Since ancient times, a very profound question has plagued mankind: how did language, in fact, come into being?

As early as the 6th century, an Egyptian pharaoh conducted an extremely famous experiment: gathering babies together without teaching them to speak, to see if language could actually be produced.

"The mystery of "language

When mankind did not understand the relationship between "nature" and "science," he attributed many incomprehensible things to the "power of God.

According to the Christian Bible, it was "God" who created language.

In addition, there are many stories about language legends, including the "language rain".

It was not until the 20th century that modern philosophical thinking was gradually reversed, and it was only after a long period of study and research by Sapir and his disciple Wolfe that the "Sapir-Wolfe hypothesis" was finally formulated, which states that language determines thought and language determines culture.

People are more advanced animals, and ordinary animals have a big difference, those who seem to "understand people" animals, at most for the human part of the language to respond, they are absolutely unable to understand the meaning behind the human language.

And as early as two thousand years ago, there was an Egyptian ruler, did a very special experiment, and this experiment, in now seems to have been very unreasonable.

In the 6th century B.C., there was a pharaoh named Boussametikus in ancient Egypt, who was different from many pharaohs in that he was not only obsessed with power, but also had a "big brain".

According to the Egyptian historical records, one day, Pharaoh Boussametikus had a sudden whim and wanted to know which nation had the oldest language.

This whimsical idea in the brains of others is estimated to only think about, but in his case, there is a complete ability to experiment.

So he ordered his men to select two suitable babies, gather them together and send them to an isolated place to be raised.

This is "parenting" in the true sense of the word, as the two babies will not be taught language skills by anyone.

It is reasonable to say that babies are unlikely to develop into a language without learning the language system, but humans are born with the gift of language and need the right guidance from others, and Pharaoh Bouzametikus is looking forward to seeing what kind of words babies can speak.

Some experts have also estimated that from the beginning of human speech to master language, about tens of thousands of years, this experiment would have defied the "theory of evolution", that is, so that the two babies in a very short period of time to comprehend the previous tens of thousands of years to barely complete the task, it is a "fantasy".

According to the current scientific theory, the children who grow up like this will have natural defects, when they grow up, they will certainly not be able to communicate with normal people, a long time to learn, I am afraid that they can only master the lower level of language skills.

The results for these types of questions now seem to have answers in themselves.

In the 19th century, a "wild boy" was also found in the forests of Avonland, France, and was named "Victor".

After a thorough examination by doctors, the child's articulatory organs were damaged, but other functions were normal, and his hearing was very sensitive due to his long-term presence in the wild.

So, everyone tried to teach Victor how to speak, but he learned and learned, but only two words.

In 1970, a film called "The Wild Child" was made based on doctors' detailed records, and it was discovered that a 13-year-old child at the age of puberty could not learn to speak, which likewise indicated that the boy had passed the critical period for learning language, and could not learn to speak during the "critical period" and would have difficulty learning to speak afterwards.

Thus, a systematic view is that human language ability is innate, although it must be stimulated by social information during infancy and early childhood to be fully stimulated, after which it is difficult to stimulate.

Such a phenomenon is not only seen in humans, but also in other animals.

For example, the U.S. Optical Research Center has done such an experiment: a young cat fed in the house for three months, the dark light, there is only a vertical line of objects shining in, it is easy to see the legs of chairs and other linear objects, but there is no way to distinguish between parallel line objects.

It also shows that leaving a certain environment and missing the learning period, it becomes almost a foregone conclusion that even many basic talents cannot be stimulated.

Through all this, it is also easy to see that the experiment of Boussametikus, which was already very cruel, had no regard for the future of these babies in order to get the truth he wished to see.

Of course, this is also related to the limitations of the ancient civilization period.

Pharaoh Bu Sametikus experiment, the two babies in the long two years have been in the "silent" state, and by definition, the child at least one year old can begin to imitate human speech, but the two children, also maintained a long period of "silence".

