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語言和語言學 – 開欄文
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瀏覽3,493 ｜回應13｜推薦1 |
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語言的重要性不需我強調。到目前為止，人們對語言的起源和演化所知不多。語言對人心理與思考的影響更是讓科學家摸不著頭腦。本城市過去也刊登了一些這方面的研究報告。本欄先轉登兩篇相關文章。
第一篇討論關於語言起源以及使用語言所必須具有的先決條件(請見本欄第二篇文章)；它們包括身體結構和大腦功能等等面向。
今年是微軟「書寫軟體」發行40周年紀念。第二篇討論微軟「書寫軟體」對一般人在使用語言上的微妙影響(請見本欄第三篇文章)。此文和《網際網路的起源和演化》參看，我們可以體會到技術做為文化的一部分，它是如何在不知不覺中影響著人類的生活。
我計畫抽空整合本城市討論/報導過的各個重要議題；第一步是把相關文章的標題附上超連結合輯起來，以便搜尋。第二步則是把我對它們的觀點做系統性的陳述。
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語言功能：了解「意在言外」 - The Female Code
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我轉載這篇文章的目的是提醒：「語言的『多功能』性質」；以及顯示：奧斯汀的「語言等同行動理論」。故置於此欄。
不過，我們為人處世總要留點空間；畢竟，不是每個光棍都有資格自以為是「黃金單身漢」。因此，掌握「語言的『多功能』性質」，加上堅持「事不過三」這個底線，或許可以幫助各位在處對象過程中不受傷害，又能找到最般配的另一半。
The 4 Words Women Use to Control You (Before You Even Notice What’s Happening)
Learn the subtle language that reveals her true intentions — and regain control before you get emotionally played.
The Female Code, 12/02/25
It happens all the time.
You meet a woman, the connection is strong, the chemistry is electric, and then… something shifts. The energy changes. You start feeling less like an equal partner in the dynamic and more like a hopeful spectator watching her life from the sidelines.
So many confusing signals.
Most men assume that manipulation or a woman’s disinterest always shows up in grand, dramatic actions — the silence, the mixed signals, the obvious “games.” But the truth is far more subtle and far more insidious.
The real game hides in language.
The Silent Power of Linguistic Framing
Language is influence. Whoever shapes the meaning of an interaction controls the emotional dynamic that follows. Psychologists call this linguistic framing, and it’s a powerful tool. A single phrase, a carefully chosen word, can fundamentally change how you feel about the situation before your conscious mind even realizes what’s happening.
Women understand this instinctively. When she controls the words, she controls the emotion that is triggered in you. It’s not about what she says; it’s about what that word signals regarding your value and position in her life.
This is why you feel so frustrated. You hear what she says, but you’re blind to what she’s signaling.
Once you learn to recognize these linguistic patterns — the four subtle words that are indicators of leverage, not connection — everything changes. You stop reacting to her words and start reading her actual intentions.
Let’s break down the four phrases that women use to establish control before they start draining your emotional resources and, more importantly, how to flip the script immediately.
1.“I’ve just been so busy.”
“Busy” is the ultimate word of control. When she constantly replies, “I’ve just been so busy,” she is not complaining about her schedule; she is activating a screening process. She’s testing how much effort you will invest with a minimal or nonexistent reward.
The immediate pain point for most men is thinking, “If I just wait patiently, she’ll make time for me.”
But that’s not the mechanism at play. She is gauging your patience, because to her, patience equals submission. She’s conditioning you through a classic behavioral science principle known as intermittent attention. Behavioral scientist B.F. Skinner proved decades ago that unpredictable rewards create the strongest, most enduring pursuit.
You text. She delays. She finally replies just enough to reset your hope, and your brain lights up like you’ve won a prize, even though you’ve won nothing at all. She is conditioning you to chase her absence.
The Flip: Silence the Tension
You don’t need to confront her. You don’t need to explain your frustration or demand a better schedule. You simply stop showing up.
Silence creates the same tension she tried to control. When she realizes she can’t provoke a reaction, her “busy” narrative collapses. Her schedule suddenly clears up, because the man who refuses to compete for her time is the one she is forced to start competing for.
2.“Maybe, I’ll let you know.”
Maybe is the softest, most comfortable cage she can put you in. It’s not a yes, and it’s not a firm no; it is a hold.
When she uses this word, she’s essentially keeping you accessible and on standby while she checks her other options or prioritizes different plans. This is a measure of her power — she’s gauging if you will stay utterly accessible and without direction, seeing if your self-respect bends when her attention disappears.
The pain point here is that men confuse silence with being polite. You think waiting shows interest, but waiting only shows weakness. Your time is, in fact, finite and valuable. When you give her an endless window of accessibility, you signal that you have no other priorities.
The Flip: Treat Maybe as No
Correct this immediately by treating “maybe” as an absolute no.
Do this not with attitude or resentment, but with utter certainty. You are simply moving on with your life and making other plans. When you act like your time is inherently limited and valuable — because it is — she is forced to treat it that way, too.
The moment she realizes she cannot stall you, she has two inevitable options:
she either commits and locks down a real plan, or
she loses you entirely.
In both scenarios, your power is fully restored.
3.“You’re such a good friend.”
Friend is not a connection; it is a demotion.
When she labels you a “good friend,” she is not being nice; she is definitely labeling your position. Women categorize men immediately: dominant, provider, placeholder (備胎), or emotional outlet (發洩情緒對象). Friend means she views you as a resource without reward.
You become her emotional sounding board — her validation, her comfort, her constant attention — with zero physical or romantic reciprocity (回報). She gets all the gain, and you get emotionally drained. This is not a true friendship; it is a parasitic dynamic you trained her to expect. She knows you will always answer, always listen, and, most crucially, always stay.
The Flip: Remove Access
You remove the access she has come to expect.
This isn’t done to punish her; it’s done to reset the entire dynamic (互動關係). When she feels your total absence, her body reads it as an immediate loss (身受失落之苦). Loss is the trigger for evaluation. She will either upgrade the way she treats you and the position you hold, or she will disappear completely, confirming your position was simply a placeholder.
