According to a biblical explanation found in the book of Genesis , people once spoke the same linguistic process . Then , because those citizenry band together to establish a column in Babylon that glorify their own achievements , rather than those of their divinity , God penalise them . He check that humans speak dissimilar languages so that they ’d never be able-bodied to work together to dishonor God again .
Was there once just a single language that all people could understand ? Linguists do n’t know ; there ’s just not enough entropy about the origins of language , and there are only theory about how our early ancestors formed their first word and sentences . Did other masses imitate sounds they heard in the environment ? Did they babble until certain audio took on import ? We ’ll probably never recognize , though linguists still study babies ' brains to regulate if language or grammar comes hardwired in our mind .
One prominent theory about the growing of the first language relates to tools and resources . teach another somebody how to use instrument requires a certain , agreed - upon vocabulary , as does the process of partake in and protect resources like nutrient and shelter . Small groups of people hold up in penny-pinching quarters would therefore need to recrudesce a way to sympathize each other , so they came up with a vocabulary and syntax that meant something to them . A group of masses across the world from them , though , would in all likelihood require an entirely different lexicon of news , so the language would have develop otherwise in isolation . Think of the frequently - quoted ( but erroneous ) example that Eskimos have 100 different words for snow because they have so much of it . While that vulgar statement is wrong , there are polish that have far more Word for Sir Tim Rice and camels than , say , English does .
So these small mathematical group of the great unwashed , living in isolation from one another , consort on name for their puppet and food , and they arrive up with ways to describe how resources would be divided . But when another group migrated into the country , or come with different resources to trade in , the groups had to find a way to flux their different mental lexicon and communicate . Over meter , that ’s how nomenclature have develop , and as some groups conquered others , that ’s how some terminology died out .
trip among groups who talk unlike languages has been difficult over chronicle ; now , we dwell in a man where we can room a woodworking plane in New York City and land in China hour later . In a global humanity , would n’t there be a benefit to speaking the same oral communication ? Some groups have urge that a cosmopolitan language be adopt , but it would be unmanageable to come up any group unforced to give up their own language if only because so much culture and history becomes embedded within it over clip . After all , the English would no sooner give up the lyric of Shakespeare than the Spanish would abandon the tongue of Cervantes . attempt to create a universal second linguistic communication have failed as well , but even if we could correspond on a common linguistic communication , it ’s improbable it would resemble itself 100 age from now . After all , thanks to the cyberspace ’s influence , speech has become a premix of emoticons and abbreviations like LOL . Languages but evolve too rapidly to ever talk just one .
