The Denver Jewish news., 1919-06-11
Babylonia the Birthplace Of
Many Tongues
Continued from Page One. !

language dates much further than the
ape.
We know that our domestic animals
express certain emotions such as pleas
ure, or pain, by sound. The dog barks
ioyfully or whines in pain. The lion
roars, the horse whinneys, the snake
misses, the cock crows, the hen cackles,
the frog croaks, the dove COOS, the ass
brays, the OK lows. So do we bark,
whine. roar. hiss. crow. cackle, croak.
is really able to speak words as we
do. Animals call their young with
certain sounds, and give warning be-
fore danger in an unmistakable man.
rcr. This proves that the beginning of
language dates back many cons of
time, before the human being inhabited
the earth.
Primitive men first initiated the
sounds of the animals that surrounded
them. II they wished to say they saw
lion, they undoubtedly would begin
to roar like lion. This was the first
talk" Primitive man also reprOduc-
I'd the noise certain object made, and
this noise became the name Of the oh
ject. In course of time these sounds
original sound has been lost. Still
there remain in all languages enough
words to prove this assertion. Take
for example the word BOOg, which is
Hebrew and means jug. Say bOog.
bOSg bOog. boOg. bOog. and you have
the very sound of water or any liquid
running out Of jug. Say jug. jug.
jug, In quick succession and you get
like effect. Kissing is surely the
sound the snake makes Moo, Moo, was
probably the name of COW that lived
many years ago. and this sound is
still rntained in the German Language
as "Kuh! Kuh. Kuh." The babble
of children has done much to modify
certain words. The word Cuckoo Is
understood in every language in the
world. UhIh. says the. German, ana
lie ineans owl. Examples like this
could be given by the thousands, but
let this suffice.
There are about one thousand differ
cnt languages spoken today upon
earth, and outside of this we must dis
tinguish three thousand dialects. Some
people wonder over this profusiOn. but
If lnv theory is Ocrrect to to the
origin of language, we snould have
considerably more languages, and their
present limit can only be explained by
the fnct that the shumnn being Is
very gregarious animal. The language
of primitive people is of short diira-
ton and changes in very short time.
There are many different languages
spoken in the interior of Brazil. This
difference is so great that along n
stream of $50 to 200 miles. seven or
eight entirely different tongues are
spoken. Travellers tell ,@ that the
Indians of that country sit around the
fire, passing the time by inventing new
words. and when a good one is found
The whole tribe breaks out in great
laughter and adopts the word.
The English missionary. Moffat,
found in South Africa II negro tribe
where the children were left so much
10 themselves, that they had to invent
their own words and meanings. This
Thought about eventually an entire
change in the language.
Another missionary in Central Amer
ica made dictionary of all the words
of an Indian tribe, and when he re-
turned ten years later, found that the
language had changed completely.
The change of language of "A cultured
people is very slow. and most changes
are brought about by children. Only
with the beginning of writing did Ian
guages become fixed. The printed
word has established recognized stand
ards. We today still understand and
almost speak the language of Shakes.
peare, who wrote four hundred years
ago.
Writing had the same origin as
speech. The primitive man painted
the picture of lion- when he wished
to write lion. This picture writing
still exists in the hieroglyphics of
Egypt. The hierog1yphic picture of n
| lion stands for the letter l.. The Eagle
is the hierOglypbic for Il. Later this
picture. writing was abbreviated and
finally became an alphabet. This word
is derived from the first two Greek
letters Alpha and Beta. We are using
| today the Roman alphabet which was