The outcome is a 100% win for you, because the man who strategically withdraws his attention from manipulation always comes back stronger and of higher value.
4.“We’ll hang out soon.”
“Soon” sounds like interest, but it’s actually a perfected mechanism of avoidance (躲掉/避開奧步). It’s her way of keeping you emotionally attached to a future that never, ever arrives.
“We’ll hang out soon,” “I’ll text you soon,” “I’ll be ready soon.” She is pacifying you. This is a tactic of temporal delay reinforcement — promising a future reward so you ignore the present neglect. Most men fall for it because hope feels productive.
But hope without proof is a trap. If a woman genuinely wants to see you, there is no “soon.” There is a plan.
When she defaults to that word, you must step back instantly and draw a clear boundary. Boundaries reveal truth far faster than words ever can.
The Flip: Demand the Plan
When she realizes she can’t delay you into submission, she is left with only two choices:
step up and define a concrete plan, or
disappear.
Both outcomes instantly expose her true intentions, and once you have clarity, you stop being confused.
The Final Shift to Control
Women don’t reveal their true motives in long, dramatic paragraphs. They reveal them in these single words: busy, maybe, friend, soon.
These aren’t casual phrases. They are indicators of leverage. Each one tells you exactly where she believes your value stands in her priorities.
The man who reacts to them loses ground. The man who observes, adjusts, and maintains his composure gains it. A woman doesn’t respect the man who chases clarity; she respects the man who already possesses it because he values himself enough to not tolerate uncertainty.
Power is not in what you say back. It is in what you no longer feel you have to respond to.
When you stop reacting to weak, mediocre language and start holding the line on your own value, she is the one who starts adjusting to you. That’s the moment uncertainty turns into a genuine pursuit.
Share your thoughts in comments; we respect your opinion.
Written by The Female Code
Exploring the heart of human connection—writing about love, trust, and the art of building meaningful relationships.
Published in Write Your World
“Write Your World” is a space for storytellers, thinkers, and creatives to share their personal journeys, ideas, and experiences. Here, we believe words have the power to shape reality; join us as we explore life through storytelling.
相關閱讀
She Was Into You — Until You Did This One Silent Thing That Killed Her Desire
If She Does These Things… She’s Secretly Flirting With You.
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「字」從那裏來？ ---- Ingrid Schou
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How did the first words originate?
The first words may have emerged 135,000 years ago.
What could these guys have been saying to each other? Well, that's hard to say. (Illustration: Fractal Pictures / Shutterstock / NTB) 請至原網頁觀看示意圖
Ingrid Schou, journalist, 11/28/25
If you slide your tongue along your teeth all the way back, you’ll find your molars.
“Jeksel” – the Norwegian word for molar – “is a strange word,” my colleague said.
“Yes,” I agreed. "Let's find out where it comes from.”
According to the Norwegian dictionary, jeksel derives from the Old Norse word jaxl. And that's where the explanation ends.
But what kind of word is jaxl? And how did words emerge, way back in the beginning?
Probably started as sounds
“In short – we don't know,” says Sverre Stausland. He is a professor of linguistics at the University of Oslo.
“The first words and languages haven’t left any traces,” says Jan Terje Faarlund, also a linguistics professor at the University of Oslo.
Part of the reason is that words arose so long ago – well before humans learned to write and longer still before any audio recorders were available. The latest research suggests that verbal languages may have arisen 135,000 years ago.
Ugh! Ouch! Oh!
Our human species, Homo sapiens, has existed for around 300,000 years. At least that is what we have solid evidence for to date. Some researchers believe that we may yet find even older skulls and skeletal remains of our species.
But regardless, we might have lived without words for more than half of our time as Homo sapiens. That seems almost impossible – but remember that no other species besides ours uses words today either. Nor do dogs or elephants speak with words.
“It could be that we used body language,” says Faarlund.
Like pointing at things, hugging to show love, or touching our stomachs when we were hungry.
“Early humans probably made sounds to express emotions like joy, fear and pain. And then they probably had other sounds to warn of danger, call to each other and so on.
Just think of sounds like ugh, ouch, or oh.
“Are they really ‘words’ as such?” asks Stausland.
From sounds to words
Researchers believe that the first proper words most likely originated from imitation.
“People would try to imitate the sound that some animal or thing made,” says Faarlund.
An example is the ancient Egyptian and Chinese word for cat – “mao,” which is similar to the “meow” sound that cats make.
“How the rest of our words originated is a big mystery,” says Faarlund.
And the same applies to the word for the tooth at the back of the mouth. Jeksel remains a mystery.
“We don’t know where the word comes from,” Stausland says.
Words have both a function and a history, but basically they often consist of random sounds.
“Words are really just sounds that allow us to distinguish them from each other,” says Stausland.
Today, we often use words we already have in our vocabulary to create new ones. Just think of ‘snowboard’ or ‘cellphone’, for example, or the word Lego which is made up of the Danish words leg godt, meaning ‘play well’.
"Mamama, papapa"
So we don't know what the very first word is. But researchers have tried to find some of the oldest words that still exist. They include "mama" and "papa".
“These words are found across many languages in the world,” says Stausland. “It's easy to understand why. Small babies make their first sounds with their lips,” he says.
Those sounds correspond to the letters m, p and b, and the vowel a. That's why the first sounds are often "mamama" and "papapa".
“When the mother or father is nearby, they think the child is using a word about them. But these are actually just the simplest sounds a baby can make,” says Stausland.
Language on the move
Our species originated in Africa, and gradually humans spread across the globe. We brought with us the ability to learn languages, and today we have between 6,000 and 7,500 different languages, according to SNL.no.
People with different languages met long before there were schools, language books or Google Translate. For example, the Vikings travelled a lot. How did they manage to talk to people? You can read more about that here.
Perhaps people in the future will also wonder about what words and languages people used before them. This research will continue to be a difficult task, because languages come and go.
UNESCO believes that 1,500 of today's languages are at risk of disappearing. You can read more about that here.
