By the same time, humans had developed brains which were as large as modern humans. Studies of the fossils of early humans suggest that the shape of the vocal tract - the part of the throat where sounds are made - may have changed about 70,000 years ago in such a way as to enable early humans to make a much wider range of sounds. It is also possible that early humans made sounds that imitated things that they heard in the natural world around them. It is possible that human language began as a refinement of these instinctive calls. Some animals have a wide range of calls which they make instinctively when they see food, potential threats, rivals or mates. Language development - the steady growth and change of a language languages took over a thousand years to get to what we speak today.Īnthropologists (experts on humanity) have many different theories about how human language developed. In fact, the English spoken only six hundred years ago would be almost unrecognizable to us today! People didn't just decide one day to start speaking. You can also express brand new thoughts, create brand new sentences, and still be understood by your listeners. Using English, or Russian, or Japanese, you can express a wide variety of different thoughts. The number of thoughts that you can express with them is very limited. Traffic signs work very well for some signals, but you can not say 'I've eaten pizza today' by using traffic signs.

Can we speak about 'Traffic signs language'? Not really. So they are a kind of communication system. The traffic signs work in the same way: drivers know when they have to turn left or right or to go slower.

For example, when you see a red traffic light, it is just the same as if somebody said to you 'You should not cross the street now'.

There are some things that work like language. We can say that language is a code of symbols used to communicate. Reading and writing are a way of representing language in a permanent format, but many languages have no written form. You won't see this message or any elements not part of the book's content when you print or preview this page.Ī language is an organised, ordered way of speaking and listening. This is the print version of Wikijunior:Languages

Pidgin to da max hana hou