E-book

SPEECH
And

LANGUAGES

By

Tamarapu Sampath Kumaran

About the Author

Mr T Sampath Kumaran is a freelance writer. He regularly contributes articles on

Management, Business, Ancient Temples, and Temple Architecture to many
leading Dailies and Magazines.
His articles are popular in “The Young World section” of THE HINDU. His e-
books on nature, environment and different cultures of people around the world are
educative and of special interest to the young.
He was associated in the production of two Documentary films on Nava Tirupathi
Temples, and Tirukkurungudi Temple in Tamilnadu.

Acknowledgement:
I wish to express my gratitude to the authors from whose works I gathered the
details for this book, Courtesy, Google for the photographs.
Basic communication skills are important in every walk of life.

Bees are one of the most intelligent insects in the animal world. Not only do they
have their own sophisticated means of communication, they also have
extraordinary navigation skills despite the fact that their eyesight is limited.

It’s common knowledge that honey bees can communicate with each other. They
perform a series of movements called a “waggle dance” to tell each other where
food is located or which spot is best for building a new colony

Killer whales produce sounds for two overlapping functions: communicating and
navigation

Birds can speak in phrases and use grammar. Great tits produce their calls in a
specific order to convey complex messages to each other.

One of the key differences between humans and non-human animals is the ability
to flexibly communicate our thoughts to others.

Animals have souls, emotions and spiritual paths just as we humans do. Their
personalities are as diverse as ours.
Whale song, wolf howls, frog croaks and bird chirps are complex forms of
communication - just like human speech, according to new research.

These creatures may not be able to master advanced language techniques, but their
unique calls are much more than just random noises, as per a study by research
scholars.

The 'speech' of seven different species of birds and mammals has been found that
they appear to be generated by processes similar to how we speak.

Most of the animals, some plants too, pass information in different ways, Flavors,
smells, movements, body language, expressions. If by talking, you mean audio
transmission of information, there are some that do it, but mostly along with
gestures.

Wolves have different howls that mean different

things, but we are not sure if their howls form speech, because they rely on various
other ways, pass information, and so all of that should constitute the language
together if they have one.

Language is one of the most remarkable characteristics that separate humans from
other animals. Despite the many remarkable abilities of non-human animals, and
despite the hopes and dreams of many animal lovers, animals do not have language
like humans do, but they do have basic ways of communicating with each other,
There was a time when human beings used to communicate via gestures and
primitive oral sounds.

All social animals communicate with each other, from bees and ants to whales and
apes, but only humans have developed a language which is more than a set of pre-
arranged signals.

Our speech even differs in a physical way from the communication of other
animals. It comes from a cortical speech center which does not respond
instinctively, but organises sound and meaning on a rational basis. This section of
the brain is unique to humans.

The origins of human language will perhaps remain forever obscure. By contrast
the origin of individual languages has been the subject of very precise study over
the past two centuries.

When and how the special talent of language developed is impossible to say. But it
is generally assumed that its evolution must have been a long process. Our
ancestors were probably speaking a million years ago, but with a slower delivery, a
smaller vocabulary and above all a simpler grammar than we are accustomed to.
Ever since human beings have invented scripts, writing has reflected the culture
and lifestyle, society and the polity of contemporary society. In the process each
culture evolved its own language and created a huge literary base. This literary
base of civilization tells us about the evolution of each of its languages and culture
through the span of centuries.

The concept of structured language came into existence around 10,000 years ago
via scriptures. The origin of first-ever language is highly debated as there are
several media of communication that can be attributed as language. However,
linguists have studied thousands of languages and have come to a conclusion that
the age of a language should be calculated by its first appearance in texts and its
contemporary use.