References:
First traces of language: Miyagawa et al. (2025). Linguistic capacity was present in the Homo sapiens population 135 thousand years ago. Frontiers in Psychology, 16. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1503900
First Homo sapiens discovery: Hublin, J.-J. etc. (2017). New fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco and the pan-African origin of Homo sapiens. Nature, 546, 289–292. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature22336
Translated by Ingrid P. Nuse
Read the Norwegian version of this article at forskning.no
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考古學家發現未知文字 -- Tim Newcomb
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Archaeologists Found an Ancient Tablet With 39 Letters That Don’t Belong to Any Known Language
Google Translate isn’t going to help here.
Tim Newcomb, 11/22/25
These Letters Don’t Belong to Any Known Language Dorling Kindersley - Getty Images 請至原網頁觀看新發現未知文字的照片
Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:
* Archaeologists uncovered a basalt tablet in the Bashplemi Lake region of Georgia with an unknown language carved into its face.
* The tablet featured 60 characters across seven rows.
* Experts said that the etchings showed excellent craftsmanship, even if they can’t yet determine the language’s origin.
There’s a new language in town. Well, actually, it’s ancient, and experts can’t even read it yet. But they’re excited to find out more.
Archaeologists discovered a basalt tablet about the size of a piece of paper bearing 60 unknown script characters expertly etched onto its surface in the Bashplemi Lake region of Georgia—the same site where some scientists believe the first European, a 1.8-million-year-old hominin, was discovered.
According to a study published in the Journal of Ancient History and Archaeology, the tablet—which measured 9.4 inches by 7.9 inches—was made from local vesicular basalt and featured seven rows of writing.
“This tablet, which bears 60 signs, 39 of them different, raises the question of the origin of the Georgian script, proto-Georgian,” the study authors wrote. “While the basalt on which it is based is known to be of local origin, its meaning is unknown, and there remains a long way to go to decipher it.”
An initial comparative analysis conducted with over 20 languages shows that the characters bear some similarities with the written forms of the Semitic, Brahmani, and North Iberian languages.
“Generally, the Bashplemi inscription does not repeat any script known to us,” the authors wrote, “however, most of the symbols used therein resemble ones found in the script of the Middle East, as well as those of geographically remote countries such as India, Egypt, and West Iberia.”
Some symbols may have taken inspiration from early Caucasian scripts—whether that be Georgian Mrglovani or Albanian alphabets—but there also seem to be ties to Proto-Kartvelian, Near East Phoenician, Proto-Sinaitic scripts. But without a direct link to any other known pattern of writing, this new find could be a completely unknown language.
“The script, some of whose 39 characters are numbers and punctuation marks, may have been an alphabet,” the authors wrote.
Researchers believe that the new find bears the strongest resemblances to the Proto-Kartvelian script from the fourth millennium B.C., which was used throughout Georgia and Iberia. But there are also likenesses to Bronze Age Georgian symbols, including “some similarities with Phoenician, Aramaic, and Greek alphabets [that] are not surprising as their role in the region and their relations to local scripts are well-known.”
The area in which this tablet was found is already an archaeologically rich location, and adding a new language to the mix only furthers the intrigue of Bashplemi Lake.
The 60 total characters etched across seven horizontal rows also showed off intensely skilled craftsmanship, according to the study, and would have been done with advanced tools for the time. Researchers believe the person who crafted the writing used a conic drill to outline the contours of each individual character and a “smooth and round-head tool” to finish the job.
Speculation on what it all means—the authors hypothesize that the writing could explain “military spoils, an important construction project, or an offering to a deity”—is all anyone has to go on for now.
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新字新詞 – 來自網路
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下文來自網路，時間、作者不詳。或許是中國網民集體創作；兼具幽默感與鬼聰明；在此搏君一笑。
英文⋯⋯時時出新字；中文⋯⋯天天有新詞。
時代發展飛快，想法走在前緣，英文字、詞彙都不夠用了，分享網民新創的英文單字如下：
1. Smilence 笑而不語
2. Togayther 同志終成眷屬
3. Democrazy 瘋狂民主
4. Shitizen 屁民
5. Z-turn 折騰
6. Departyment 宴會部門
7. Chinsumer 在國外瘋狂購物的中國人
8. Sexretary 性感女秘書
9. Circusee 圍觀者
10. Vegesteal 偷菜
11. Animale 獸性男人
12. Gunvernment 槍桿子裏出政權
13. Niubility 牛逼
14. Propoorty 房地慘
15. Stupig 笨豬
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語言做為操縱/控制的工具 --- The Female Code
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本文的主題在討論「女性/男性互動關係」。我在下一篇文章會說明：把它放在此欄的原因。請參見此文(該欄2025/10/29)。
These 4 Innocent Words Are How Women Control Men.
They sound harmless — until you realize she’s using them to test your worth.
The Female Code, 10/19/25
Let me tell you a truth that will burn a little. It’s supposed to.
Men don’t get played because women are smarter. Don’t flatter yourself.
You get played because you refuse to listen. Not to the words. To the energy.
You miss the frequency broadcasting right under the surface. You’re listening for meaning, but you should be feeling for intent. One single, small word can tell the whole story. It can broadcast her entire inner map.
And today, I’m going to show you the four words that signal you’re being strung along, ghosted, or kept as the backup. This is the moment you stop being easy to harvest. This is the moment you flip the control back to you.
The Intermittent Reinforcement
She says, “busy.”
On the surface, it’s innocent. We’re all busy. But used at scale? It’s a strategy.
It’s intermittent reinforcement disguised as credibility. It’s the occasional signal of attention, followed by long, agonizing gaps of silence. It’s designed to create an emotional craving.
It’s a slot machine. You just keep pulling the lever, hoping for a payout that was never meant for you.
Think about it.
You text her. She replies hours later: “Sorry, swamped with work.” But her Instagram story is a timeline of dinners. Drinks. Late-night laughs with people who are not you.
That gap? That mismatch? That’s the reveal. That’s the vacuum where you hand over all your power.
Her body and her social media feed are telling you the truth. Your brain is choosing to believe the lie. You’re not losing her time to life. You’re being invited into a pattern where your attention is the prize she wants to collect on demand.
So what do you do?
