No Definition

– Montasir Jim

email: bigganjanala@gmail.com

Date: 26 January, 2021

What is language? What is the definition of language? By definition of language we may mean something by which ideas about language can be deduced. To define something, one must first have a clear idea of its source and where it came from. If we talk about the origin of language, everyone will probably say that the sounds that we always utter, the sounds that come out of the vocal cords are the origin of the language. Well, It is important to pause here and draw another point about the origin of language.

Why language is needed? Johann Gottfried Herder is one of the historical linguists. According to Herder, race expresses its soul through language. Now the question is, are only we humans the animal with a soul? Other animals also have souls, such as birds, tigers, deer, dogs, etc. They have souls, so there must be some mediator to express their souls. If it were not for that, the matter of living in this diverse animal kingdom by maintaining the contact of animals and birds would not have appeared. Because languages have been created for the purpose of maintaining communication and we are constantly communicating using different languages and every moment we feel how important communication has become for us. Every animal like us is communicating with its own species, so how can the way they communicate be called language? Pausing here again …… we go back to the previous subject i.e. the source of the language. According to Herder, language has evolved from its innate human needs and is not a well-planned invention. Herder claims that language is man-made. Because, if it was a divine creation, there would not be so much chaos in the language. However, there are many different theories in this regard and it is normal to have.

Before that, let’s take a look at the invention of language. If the question is whether man came first or language, then everyone will feel free to say that man came first. Because language is created for human needs. In order for humans to survive, they need to communicate and for that they need language. So how exactly are there other animals in the world besides humans that have advanced brains that communicate with or interact with each other? Why don’t we use the word ‘language’ in the case of other animals or creatures when we say that language is the means of communication? Why define language as the only set of man-made sounds? The answer is that grammarians or ordinary people may say that we do not understand their language because we do not understand their language.

It is important to note here that people who are not born speechless, that is, dumb, also have language, which is a sign language. They are constantly communicating with everyone through this sign language. Sign language is not exactly a ‘language’ what many would say because it does not produce sounds, communicated only by signal. As I said before, the main purpose of language is to communicate.

When animals communicate, sounds are produced that are not comprehensible to humans. If we want to move forward on the basis of communication, why don’t we include their words in the language? In fact, the meaning of language is limited to the production of sounds, but the language thing is very broad. I believe that all living things on earth have languages, and that every creature, even nature, has a language. Because if there is no language, people-animals-nature-creatures are among them, No Inter-relationship could be diagnosed. Because of the existence of language, we are able to determine that each subject in this universe is related to the other. We constantly try to understand the language of many unknown beings in this world. So before defining a language, one has to believe in the idea of how wide and extensive the language is. We also have to keep in mind that language is changeable. The language is constantly changing. The rules, rules and regulations are changing.

There is a big difference between the Bengali language of the past and the Bengali language of today. Again, there is no good answer to the question of the number of languages in the world. We may have read in textbooks since childhood that there are more than three and a half thousand languages in the world. But this number is not constant at all. There are many languages in the world as dead and extinct and in many languages there are some ancient forms of modern languages which are not used now. Will the original, middle and modern form of a language be considered as one language or three languages? Each language also has many regional dialects. There are many unknown languages in the world. Therefore, it is very difficult to give a universal definition of language. Many grammarians have only prioritized the human language. Again, many people have prioritized the language of those who have the ability to speak while giving the definition of language. In fact, the matter of language is very wide. It can be understood only by insight.