Just like Vista is supposed to be from around 500-600 BCE, Vedic Sanskrit is also
around 300-400 BCE. Dating is extremely difficult and only reasonable guesses
are made. It is probably true that Tamil and Sanskrit are the oldest languages of
India

The earliest example of the language can be traced back to 300 BC, but its origin is
believed to be during 2500 BC or so. In today's world, around 78 million people in
the world speak Tamil. It is this fact of contemporary utility that makes Tamil the
longest surviving language in the world
Considered to be the 'language of the Gods', Sanskrit is the ancient language of
India. The earliest example of this language can be found in the second millennium
BC. The language is still spoken by small group of people. The influence of
Sanskrit on several western languages is known to all. The basic language of
computers were also constructed along the principles of Sanskrit

Once upon a time all prominent philosophers and scholars of the world used to
think, speak and write Greek. The language dates back to around 1500 BC. At
present, around 13 million people living in Greece and Cyprus. It is also
recognized as an official language by the European Union

Chinese is the first language for the most number of people in the world. Around
1.2 billion people consider Chinese to be their first language. The origin of the
language has been traced back to 1250 BC in the late Shang dynasty. Along with
Tamil, Chinese is one of the oldest surviving languages in the world that has this
much contemporary value.

It is believed by many that Hebrew has been used for the last 5000 years. However,
the earliest example of Hebrew has been found around 1000 BC. The language
ceased to be a spoken tongue from 200 CE to 400 CE. At present, around 9 million
people speak Hebrew across the world

Latin is one of the oldest classical languages that have survived through the winds
of time. Like Sanskrit, Latin has also influenced numerous languages over the
course of time. The earliest appearance of this language can be traced back to the
days of the Roman Empire, which was formed around 75 BC. Latin is still the
official language of Poland and the Vatican City and is still learned by millions
around the world.

At present, around 290 million people consider Arabic as their first language. The
earliest example of Arabic inscription dates back to 512 CE. Middle-East countries
like UAE, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait,
Oman and others use Arabic for official documents and consider it as their native
language.

Origins of language

The origins of human language will perhaps remain forever obscure. By contrast
the origin of individual languages has been the subject of very precise study over
the past two centuries.

There are about 5000 languages spoken in the world today (a third of them in
Africa), but scholars group them together into relatively few families - probably
less than twenty. Languages are linked to each other by shared words or sounds or
grammatical constructions. The theory is that the members of each linguistic group
have descended from one language, a common ancestor. In many cases that
original language is judged by the experts to have been spoken in surprisingly
recent times - as little as a few thousand years ago.

Linguistic groups: from 3000 BC

The most widespread group of languages today is the Indo-European, spoken by
half the world's population. This entire group, ranging from Hindi and Persian to
Norwegian and English, is believed to descend from the language of a tribe of
nomads roaming the plains of eastern Europe and western Asia (in modern terms
centering on the Ukraine) as recently as about 3000 BC.

From about 2000 BC people speaking Indo-European languages begin to spread

through Europe, eventually reaching the Atlantic coast and the northern shores of
the Mediterranean. They also penetrate far into Asia - occupying the Iranian
plateau and much of India

Another linguistic group, of significance in the early history of west Asia and still
of great importance today, is the Semitic family of languages. These also are
believed to derive from the language of just one tribal group, possibly nomads in
southern Arabia.

By about 3000 BC Semitic languages are spoken over a large tract of desert
territory from southern Arabia to the north of Syria. Several Semitic peoples play a
prominent part in the early civilization of the region, from
the Babylonians and Assyrians to the Hebrews and Phoenicians. And one Semitic
language, Aramaic, becomes for a while the Lingua franca of the Middle East.

Language and race.

A shared linguistic family does not imply any racial link, though in modern times
this distinction has often been blurred. Within the Indo-European family, for
example, there is a smaller Indo-Iranian group of languages, also known as Aryan,
which are spoken from Persia to India. In keeping with a totally unfounded racist
theory of the late 19th century, the Nazis chose the term Aryan to identify a blond
master race. Blond or not, the Aryans are essentially a linguistic rather than a
genetic family.

The same is true of the Semitic family, including two groups which have played a
major part in human history - the Jews and the Arabs.

Enclaves of language
On a Linguistic map of the world, most of the great language families occupy one
distinct and self-contained territory. The two exceptions are the Indo-European and
the Finno-Ugric groups.