You step back. You don’t explain. You don’t justify. You don’t send the “just checking in” text. Silence amplifies value.
Your challenge? 72 hours of non-contained silence. Live your life. Loudly. In your world, not in your replies. Let your absence create her curiosity.
The Soft Leash
Then there’s “maybe.”
This is the softest, most comfortable leash you will ever wear. And make no mistake, it is a leash.
“Maybe” is not hope. It’s a placeholder.
It’s designed to keep you emotionally available without commitment. It keeps you investing your time, your energy, and your focus, all while she evaluates her other options. That little hit of dopamine you get? That feeling that you “still have a shot”?
That’s the hook.
Energetically, “maybe” is total ambivalence. Her energy is divided. She is not bonded to you. When you feel that split, your energy must shift. From seeking sovereignty.
How do you flip this? You treat “maybe” as a hard “no.” You move on. No drama. No petitioning your case.
You make firm plans elsewhere. Your unavailability raises her cost to keep you on the hook. Watch what happens. She either returns with clear, undeniable intent… or she fades. Either result is a victory. It’s called
The Ranking
This one hurts the most. “Friend.”
It sounds so safe. So warm. Wrong.
In her mind, it’s a rank. It’s a label. It’s a box. She has ranked you as a provider, a protector, or an option. But not a lover. The word “friend” places you in the nonsexual utility compartment.
You are now the calm shoulder. The free emotional labor. The one she vents to about the other men she’s actually sleeping with. It is an energetic demotion. Your erotic value has been downgraded to zero. Your masculine energy, which seeks polarity, has just been neutralized.
You cannot create desire from this place. It’s impossible.
So don’t beg to be upgraded. Don’t try to “nice guy” your way out of the box. You step back. With dignity. Your challenge: two to four weeks of zero free labor. No more listening to her problems. No more being her emotional tampon.
Let your absence force a reassessment. Invest in your world, not in her approval. This recalibration will either ignite a new kind of desire or reveal the truth that she only saw you as a tool. Either result is power.
The Perpetual Tomorrow
And finally, the vaguest of them all. “Soon.”
“Let’s hang out soon.” “I’ll text you soon.”
“Soon” is a soft, eternal promise. It’s the illusion of progress without a single drop of commitment. It keeps you anchored to a future that will never arrive, while your present remains completely empty. It’s a string attached directly to your patience.
A woman who truly, viscerally wants you does not say “soon.” She says “now.” She says “tonight.” She says, “8 pm.”
“Soon” is a vague timeline because you are not a priority. Stop hanging on the promise.
This is how you cut the rope. You require clarity. One concrete invite. “Let’s get a drink. Wednesday, 8 pm at [Place].” One test. If she can’t commit to a day, a time, and a place… you have your answer. You don’t wait. You move on.
Words are just the map. The energy is the territory. She is revealing her intent with every single one of these words.
You have a choice. You can continue to cling, to chase, to decode, and to lose yourself in the static. Or you can step into clarity. You can protect your time. You can reclaim your dignity.
The man who treats these words as lines in the sand — enforcing them without drama, just with his absence — is the man who commands respect. Respect follows boundaries. Desire follows scarcity. Stop being so easy to read. Stop being so easy to harvest. Your attention is currency. Start spending it with wisdom.
So, tell me. Which one of these words have you been tolerating? And what are you going to do about it?
I want to read you in the comments. Without filters.
Written by The Female Code
Exploring the heart of human connection—writing about love, trust, and the art of building meaningful relationships.
Published in Write Your World
“Write Your World” is a space for storytellers, thinkers, and creatives to share their personal journeys, ideas, and experiences. Here, we believe words have the power to shape reality; join us as we explore life through storytelling.
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語言起源的新理論 -- Trevor
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下文提供了大量和語言與相關領域的研究資料，對語言有興趣的朋友有福了。不過，在我這個門外漢看來，宕巴教授的「梳理說」頗有「倒果為因」之嫌(1)。
附註：
1. 此處的「梳理」指群居動物的社交行為；並不是前一陣子在英國引起軒然大波的幼童性侵案。
Maybe Language Was Never About Communication
A radical new idea about the evolution of language
Trevor, 06/28/25
How did language first evolve?
It’s a question that has boggled archaeologists and linguists for well over a century.
Although we know a lot about the origins of writing, it is far more difficult to trace the origins of spoken language. In fact, even the best linguistic analyses of language families tend to stop working somewhere around 15,000 years ago (source).
Given that language has likely existed for over 100,000 years, the best scientists could do was to come up with strange-named hypotheses like the “pooh-pooh theory” or the “bow-wow theory” (source).
Most of them were unverifiable, and thus forever relegated to pure speculation.
However, in the last few decades, a new hypothesis on the origins of human language has begun to take hold. And while it is by no means a scientific fact at this point, it has begun to seem like the most nuanced and reasonable hypothesis for how our speech began.
So how can we even begin to study the origins or language? Is it even possible to make scientific claims about something so complex and ancient?
In order to answer that, we must first look at some of the more popular and common theories of language origins, and see how they stack up against recent evidence.
The Big Leap
Language is immensely diverse and complex.
Across the globe, various types of vocabulary, grammar, sounds, and so on are used by humans to communicate.
However, in the 1950s and 1960s, linguists began to realize that despite these surface-level differences, most languages follow similar sets of rules and patterns.
This idea, proposed and popularized by American linguist Noam Chomsky, became known as “Universal Grammar” (source).
At its core, the idea holds that there are certain deep cognitive structures which inherently limit and control the formation of language in humans, despite cultural or sociological differences.
To most linguists, the idea is initially quite compelling.
After all, any baby in the world will learn whatever language it is exposed to, regardless of its ethnicity or genetic makeup (source).
Thus, these linguists argued that language must be a “package deal”: an all-or-nothing, universal cognitive capability of humans.
And because of this, linguists began to believe that the evolution of language must have occurred in some great, dramatic leap in human history.
Instead of being a slow, error-riddled process over millions of years, language must have developed suddenly over a few hundred thousand years (or less), and appeared in a fully-formed way almost immediately.
