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WHY ARE LANGUAGES DIVERSE?

April 26, 2017diverse Languages

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WHY ARE LANGUAGES DIVERSE?

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Bole, Ngamo, and Karekare are three languages of northeastern Nigeria. Below are the words for ‘six’, ‘seven’, and ‘eight’ in these languages. (Click here to see the location of these languages and a video of the speakers in the pictures below pronouncing the words.) Even though these are three distinct languages, the words for ‘six’, ‘seven’, and ‘eight’ resemble each other. WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING IS THE MOST LIKELY EXPLANATION FOR THE FACT THAT THESE ARE DIFFERENT LANGUAGES YET SHARE THESE (AND MANY MORE) RESEMBLANCES? a. The languages all borrowed the words for ‘six’, ‘seven’, and ‘eight’ from the same language. b. The resemblances between the languages are just accidental, that is, given the fact that all languages use just a limited number of sounds, it is inevitable that languages will occasionally put sounds together in similar ways to make words of similar meaning. c. The languages can all trace their origin to a single, ancestral language community, which dispersed. Over time,