In modern times the Indo-European languages have spread across the globe - to
North and South America, Australia and New Zealand - as a result of European
colonialism. But the intermingling of Indo-European and Finno-Ugric, forming a
patchwork quilt across Europe, has come about for a different and earlier reason.
Finland, together with Estonia on the opposite shore of the Baltic, forms one
isolated pocket of the Finno-Ugric group (the Finn part). Hungary is another (the
Ugric element).

The cause of this wide separation is the great plateau of Europe which Finn- Ugric
and Indo-European tribes have shared and fought over through the centuries. The
ancestral language of the Finns, Estonians and Hungarians was once spoken in a
compact region between the Baltic and the Ural mountains, until these people were
scattered by Indo-European pressure.

Latin and German: from the 5th century

Over the course of history languages continually infiltrate each other, as words are
spread by conquest, empire, trade, religion, technology or - in modern times -
global entertainment.

A good surviving example of this process is the line in Western Europe dividing
the Romance languages (those deriving from a 'Roman' example) from the
Germanic tongues. The Romance family includes Italian, French, Spanish,
Portuguese and Romanian (the result of a successful Roman campaign in the 2nd
century AD). The Germanic group is English, Dutch, Flemish, German, Danish,
Norwegian, Swedish and Icelandic. France and the peninsula of Spain were
sufficiently stable regions in the Roman world to retain the influence of Latin after
the collapse of the empire. The Germanic areas east and north of the Rhine were
never fully brought under Roman control (the exact linguistic dividing line
survives in modern Belgium, with its population speaking French in the south and
Flemish in the north).
England was safely within the empire for three centuries. But the Romanized Celts
were not strong enough to resist the invading German tribes, the Angles and the
Saxons. Their languages prevailed in the form of Anglo-Saxon.

Modern English occupies a middle position within the western European family of
languages, with its vocabulary approximately half Germanic and half Romance in
origin.

The reason is not Britannia's relatively fragile position within the Roman Empire.
The cause is more recent, in the Norman Conquest. After seizing northwest France
and adopting the local language, the Normans arrive in England with French as an
essential part of their cultural baggage. Several centuries of rule by Norman
aristocrats and bureaucrats bring Latin words back into the language of England
through the medium of medieval French.

Linguistic evolution

The ongoing struggle between languages is a process very similar to evolution. A

word, like a gene, will travel and prevail according to its usefulness. A word's
fitness to survive may derive from being attached to a desirable new invention or
substance, or simply from being an amusing or useful concept.

As with evolution, the development of language is an irresistible force - though

traditionalists invariably attempt to build barriers against change. The useful word
'hopefully' (long available to Germans as hoffentlich, and meaning 'it is to be hoped
that') has in recent years been steamrollered into the English language by the public
against howls of protest from the purists.

On a grander scale, the French government from time to time legislates

ineffectually against English words straying into French. These are the hybrids
described as Franglais.

Imperial tongues

The French neurosis about being tainted by English (though the intrusion is trivial
compared to the overwhelming effect of Normal French on English in the past) is
linked to a wider aspect of the evolutionary struggle between languages.

In more recent times English - first through the British Empire, but more
significantly through American world dominance in the 20th century - has replaced
French in this role. English in the late 20th century is in the fortunate position of
being the lingua franca at an unusual moment. For the first time in history, a global
language is needed for practical purposes (by scientists, by airline pilots).
Meanwhile a communication system is in place to spread some knowledge of the
English language to a mass international audience through radio, television and the
internet.

The imperial power underpinning American English as a lingua franca is for the
first time cultural and economic rather than military. The pattern of history insists
that English is not likely to be the world's final lingua franca. Others will come and
go. It is also true to say that the predominance of English depends on its spread
rather than the total number speaking it.

Chinese is spoken by more people than English (albeit in only one region of the
world), and Chinese economic power lies in the future. But the complexity of
Chinese perhaps makes it an unlikely rival candidate. One of the great advantages
of English is that it is easy to speak at a simple level, though immensely complex
in its idiom.