This paradigm remained the leading view among psychologists and linguists for the better part of a century, until recent findings by neuroscientists and evolutionary biologists began to show its fundamental flaws.
In particular, researchers began to study the evolution of the basic biological requirements that make human speech possible (source).
What they found was that this was a gradual process, which took place over at least a million years. It did not happen all at once, in the way that Universal Grammar had proposed.
For example, the descent of the larynx (which makes human speech possible) occurred around 100,000 years ago, while the neural networks that make voluntary vocalizations possible in humans (as opposed to involuntary sounds like a dog barking or a cat meowing) evolved more than 1 million years ago.
So, ultimately, language did not evolve in some “great leap.”
But if the idea of Universal Grammar was so appealing, what are we left with? Can biology alone really provide us with a satisfying explanation of how complex human speech evolved?
Language as a Happy Accident
If you’ve ever been to a zoo, you’ve almost certainly seen chimpanzees grooming each other.
It’s a fascinating trait of primates, which likely evolved to facilitate social bonding and to help maintain individual hygiene (source).
However, the British anthropologist Robin Dunbar proposed a shocking idea: what if language itself was originally a form of grooming?
He first observed that grooming is sociologically “expensive.” In other words, it requires that groups devote a significant amount of time and energy to maintain social bonds (source).
Following this train of thought, Dunbar proposed that as early pre-human populations began to grow beyond a few hundred individuals, a “cheaper” form of grooming would be needed to maintain the same level of social bonding.
And language is, fundamentally, much more “cost effective” than physically caring for another individual (source).
Thus, Dunbar proposed that language originally evolved as “grooming-at-a-distance”.
In other words, language was a simple means of maintaining social bonds without investing so much time and energy into physical grooming.
At this point, the idea may sound like nothing more than pure speculation. But interestingly, recent research has begun to lend some credibility to this idea.
Talk is Cheap
If language evolved primarily to maintain social bonds among rapidly-growing populations, what would we expect to be the primary focus of language?
Most likely, it would revolve around relationships and connections. In other words, gossip.
Shockingly, studies have shown that at least 65% of all human speech is devoted to gossip (source). Discussing the private lives of others, whether positive or negative, is a major aspect of human language.
Linguists and sociologists believe that this is evidence that indirectly supports Dunbar’s hypothesis.
After all, if language evolved for the sole purpose of coordinated hunts or relaying crucial information, we would expect to see less “pointless” conversation. But again, this is not what we find.
Another line of evidence which seems to support the idea is the fact that larger brains are directly related to larger population sizes (source).
In other words, social connections and bonding are a major determining factor in the development of larger brains. And of course, larger brains were necessary for the evolution of complex language.
Do these two lines of evidence prove the idea that language evolved as a form of grooming?
No.
To become accepted as a genuine scientific theory, extensive research must be conducted over the next few decades.
However, these two lines of modern research certainly seem to make the hypothesis a promising one, if nothing else.
Key Takeaways
Is the grooming hypothesis of language evolution true? It’s impossible to give a definite answer yet.
Regardless of its validity, Dunbar’s hypothesis provides us with a useful method for how can actually begin to investigate the origins of human language.
Rather than being restricted to speculation, perhaps we can begin to use modern human languages and sociology to help us understand the evolutionary trajectory that our speech followed so long ago.
However, the idea of language as an accidental byproduct of social evolution is incredibly fascinating, and could explain a wide variety of quirky human behaviors that might otherwise seem strange.
Perhaps language didn’t evolve to explain the world, but instead for us to survive in it together.
Written by Trevor
Linguistics, anthropology, religion, cutlure, and the human mind.
Published in Babel
Babel is a leading Medium publication focusing on human expression through language and art. We publish stories on the intersection of language, culture, art, and the many ways we communicate.
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世界上最古老的語言–E. Yuko
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What Is the World's Oldest Language?
The answer depends on how you frame the question.
Elizabeth Yuko, 05/16/25
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Language is constantly evolving. There are currently more than 7,000 languages spoken in the world, but, according to some estimates, at least half of those will be extinct or seriously endangered by 2100. With languages forming, changing, disappearing and being discovered, it’s hard to keep track of which came first. So, what is the oldest language in the world? As it turns out, that’s a complicated question with no single answer.
Why It’s Complicated
Figuring out which language is the oldest is more complicated than it seems. “When people ask ‘what’s the oldest language?,’ what they're often asking is, ‘what's the oldest example of writing, and what language was used to write it?,’” says Gareth Roberts, an associate professor of linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania.
Other ways to approach the question are: What’s the oldest language in a particular geographic region? Or what is the “most conservative” language—one that has changed relatively slowly over time, he explains. Today, we only know of an ancient language’s existence if we find evidence of it in writing—but that doesn’t necessarily give us an accurate picture.
“People have been speaking and using signed languages for far longer than they've been writing,” says Claire Bowern, a professor of linguistics at Yale University. “It's possible that there were earlier writing systems that haven't survived. We only know about these ones because they were written on durable items—stone, clay and bone.”
Languages are constantly—but gradually—changing, Bowern explains. “Identifying the age of a language is not like saying how old a child is; there's not a defined ‘birth’ point,” she notes.
What we do know is that prior to actual language being written down, proto-writing was a way to communicate limited information with simple written marks or pictures. “You could argue that certain cave paintings are a type of proto-writing,” says Daniel Hieber, a linguist who studies endangered languages.
Another example is using symbols to document trade deals—like the number of items that have been sent to another group of people. “Over time, that symbol system of tracking trades is actually what developed into cuneiform”—an early writing system, Hieber says.
Origins of Language
When did early humans first develop spoken language?
Something went wrong while setting up a Google DAI stream. (視頻無法觀看)
Oldest Language Still Spoken
As far as the oldest spoken language? “If we're looking for the languages that are spoken in the world today, and we want to say which of those was written down first, the answer would be Greek,” Roberts says. “That's the oldest example of writing where the language that happened to be written down at the time has a descendant which is still spoken today.”
Oldest Written Evidence of Language
If the question is what language has the oldest written evidence, then Sumerian and Egyptian are the likely contenders, says Roberts. Both languages emerged around the same time—toward the end of the fourth millennium B.C., or about 5,000 to 6,000 years ago.
