But what is even cooler to me than words are names. Names of things, proper names, given names, you can tell a lot about someone if you understand a given name. A person with the last name Potter is very likely that they had a person in their family that made pots. But now it is just a name with little meaning.
Here is an example of how things changed giving words a whole new meaning:
How words have changed over the last few centuries is crazy. All three of these were the same; Something that caused fear. The words are the same, but what we mean by them is totally different from what they meant when we started using them.
Now sometimes in fiction, they do use terrific like it was meant, but in most uses it is a good thing. When I think back to papers in school that I did a good job on, and my teachers wrote terrific, it makes me want to laugh.
One reason this popped into my head to write about, is the fact that people in church often say "King James is the only translation we need." I find this completely ridiculous. Though it might be a good version, we know more now about grammatical structure of the ancient languages than we did in the early 1600's. We also have more documents to pull from in translation. We are also smarter as a whole civilization.
Please do not get me wrong, I thoroughly believe that any version of the bible, if read with a searching heart, will find the truths to be the same and just as valid as the next version. But I do not think we should limit ourselves to one version over another simply because it was "good enough for them."
Times change, the worlds changes, people change; the Word of God does not. I urge anyone reading this to grab a Bible, and start reading. I would recommend starting with the the gospel of John.
Our words we use everyday will inevitably change in the future. We will clean and simplify things to the point that what we are saying to day will sound as archaic as Shakespeare does now. But that is one of the cool things about words.
The other reason it popped into my head was that I watched a video on Youtube by vsauce about "Why are Things Creepy?"
On a last note I recently read something about language as a whole. I will quote it for you, much easier than me summing it up.
I hope this gives you somethings to think about. As always, thanks for reading.
First set of quotes is from etymonline.com and the second set is from creationscience.com. I highly recommend both sites. Because learning should never end.
Here is an example of how things changed giving words a whole new meaning:
terror (n.)
late 14c., "great fear," from Old French terreur (14c.), from Latin terrorem (nominative terror) "great fear, dread," from terrere "fill with fear, frighten," from PIE root *tre- "shake" (see terrible). Meaning "quality of causing dread" is attested from 1520s
terrible (adj.)
early 15c., "causing terror, frightful," from Old French terrible (12c.), from Latin terribilis "frightful," from terrere "fill with fear," from PIE root *tres- "to tremble" (cf. Sanskrit trasati "trembles," Avestan tarshta "feared, revered," Greek treëin "to tremble," Lithuanian triseti "to tremble," Old Church Slavonic treso "I shake," Middle Irish tarrach "timid").
terrific (adj.)
1660s, "frightening," from Latin terrificus "causing terror or fear," from terrere "fill with fear" (see terrible) + root of facere "to make" (see factitious). Weakened sensed of "very great, severe" (e.g. terrific headache) appeared 1809; colloquial sense of "excellent" began 1888.
How words have changed over the last few centuries is crazy. All three of these were the same; Something that caused fear. The words are the same, but what we mean by them is totally different from what they meant when we started using them.
Now sometimes in fiction, they do use terrific like it was meant, but in most uses it is a good thing. When I think back to papers in school that I did a good job on, and my teachers wrote terrific, it makes me want to laugh.
One reason this popped into my head to write about, is the fact that people in church often say "King James is the only translation we need." I find this completely ridiculous. Though it might be a good version, we know more now about grammatical structure of the ancient languages than we did in the early 1600's. We also have more documents to pull from in translation. We are also smarter as a whole civilization.Please do not get me wrong, I thoroughly believe that any version of the bible, if read with a searching heart, will find the truths to be the same and just as valid as the next version. But I do not think we should limit ourselves to one version over another simply because it was "good enough for them."
Times change, the worlds changes, people change; the Word of God does not. I urge anyone reading this to grab a Bible, and start reading. I would recommend starting with the the gospel of John.
Our words we use everyday will inevitably change in the future. We will clean and simplify things to the point that what we are saying to day will sound as archaic as Shakespeare does now. But that is one of the cool things about words.
The other reason it popped into my head was that I watched a video on Youtube by vsauce about "Why are Things Creepy?"
On a last note I recently read something about language as a whole. I will quote it for you, much easier than me summing it up.
Language
Children as young as seven months can understand and learn grammatical rules. Furthermore, studies of 36 documented cases of children raised without human contact (feral children) show that language is learned only from other humans; humans do not automatically speak. So, the first humans must have been endowed with a language ability. There is no evidence language evolved.
Nonhumans communicate, but not with language. True language requires both vocabulary and grammar. With great effort, human trainers have taught some gorillas and chimpanzees to recognize a few hundred spoken words, to point to up to 200 symbols, and to make limited hand signs. These impressive feats are sometimes exaggerated by editing the animals’ successes on film. (Some early demonstrations were flawed by the trainer’s hidden promptings.)
Wild apes have not shown these vocabulary skills, and trained apes do not pass their vocabulary on to others. When a trained animal dies, so does the trainer’s investment. Also, trained apes have essentially no grammatical ability. Only with grammar can a few words express many ideas. No known evidence shows that language exists or evolves in nonhumans, but all known human groups have language.
Furthermore, only humans have different modes of language: speaking/hearing, writing/reading, signing, touch (as with Braille), and tapping (as with Morse code or tap-codes used by prisoners). When one mode is prevented, as with the loss of hearing, others can be used.
If language evolved, the earliest languages should be the simplest. But language studies show that the more ancient the language (for example: Latin, 200 B.C.; Greek, 800 B.C.; Linear B, 1200 B.C.; and Vedic Sanskrit, 1500 B.C.), the more complex it is with respect to syntax, case, gender, mood, voice, tense, verb forms, and inflection. The best evidence shows that languages devolve; that is, they become simpler instead of more complex. Most linguists reject the idea that simple languages evolve into complex languages.
Speech is uniquely human. Humans have both a “prewired” brain capable of learning and conveying abstract ideas, and the physical anatomy (mouth, throat, tongue, larynx, etc.) to produce a wide range of sounds. Only a few animals can approximate some human sounds.
Because the human larynx is low in the neck, a long air column lies above the vocal cords. This helps make vowel sounds. Apes cannot make clear vowel sounds, because they lack this long air column. The back of the human tongue, extending deep into the neck, modulates the air flow to produce consonant sounds. Apes have flat, horizontal tongues, incapable of making consonant sounds.
Even if an ape could evolve all the physical equipment for speech, that equipment would be useless without a “prewired” brain for learning language skills, especially grammar and vocabulary.
I hope this gives you somethings to think about. As always, thanks for reading.
First set of quotes is from etymonline.com and the second set is from creationscience.com. I highly recommend both sites. Because learning should never end.
No comments:
Post a Comment