Early one morning, when the nanny was feeding the two children formula, the two children looked very happy and a "bekes" suddenly came out of their mouths.

For them, the phrase "bekes" is a natural decision, and the most subtle meaning of the word, they must not even understand.

At that time, there was another person on the sidelines who was a close friend of Pharaoh.

When Pharaoh Boussametikus heard about this, he quickly sought out the sage and asked him to make sure he understood the meaning of the term.

Pharaoh's understanding is also simple: the word belongs to whichever language is then the most basic language.

As a result, the sage searched long and hard and finally found the word "bekes" in the Phoenician vocabulary, which means "bread".

Thus did Pharaoh Boussametikus come to the most basic conclusion: the most ancient language in the world is Phoenician.

Such a conclusion is clearly too arbitrary.

Overall, Pharaoh Boussametikus was still very disappointed with the results of the experiment, the two children did not produce any verbal communication and were able to express the desired meaning through sign language, already tending to the limit.

What he expected didn't happen either: it's true that babies can't learn a language out of thin air without anyone teaching them.

Many people in later generations are criticizing what Pharaoh Busametikus did, thinking that he took the lovely baby for experimentation is itself very cruel, with the progress of civilization, such things will no longer be allowed to happen.

However, linguists and educators of later generations have found in this a very interesting question: when do people actually start to learn to speak?

Reflections arising from the Pharaoh of Boussametikus

Considering this matter alone, Pharaoh Boussametikus was indeed unpardonable, however, what he did also did advance some thinking.

The answer obtained by Boussametikus was not really an answer either, but was limited by the knowledge of the time and did not explain clearly the origin of the language.

After this pharaoh, there were still later rulers of several countries who did similar experiments, covering several countries.

These experiments, which have been labeled as "cruel", are also most likely to fail to meet expectations.

Since the civilization gradually enlightened, such experiments no longer exist, but there is a very brutal monarch in the history of similar experiments, he is Frederick II.

It can be said that Frederick II was a genius, and his existence, even in the Middle Ages when education was still relatively backward, was amazing.

However, his experiments are similar to those of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs, and are more like an atrocity than a "satisfying brainstorm".

He did a similar thing based on the experiments of Pharaoh Boussametikus, trying to find out, again, where "language" came from.

His experiments are the "enhanced" version of the Pharaoh's experiments in Buxamethicus.

He ordered people to find a few babies to the palace, these babies also isolated from each other, a nurse to feed and care for them, to bathe them, but absolutely not allowed to have any contact between these babies, and absolutely not to speak to them.

This group of children, like those who did the experiment thousands of years ago, did not have a native language.

The experiments of Pharaoh Boussametikus were somewhat backward compared with those of Frederick II.

By this method Frederick II also wanted to know, growing up under these conditions, which language these children would first start to speak.

Moreover, his experimental period was much longer, with the "silent period" alone lasting about four years.

Four years into the experiment, the children were finally starting to have a normal social life and were able to engage with other people.

All of these behaviors seem perfectly normal, but none of them can speak, only make some grunting sounds.

However, their brains do grow and have the basic structure of speech, the basic human voice, but cannot be made.

Later, there are brutal kings want to study the problem, but the very of such experiments, there is no sense, even if a few syllables popped out of the mouth, that is the human instinct, reality must also be able to find out the existence of words to match the example, therefore, the world has never had a natural language, a child who has not heard others speak, is indeed unable to speak.

The answers to these types of questions are no longer required to go through the child at all.

Goethe, a professor in the Department of Biology at Princeton University, did a similar experiment with chickens and the results were the same.

The conclusion is also very simple: all animals need to learn in the process of perceiving the world.

Humans are in the evolutionary process of gaining more and more abilities, only gradually stood at the top of the food chain, also has a unique civilization, mastered the language.

And both Pharaoh's experiments and those of later brutal monarchs were in vain.

Reference

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