Some of the earliest evidence of writing is in the form of cuneiform script, characterized by wedge-shaped marks pressed into clay. Cuneiform was initially created by the ancient Sumerians who lived in the Mesopotamia region of the Fertile Crescent situated between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers—most of which is in modern-day Iraq.
“There is a longer history of Sumerian cuneiform going back into its proto-writing,” Hieber says. “But they're not writing complete sentences at that point.” Although Sumerians also likely began writing in complete sentences first, there is older documentation of a full sentence written in Egyptian hieroglyphics.
“It's quite possible that the first examples we have of writing are, in fact, the oldest examples of writing: Sumerian cuneiform [and] Egyptian hieroglyphic,” Roberts says. That said, they’re not the earliest languages. “Languages have been around for hundreds of thousands of years before that, most likely, or even, being very conservative, about tens of thousands of years,” he explains. Both cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphic do seem to have been invented from scratch, according to Roberts.
The Origins of Writing
The invention of written language replaced the oral tradition and allowed civilizations to store and share knowledge.
Something went wrong while setting up a Google DAI stream. (視頻無法觀看)
Oldest Complete Written Sentence
The oldest known complete written sentence is in Egyptian hieroglyphs, Hieber says. It appears on the tomb of the pharaoh Seth-Peribsen, and translates to “He has united the Two Lands for his son, Dual King Peribsen.” Like this one, many of the earliest examples of hieroglyphic writing are found on the tombs of Egyptian royalty and elite citizens. The language consists of symbols that look like people, animals and objects which could represent sounds, objects or concepts.
There's some debate over whether the Egyptian writing system began as cuneiform, Roberts explains. Though hieroglyphics weren't based directly on cuneiform, he says that it's possible that Egyptians observed cuneiform and thought, “OK, that's a good idea, we could do that in a slightly different way,” and they came up with their own writing system.
“My impression," he notes, "is that the dominant view now is that [Sumerian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphics] were invented more or less independently at a similar kind of time."
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DNA分析指向印歐語系可能的源頭 -- Carl Zimmer
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Ancient DNA Points to Origins of Indo-European Language
A new study claims to have identified the first speakers of Indo-European language, which gave rise to English, Sanskrit and hundreds of others.
Carl Zimmer, 02/05/25
In 1786, a British judge named William Jones noticed striking similarities between certain words in languages, such as Sanskrit and Latin, whose speakers were separated by thousands of miles. The languages must have “sprung from some common source,” he wrote.
Later generations of linguists determined that Sanskrit and Latin belong to a huge family of so-called Indo-European languages. So do English, Hindi and Spanish, along with hundreds of less common languages. Today, about half the world speaks an Indo-European language.
Linguists and archaeologists have long argued about which group of ancient people spoke the original Indo-European language. A new study in the journal Nature throws a new theory into the fray. Analyzing a wealth of DNA collected from fossilized human bones, the researchers found that the first Indo-European speakers were a loose confederation of hunter-gatherers who lived in southern Russia about 6,000 years ago.
“We’ve been on the hunt for this for many years,” said David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard who led part of the new research.
Independent linguists had mixed reactions to the findings, with some praising their rigor and others highly skeptical.
Many decades ago, linguists began trying to reconstruct the proto-Indo-European language by looking at words shared by many different languages. That early vocabulary contained a lot of words about things like wheels and wagons, and few about farming. It looked like the kind of language that would have been spoken by nomadic herders who lived across the steppes of Asia thousands of years ago.
But in 1987, Colin Renfrew, a British archaeologist, questioned whether nomads who were constantly on the move would have stayed in any one place long enough for their language to catch on. He found it more plausible that early farmers in Anatolia (a region in what is now Turkey) spread the language as they expanded, gradually converting more and more land to farm fields and eventually building towns and cities.
The archaeologist argued that an Anatolian origin also fit the archaeological evidence better. The oldest Indo-European writing, dating back 3,700 years, is in an extinct language called Hittite, which was spoken only in Anatolia.
In 2015, two teams of geneticists — one led by Dr. Reich — shook up this debate with some remarkable data from ancient DNA of Bronze Age Europeans. They found that about 4,500 years ago, central and northern Europeans suddenly gained DNA that linked them with nomads on the Russian steppe, a group known as the Yamnaya.
Dr. Reich and his colleagues suspected that the Yamnaya swept from Russia into Europe, and perhaps brought the Indo-European language with them.
In the new study, they analyzed a trove of ancient skeletons from across Ukraine and southern Russia. “It’s a sampling tour de force,” said Mait Metspalu, a population geneticist at the University of Tartu in Estonia who was not involved in the research.
Based on these data, the scientists argue that the Indo-European language started with the Yamnaya’s hunter-gatherer ancestors, known as the Caucasus-Lower Volga people, or CLV.
The CLV people lived about 7,000 years ago in a region stretching from the Volga River in the north to the Caucasus Mountains in the south. They most likely fished and hunted for much of their food.
Around 6,000 years ago, the study argues, the CLV people expanded out of their homeland. One wave moved west into what is now Ukraine and interbred with hunter-gatherers. Three hundred years later, a tiny population of these people — perhaps just a few hundred — formed a distinctive culture and became the first Yamnaya.
Another wave of CLV people headed south. They reached Anatolia, where they interbred with early farmers.
The CLV people who came to Anatolia, Dr. Reich argues, gave rise to early Indo-European languages like Hittite. (This would also fit with the early Indo-European writing found in Anatolia.) But it was their Yamnaya descendants who became nomads and carried the language across thousands of miles.
Some experts praised the work. “It’s a very intelligent scenario that’s difficult to criticize,” said Guus Kroonen, a linguist at Leiden University in the Netherlands who was not involved in the studies.
But Dr. Metspalu hesitated to jump from the new genetic data to firm conclusions about who first spoke Indo-European. “Genes don’t tell us anything about language, period,” he said.
And Paul Heggarty, a linguist at Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, said that the DNA analysis in the study was valuable, but he rejected the new hypothesis about the first Indo-European speakers originating in Russia as “smoke and mirrors.”