New languages from old

Meanwhile the evolutionary processes go on. Already there are many varieties of
English in use. The Pidgin English flourishing in New Guinea is baffling to an
outsider; originally devised as a practical business language, reduced to its simplest
elements, it has evolved its own rich character. In the same way English-speaking
communities in the West Indies or in India (not to mention America) have
developed local words, phrases and constructions which give their own version of
the language a special colour.

More troubling is the fact that what we refer to simply as “Chinese” is actually a
whole family of languages conveniently lumped into a single category. “Hindi” is
also used as a catchall term to cover numerous dialects and sub-dialects. We
haven’t even yet acknowledged the unreliability of data sources, collected at
different times by different institutions.
But then again, who doesn’t love a good list?
1. Chinese

Numbers vary widely — Ethnologies puts the number of native speakers at

almost 1.2 billion native speakers, roughly a billion of whom speak Mandarin
— but there’s no doubt it’s the most spoken language in the world. If you
wish to learn a language that one in six people in the world speak, this is the
one for you. Seeing as Chinese is a tonal language that uses logograms, it will
certainly keep you busy.
2. Spanish

If we were only to look at native speakers, Spanish has its nose in front of English
with about 400 million speakers. If you want a language that will open up whole
continents to you, Spanish is your best bet. As with all the languages on this list,
the politics of language and associated identity are highly disputed: ask Catalan or
Quechua speakers if Spanish is their local tongue and you will get a very different
answer but it is certainly the primary language of most of South. and Central
America, Spain, and, ahem, large swathes of the US.
3. English

If you’re reading this article, you may be one of the 360 million-odd native English
speakers, or one of the half a billion people who speak it as a second language.
This indicates the remarkable success of English as the lingua franca of business,
travel and international relations. The relative ease with which English can be
picked up (especially compared with Chinese) and the pervasive soft power of US
culture means that English will continue to dominate the world stage. For some,
English is still synonymous with opportunity and a better quality of life.
4. Hindi

India has 23 official languages, with Hindi/Urdu chief among them. Whether this
is one language — Hindustani — or two dialects, is still fiercely debated. Spoken
mainly in northern India and parts of Pakistan, Hindi uses devnagri script, while
Urdu uses Persian notation. At the time of writing, the debate about its role in
Indian education and society has once again flared up: Prime Minister Narendra
Modi, a Hindu nationalist, is seeking to have Hindi displace English in the
southern Indian states as the primary language of official communication and
education, a strategy that has been met with resistance. If you ever travel in the
Indian subcontinent, a little Hindi will get you a long way. Plus, this is the
language that gave us shampoo, jungle, jodhpurs and bungalow — what’s not to
love?
5. Arabic

Recent numbers put Arabic at around 250 million native speakers. But this is
another instance of numbers not telling the full tale: Arabic, like Chinese, is as
vastly different in its respective dialects as to be effectively a number of languages,
grouped as one for the sake of convenience. Modern Standard Arabic is a primarily
written form, closely related to the Classical Arabic of the Quran. However, the
spoken forms of Arabic in, say, Oman and Morocco are so different that a couple
of philosophy professors from these countries might be able to discuss the finer
points of the ancient texts while struggling to order lunch.

6. Portuguese

This is another language whose reach owes much to its colonial past. Starting in
the 15th century, avid Portuguese traders and conquerors brought their language to
Africa, Asia and the Americas. The spread of Portuguese may have initially been
tied to European colonization, but the colonized countries developed their own
vibrant cultures that transformed the language forever. Today, Portuguese is
spoken by 215 million native speakers in countries like Brazil, Goa, Angola,
Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Macau.
It’s also the language of Machado de Assis, Bossa Nova, Mia Couto, Fernando
Pessoa, and Agualusa.
7. Bengali

