Two Approaches

The natural history of language. How do we learn language? What makes

language possible?

The cultural history language.

Where did English come from? How did all the languages in world evolve, and is there such a

thing as a ‘first’ language?

•You did what?

•What did you do?

•Who do you think will say what?

•What who do you think will say?

You did what?

Chomsykian Theories of Language Acquisition

•Speed of Acquisition

•All Humans Speak

•Critical Age Hypothesis

Chomskian Theories

Chomsykian Theories of Language Acquisition

•Speed of Acquisition

•All Humans Speak

•Critical Age Hypothesis

Chomskian Theories

Genie

Chomsykian Theories of Language Acquisition

•Poverty of the Stimulus

Chomskian Theories

•Speed of Acquisition

•All Humans Speak

•Critical Age Hypothesis

Poverty of Stimulus

Yeah. It doesn’t help the tree but it

protects, keeps the moisture in. Uh huh.

Because then it just soaks up moisture. It

works by the water molecules adhere to

the carbon moleh, molocures that are in

the ashes. It holds it on. And the plant

takes it away from there.

•Specific Language Deficits

Chomsykian Theories of Language Acquisition

•Speed of Acquisition

•All Humans Speak

•Critical Age Hypothesis

•Poverty of the Stimulus

Chomskian Theories

Brain

•Specific Language Deficits

•The Language Gene

Chomsykian Theories of Language Acquisition

•Speed of Acquisition

•All Humans Speak

•Critical Age Hypothesis

•Poverty of the Stimulus

Chomskian Theories

The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, 

is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than 

the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more 

exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both 

of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of 

verbs and the forms of grammar, than could 

possibly have been produced by accident; so 

strong indeed, that no philologer could examine 

them all three, without believing them to have 

sprung from some common source, which, 

perhaps, no longer exists; there is a similar 

reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing 

that both the Gothic and the Celtic, though 

blended with a very different idiom, had the same 

origin with the Sanscrit; and the old Persian might 

be added to the same family.

William Jones

Latin

Sanskrit

Greek

Tooth

Tooth

Language Families

Ancestors of proto indo european

Pater – Father

Podiatrist – Foot

Tenuous – Thin

Tricolor – Three

Decimal – Ten

Dental - Tooth

Grim

m’s Law

Lithuanian

The Rebel Languages

Tracing proto indo european