In 2023, Dr. Heggarty and his colleagues published a study arguing that the first Indo-Europeans were early farmers who lived over 8,000 years ago in the northern Fertile Crescent, in today’s Middle East.
Dr. Heggarty suggested that the CLV people actually belonged to a bigger network of hunter-gatherers that stretched from southern Russia into northern Iran. Some of them could have discovered farming in the northern Fertile Crescent, and then developed the Indo-European language, which would align with his findings.
These early farmers could have given rise to Hittite speakers thousands of years later in Anatolia, he said, and later given rise to the Yamnaya. The Yamnaya brought Indo-European languages to northern and Central Europe, Dr. Heggarty argued, but they were only one part of a bigger, older expansion.
As the Indo-European debate advances, one thing is clear: Our understanding of its history now stands in stark contrast to the racist myths that once surrounded it. Nineteenth-century linguists called the original speakers of Indo-European Aryans, and some writers later pushed the notion that ancient Aryans were a superior race. The Nazis embraced the Aryan myths, using them to justify genocide.
But Dr. Reich said that studies on ancient DNA show just how bankrupt these Aryan stories were.
“There’s all sorts of mixtures and movements from places that these myths never imagined,” he said. “And it really teaches us that there’s really no such thing as purity.”
Carl Zimmer covers news about science for The Times and writes the Origins column. More about Carl Zimmer
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字、詞如何在大腦中取得一席之地 -- Cody Cottier
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索引：
countervailing：對抗的，抵消的，制衡的，補償的
gauntlet：公開挑戰(如進行比劃、搏擊、或戰鬥)；原意為手套、護手等
idiosyncratic：有氣質的；有特性的
iteration：反覆(通常為了作出改善而重複做某事)，反覆運算
PNAS：《美國國家科學院院刊》
primed：被誘導(心理學術語)；priming為「誘導」
provocative：挑釁的，(行為或衣服)挑逗性的
quirk：異類，奇葩，古怪的，獨特的
How Words Struggle For Existence in Our Brains
Why are some words forgotten over time? Researchers investigate how words secure their place in the vocabulary of the future.
Cody Cottier, 03/15/24
(Credit: Kittyfly/Shutterstock 請至原網頁查看圖片)
Words, like biological species, are engaged in what Charles Darwin called a “struggle for existence.” Some have what it takes, earning the right to roll off the next generation of tongues, while others get consigned to the pages of Merriam-Webster — or become forgotten entirely.
What sets the survivors apart? A recent study in the journal PNAS, by a team of international researchers, found that many successful English words have three crucial traits: they’re acquired early in life, they refer to something concrete, and they’re emotionally arousing. (They offer “sex” and “fight” as two notable examples.)
Playing the “Telephone” Game
(Credit: ESB Professional/Shutterstock 請至原網頁查看圖片)
To figure that out, they asked some 12,000 people to retell short stories. That is, they essentially ran a giant game of “telephone,” where one person whispers something to the person beside them, they repeat it to the next, and so on. As every 8-year-old knows, it’s an object lesson in the challenge of preserving a message across multiple retellings. With enough intervening speakers, “The dog chews shoes” easily transforms into “Which blog do you use?”
Yet certain patterns emerge from the inconsistency, revealing which words are likely to make it through the gauntlet. “The beauty of this approach,” says Fritz Breithaupt, a cognitive scientist at Indiana University Bloomington and a lead author of the study, “is that it shows a transition of the original story to something that is more optimally suited to our own cognitive apparatus.”
To make that more concrete, the point is that we shape language (often without realizing it) to fit our mental abilities. We pick and choose from the countless words vying for space in our brains. If one is too hard to understand and recall, or if it just doesn’t grab our attention, then we’re likely to discard it, sometimes in favor of an alternative. You don’t hear “pulchritudinous” much these days, because “beautiful” does a better job.
Baby Talk
(Credit: LeManna/Shutterstock 請至原網頁查看圖片)
Unsurprisingly, the words we learn first are some of the best adapted to the environment of our minds. As the speakers retold their stories, they quickly reverted to what they’d learned at a young age. (Of course, we don’t all learn the same words at the exact same moment in life, but there are well-established averages).
This suggests that no matter how large our lexicon grows, the sophisticated, technical language of adulthood can’t compete with basic vocabulary. “Baby language is not something we just shed and forget,” Breithaupt says. “It's the core we go back to.”
But if that were the only force at work, we’d all be babbling like infants in the most rudimentary terms, never getting far beyond “mama” and “cookie.” There are countervailing (bet that word wouldn’t last two retellings) pressures, social and cultural processes that nudge language in different directions.
Technological advances, for example, introduce all sorts of new words (or neologisms), like “television” and “Bluetooth.” They can also originate in the never-ending need to express new ideas, as well as reframe old ones that have “lost their ability to engage the listener,” as the researchers put it. And existing but difficult words may take refuge in subcultures that keep them alive for idiosyncratic purposes, like “hypothesis” in scientific communities and “acquittal” in legal circles.
Words We Can Picture
Another common characteristic of words learned late in life is abstractness. “Hypothesis” may have called some image to mind, perhaps glass beakers and white lab coats, but it probably didn’t summon anything as distinct as the word “dog.” Research has shown that when language evokes something accessible to our senses, we find it more interesting and understandable.
Breithaupt is quick to note that we need abstractions. “Truth,” “love” and “kindness” don’t refer to physical entities, but that doesn’t diminish their importance. In fact, every word is to some degree abstracted from reality. “But ultimately,” he says, “the concrete words, the things we can picture, they have an advantage.”
Emotion Rules, Good or Bad
The words that stand the test of time also tend to bring out strong emotions. Interestingly, it doesn’t matter whether those feelings are positive or negative — “sex” and “terrorist” are both provocative in their own way. They jump out at us, almost as if seizing cognitive territory by force.
This fits with psychological studies showing that emotional arousal enhances memory. The idea is that because we can’t possibly remember everything, we preferentially pay attention to and remember whatever is most significant. And what’s arousing tends to be significant, regardless of its positive or negative associations (snake in the grass, mate in the bed).
