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Egyptian Pharaoh's famous experiment: If babies are not taught to speak, will new languages arise between them?

author:Agent in the box

Language is a symbol of civilization, one of the essential differences between humans and animals, and a necessary existence for communication.

Egyptian Pharaoh's famous experiment: If babies are not taught to speak, will new languages arise between them?

Communication between humans

There has been a debate about whether language is born or acquired.

To solve this puzzle that plagued humanity, could the Egyptian pharaohs have produced new languages by bringing together newborn babies and raising them without teaching them to speak? Let's take a look together.

Amazing experiment

Historically, Egyptian civilization stood at the pinnacle of human civilization at that time, not only with a well-developed language system, but also with a strict hierarchy.

Egyptian Pharaoh's famous experiment: If babies are not taught to speak, will new languages arise between them?

The Egyptian class system

A section of the ruling class with Pharaoh as the core led the ancient Egyptian people to prosperity, and Psamtik I was one of them.

His reign was around 700 BC, when ancient Egypt was almost in decline and agricultural production could not meet people's needs.

However, Psamtik I's efforts once again "revitalized" the development of civilization.

One day, Psamtik I had a whim, human beings are so intelligent, completely different from animals in nature, how did we come about?

Egyptian Pharaoh's famous experiment: If babies are not taught to speak, will new languages arise between them?

Psamtik I

Perhaps, ancient Egyptian civilization is the starting point of mankind, since the birth of ancient Egyptians, there will be other races in the world.

In order to test his idea, Psamtik I thought of a way to trace the historical origins of mankind from the perspective of human language.

Thus came the famous companion space-accompanying experiment.

What exactly is this experiment? Simply put, it is to put two newborn babies together, not let them listen to any civilized language, and raise them, if they speak the ancient Egyptian language in the process, which proves that ancient Egypt is the source of mankind.

So Psamtik I mobilized all of Egypt and found two babies born on the same day, during which both the parents of the babies and the guards who took over communicated with gestures without saying a word.

Egyptian Pharaoh's famous experiment: If babies are not taught to speak, will new languages arise between them?

Pharaoh

After the handover, the guards brought the two babies to a shepherd to raise them.

Psamtik I personally instructed him not to speak to a baby or in front of it, or he would suffer doom.

In order to supervise the shepherds, Psamtik I specially arranged a guard in secret to report to him regularly.

After the arrival of the baby, the lonely shepherd was happy, because he lived in a place isolated and he was very sad to have no family.

Today's two babies are undoubtedly the best spiritual comfort for him, so the shepherd takes great care of the two children.

Egyptian Pharaoh's famous experiment: If babies are not taught to speak, will new languages arise between them?

The working people and nobility of the ancient Egyptians

After 1 year, when it was time for the baby to babble, the shepherd did not dare to say a word, and when the baby wanted to express his appeal, he could only show it through gestures or unknown calls.

Failed experiments

After 2 years, the baby still has not learned any language, and realistically speaking, 2-year-old babies can speak clearly, but their performance seems to be no different from 1 year ago.

Egyptian Pharaoh's famous experiment: If babies are not taught to speak, will new languages arise between them?

Babies can only speak when their brains are mature

After the news reached Psamtik I, he pondered for a while, could only attribute it to the late puberty of the baby, and ordered the continuation of the experiment.

Soon, after another 2 years, the original baby was able to run on the ground, and the two children got along very happily, but they just couldn't speak any language.

Just when everyone was disappointed, the shepherd happened to hear the voice of one of the children that seemed to be civilized language.

The guards and shepherds hastened to report to Psamtik I, and according to the clues provided by the shepherds, everyone searched through all the linguistic records and found no suitable one.

Egyptian Pharaoh's famous experiment: If babies are not taught to speak, will new languages arise between them?

Ancient Egyptian script

Could it be a language from another country? You must know that other civilizations have risen in Europe at that time, and on the eastern side of the Mediterranean there is a group of ancient Indian migrations that also created their own languages.

Although they were very unwilling, they could only seek help from this divided civilization of ancient India, and found in their language a vague language that matched the baby's language.

This disappointed Pharaoh, could it not be that the origin of civilization was not Egypt?

However, it was also said that if the king was patient, maybe the child was just a coincidence.

Sure enough, people observed the two children for another 1 year, and they never said anything similar to the ancient Indian language again, which shows that what was said before was completely coincidental.

Egyptian Pharaoh's famous experiment: If babies are not taught to speak, will new languages arise between them?

Old Indian script

In the end, the experiment failed, and Psamtik I allowed the children to live with the shepherds and taught them the language.

Although the two children started late, they were very intelligent and quickly learned the civilized language of ancient Egypt and lived like normal people.

From the conclusion of this experiment, it appears that language is an acquired human behavior and needs to be learned to acquire.

In fact, language is indeed a set of "experiences" summarized by ancestors in the long process of evolution.

The history of the development of the language

Before evolving into advanced intelligent creatures, humans belonged to the category of orangutans, and we at that time, like orangutans, used roars and various movements to express our appeals.

Egyptian Pharaoh's famous experiment: If babies are not taught to speak, will new languages arise between them?

Humans differentiate into chimpanzees

Later, a group of intelligent people appeared, and they found that this primitive signaling was very unfavorable to communication.

When people communicate, they are not only inefficient, but also easily misunderstand each other's meaning.

Is there a means to make the other person understand what they want to express at once?

Language is an effective means, for example, when primitive people express anger, they often need to cooperate with facial expressions and movements to show it.

And some less intelligent primitive people are likely not to understand each other's meaning, leading to a gap in information exchange.

When language appears, the primitive person only needs to say a word, I am angry, the other person can immediately understand, and react accordingly.

Of course, the language of primitive people may not be so advanced, they may carve hieroglyphs with fixed meanings on the ground, or communicative voices to remind each other.

Egyptian Pharaoh's famous experiment: If babies are not taught to speak, will new languages arise between them?

Primitive man records life

After the primitive tribes prospered, the more closely the primitive people communicated, the more opportunities they needed to communicate.

After continuous accumulation of experience, primitive writing and language were produced, and due to different regions, their thinking was different, so the resulting writing was also very different.

Until the rise of civilization, people inherited the language of the primitive people in the region, and made further fine divisions, so that they could perfectly express their demands.

Egyptian Pharaoh's famous experiment: If babies are not taught to speak, will new languages arise between them?

The inheritance and change of words

The efficiency of people's communication is high, and productivity is gradually improved.

Civilization perfects language and writing, which in turn nurtures the development of civilization.

Why is it that no animal other than humans can produce language?

The language of animals

Many people think that animals have language, such as bird calls and baboon calls, which can be noticed by their companions, but other creatures cannot understand them.

Egyptian Pharaoh's famous experiment: If babies are not taught to speak, will new languages arise between them?

baboon

But in fact, in a strict sense, this is not a language, more like a signal.

Let's take a very simple example, humans cry when they are sad, is the sound of crying considered language? Surely not, but we can convey appeals through special voices, which is how our ancestors communicated.

So animals, like animals, they just use sound, and they can't call it language.

After all, they do not have the wisdom to produce language, in their opinion, simple communication is enough, and more language is just a burden, after all, they do not need to socialize.

Egyptian Pharaoh's famous experiment: If babies are not taught to speak, will new languages arise between them?

Primitives

It can be seen how unique human beings are on earth, and we, as advanced intelligent creatures, are lucky.

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