Admit it: you didn’t expect Bengali to be on this list. The Partition of Bengal by
the British in 1947 divided (mainly Hindu) West Bengal, now part of India, from
its (mainly Muslim) counterpart East Bengal, now Bangladesh. It is the language
of Kolkata, of the Andaman Islands, of fabulous sweets, and of 170-odd million
Bangladeshis, many of whom are extremely vulnerable to climate change; by the
next century, the population is projected to double while 15% of the land area is
expected to disappear below rising seas.
8. Russian

With roughly 170 million native speakers as of 2010, Russian is the eighth
most spoken language in the world. Famed for its inscrutable grammar and
quite lovely Cyrillic script, it remains one of the six languages spoken in the
UN, and produced the literary likes of Dostoyevsky, Nabokov, Chekhov,
Gogol, Tolstoy and Pushkin.

9. Japanese
Almost all of the 130 million native Japanese speakers live in Japan — certainly
the most highly geographically concentrated of all the languages on this list.
Japanese boasts two distinct writing systems, hiragana and katakana, as well
making extensive use of Chinese Kanji characters. The largest groups living
outside Japan can be found in the US, the Philippines and Brazil.
10. Punjabi

With varying estimates of around 100 million native speakers, last spot on the list
goes to… Punjabi! (Sorry, German — you got dumped from top world languages a
few years back.) Spoken in large tracts of India and Pakistan, the Punjab was sliced
in two by the British when they left, and millions of people were forced to abandon
their homes, businesses and families. But they’re slowly taking their revenge,
Bollywood-style: Punjabi songs now account for 50% of chart-toppers.
The four Dravidian languages Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam developed
their own Literature. Tamil being the oldest of these languages began writing
earlier and produced the Sangam literature - the oldest literature in Tamil.
Tamil as a written language was known since the beginning of the Christian era. It
is, therefore, no wonder that considerable Sangama literature was produced in the
early four centuries of the Christian era, although it was finally compiled by 600
AD. Poets who in these assemblies were patronised by kings and chieftains
produced the Sangama literature over a period of three to four centuries. Poets,
bards and writers, authors came from various parts of South India to Madurai. Such
assemblies were called “Sangamas”, and the literature produced in these
assemblies was called “Sangama literature”. The contributions of Tamil saints like
Thiruvalluvar who wrote ‘Kural’ which has been translated into many
Languages are noteworthy. The Sangama literature is a collection of long and short
poems composed by various poets in praise of numerous heroes and heroines. They
are secular in nature and of a very high quality. Three such sangams were held.
The poems collected in the first sangam have been lost. In the second Sangam
about 2000 poems have been collected.
There are about 30,000 lines of poetry, which are arranged in eight anthologies
called Ettuttokoi. There are two main groups – the Patinenkil Kanakku (the
eighteen lower collections) and Pattupattu (the ten songs). The former is generally
assumed to be older than the latter, and considered to be of more historical
importance. Thiruvallurar’s work ‘Kural’ is divided into three parts. The first part
deals with the epics, the second part with polity and government and the third part
with love.
Besides the Sangama texts, we have a text called Tolkkappiyam, which deals with
grammar and poetry. In addition, we have the twin epics of Silappadikaram and
Manimekalai. These two were composed around the sixth century AD. The first is
considered as the brightest gem of Tamil literature and deals with a love story. The
second epic was written by a grain merchant of Madurai. These epics throw light
on the socio-economic life of Tamils from second century to sixth century AD.
From the 6th to 12th century AD, the Tamil devotional poems written by
Nayanmars (saints who sang in praise of Shaivism) and Alvars herald the great
Bhakti movement which engulfed the entire Indian sub-continent. During this
period, Kambaramayanam and Periya Puranam were two Tamil literary classic
writers.is a Dravidian language predominantly spoken by the Tamil people of India
and Sri Lanka, and by the Tamil diaspora, Sri Lankan Moors, Burghers, Douglas,
and Chindians. Tamil is an official language of two countries: Sri Lanka and
Singapore.
Tamil is the fifth-most-spoken language in India by total speakers (66,742,402).
The top 10 languages by number of native speakers in India are: Hindi, Bengali,
Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Kannada, Gujarati, Odia, Malayalam.