Words for a Better World
(Credit: PeopleImages.com - Yuri A/Shutterstock 請至原網頁查看圖片)
To see if these factors scale up, influencing language change over the course of not just a few retellings but entire human generations, Fritz and his colleagues also analyzed a vast set of text from the past 200 years. Incredibly, the many differences between spoken and written language notwithstanding, they found the same three trends toward words that are acquired early, are concrete, and that arouse feeling.
There was one unexpected discrepancy, though: Both positively and negatively arousing words had a leg up on neutral ones in the “telephone” experiment, but over long spans of time there seems to be a stronger bias toward the positive. As one potential explanation, Breithaupt points to the work of cognitive psychologist and public intellectual Steven Pinker (who coincidentally edited the paper) on the rise of global wellbeing over the past century.
In spite of widespread pessimism about the future of humanity and its home planet, Pinker has argued that the world is in fact a happier, safer, more peaceful place than it’s ever been. “And if that is true,” Breithaupt says, “you would expect language to reflect that somewhat. If you have a lot of suffering and pain and so on, you need the vocabulary that expresses that.”
Agents of Creativity
(Credit: Kittyfly/Shutterstock 請至原網頁查看圖片)
If this all makes us sound a bit like mindless vehicles of linguistic evolution, speaking in words we’re cognitively primed to select, Breithaupt has a more optimistic take. He describes his participants’ retellings as powerfully transformative acts: “We actually are agents of change, agents of creativity. Every single one of us.”
In another recent study, published in Scientific Reports in January, he and several colleagues at Indiana University Bloomington found that when you ask the AI system ChatGPT to repeatedly retell a story, it introduces almost no novelty. Humans, by contrast, replace as much as 60 percent of the words and concepts with each iteration.
So, amid our collective anxiety over the mushrooming capabilities of artificial intelligence, Breithaupt believes we can take solace in the quirks of human cognition and the innovations they enable. “I think we don't have to be completely afraid of ChatGPT,” he says, “because it will not take that away from us, at least not in an easy, direct way.”
相關閱讀：
How Learning a Language Changes Your Brain
Words Seem to Lose Their Meaning When We Repeat Them Over and Over. Why?
The Biology of Baby Talk
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埃及人何時開始使用象形文字 - Owen Jarus
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When did the Egyptians start using hieroglyphs?
Owen Jarus, 02/13/24
The earliest known Egyptian hieroglyphic writings appear fully formed, either because they were developed on perishable, now-lost materials or because they were quickly "invented by an unknown genius."
Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs carved into sandstone at the Temple of Kom Ombo in Aswan. (Image credit: skaman306 via Getty Images；請至原網頁查看圖片)
For thousands of years, the ancient Egyptians inscribed hieroglyphs on tombs, papyri and, in some cases, pyramids.
But when were hieroglyphs invented? Research shows that they emerged about 5,200 years ago, at around the same time another writing system, called cuneiform (楔形文字), was being invented in Mesopotamia.
"German excavations at Abydos in Egypt have revealed hieroglyphic inscriptions from [circa] 3200 BC," James Allen, a professor emeritus of Egyptology at Brown University, told Live Science in an email. Similarly, Ludwig Morenz, an Egyptology professor at the University of Bonn in Germany, told Live Science in an email that Egyptian hieroglyphs were created "around 3300/3200 BC."
Allen said "the hieroglyphic system first appears pretty much fully formed, either because its beginnings were inscribed on perishable materials [that have not survived] or because it was invented by an unknown genius."
Why were hieroglyphs invented?
Why hieroglyphs were invented is a source of debate, Marc Van De Mieroop, a history professor at Columbia University, wrote in the second edition of his book "A History of Ancient Egypt" (John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2021).
At the time hieroglyphs were invented, Egypt was unifying into a single state and administration may have been a reason for their invention. It "is logical that a state of Egypt's size and complexity required a flexible system of accounting that could keep information on the nature of goods, their quantities, provenance and destination, the people in charge of them and the date of transaction," Van De Mieroop wrote in his book.
Another theory is that hieroglyphs were invented to help glorify gods and the king, Van De Mieroop wrote, noting that some early carvings showing kings contain hieroglyphs. "The glorification of the king may have been one of the driving forces in the script's invention," he wrote.
What is the oldest living writing system?
Cuneiform script on a clay tablet that dates to the first millennium B.C. (Image credit: benedek via Getty Images)
The Egyptians created hieroglyphs at around the same time as cuneiform was invented in Mesopotamia. Which system was invented first is a matter of debate among scholars.
Allen argues that Egyptian hieroglyphs were invented first, saying that the earliest cuneiform inscriptions date to around 2900 B.C. However, many scholars disagree.
For instance Orly Goldwasser, an Egyptology professor at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem wrote that cuneiform was likely developed first. "Based on the evidence at hand, it seems most likely that writing was born in Mesopotamia," Goldwasser wrote in a chapter of the book "Pharaoh's Land and Beyond: Ancient Egypt and Its Neighbors" (Oxford University Press, 2017).
In either case, cuneiform and hieroglyphs are quite different, and the two systems appear to have developed independently of each other. "Cuneiform and hieroglyphic are too dissimilar for the one to have influenced the other directly," Allen said. Cuneiform signs "represent whole words or syllables," while hieroglyphs "represent words or individual consonants" and don't represent vowels, Allen noted.
While there was some contact between the people of Egypt and Mesopotamia, hieroglyphs were developed within the Nile Valley, Morenz said. Goldwasser wrote that while the two systems are quite different, it's possible that the invention of cuneiform in Mesopotamia helped inspire Egyptians to invent hieroglyphs.
The last known Egyptian hieroglyphic inscription dates to A.D. 394, according to the University of Memphis in Tennessee. By that point in time, other writing systems such as Coptic were being used in Egypt. Knowledge of how to read and write hieroglyphs became lost and it wasn't until the 19th century, with the decipherment of hieroglyphs, that they were read again.
Related:
How old is ancient Egypt?
How old are the Egyptian pyramids?
Was ancient Egypt a desert?
Why did ancient Egyptian pharaohs stop building pyramids?
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