ORIGIN OF SOUNDS, WORDS AND IDEAS

Introduction

Basically human communications are based on words and their meanings. This is fully applicable to people with a written script only. There were (are) people in forests and tribal areas without written scripts and languages. Many languages and cultures developed in many regions of Earth and got transmitted from generation to generation. It needed a community and culture for growth as fertile soil and water to plants. An alphabet of many letters, sounds and words are building blocks of a language. Once these basic things are available both community and culture would continue to grow simultaneously, unitedly and mixingly.

Letters and sounds are most fundamental to languages. Sounds are produced by blowing or moving air in mouth, at levels of throat, tongue, tip of tongue, lips,teeth, palate and with their different alignments. Birds and other animals can make only sounds and notes. They make various sounds to signal or communicate presence, warning, fear, pain, joy, agreement, anger etc. Ability to produce different sounds, depends on developments and structures of mouth, tongue, teeth, lips, beak etc. Alphabet and words were products of scribbling and recording abilities which human beings formed and developed with time into writing, language, printing, transmitting etc. An alphabet is a group of standardized letters of different sounds, viz., vowels, consonants and variants. For example, English has 26 vowels and consonants. Two or more merging letters produce a syllable (or ‘unit of pronounciation without interruption’). Similarly in other languages also.

Formation of words

Words are formed by combining different letters and syllables, like 'ke’, ‘ko’, ‘pi’, ‘re’. Certain sounds do not align well, e.g., y and k, k and x . (There are no words starting with ‘yk’ in Concise Oxford Dictionary, 9th ed., Della Thompson(ed.), Oxford University Press, 1999). There are words with only one letter or syllable like ‘a’ and ‘he’, and multi-syllable words like ‘multidimensional’.Popularity of different types of words depends on cultures (tribal, rural etc.), background of animals and sounds (or environments), life styles (rich, poor etc.), jobs and professions (e.g., engineers, farmers) etc. Depending on professions and use, there are ordinary and colloquial styles, literary styles of novels and news papers, scientific styles, poetic styles etc. Profession induced specialities or barriers mostly remain to circles of profession (e.g., farmers, politicians, scientists).

Words are formed for naming or identifying (e.g., proper nouns like Ramu, Raju ), for describing actions or works (e.g., verbs like study, eat, walk). Adjectives and adverbs add stress, quality etc. to nouns and verbs (e.g., well, beautiful, smart). There are other types of words and multi-purpose words to number, to show amount,speed etc. (e.g., one, ten, gram, second, parsec, cusec). There are popular groups of words called phrases forming parts of sentences; e.g., give away, look out, keep an eye open. Many words of different types joined together meaningfully form sentences when grammatically stated. So there are ideas (e.g., that tree is small), popular ideas and sayings (e.g., health is wealth), scientific ideas/concepts (e.g., matter is made of atoms), wise ideas or wisdom (e.g., be honest always), poetic iseas (e.g., my love is shining like a star) etc. Well developed languages have tens of thousands of words. English has about 2 lakhs words of different types; popular, scientific, poetic, classical, obsolete etc. Words, ideas, notes, write-ups, articles, poems, pictures etc. make communications of different types. ‘Words make worlds’ is a saying showing the close relations between languages and cultures.

History of words

Origin and history of words can be traced etymologically from dictionaries, books and other records. For example, the word ‘electricity’ originated from ‘electric’. ‘Electromotive’, ‘electrostatic’ and ‘electrophylic’ originated from ‘electric’ and elektron (Greek). The word ‘Eurasian’ points to a mixed origin from ‘Europe’ and ‘Asia’. Other words are ‘eucalyptus’ and ‘eucharis’. The word ‘indian’ originated from indigenous to mean natives or aborigines. So there are ‘American indians’, ‘Canadian indians’, and ‘West indians’ or Caribbeans . The name Brahmaputra, the international river which flows in northeast India, seems to be of mythical origin, to mean son of Brahma. Sindh, Sindhi and Sindhis originated from the river name Sindhu. Hind is of Persian origin and Hindi and Hindian follow. Similarly, Tamil, Tamilian, Kannada, Kannadian etc.

Thinking, thoughts and ideas

Thinking is the ability of intellect or mind. Intellect is a coherent, consolidated and stable formation of neurons in brain, caused by learnings and practices. Hence, coherent thinking causes meaningful thoughts, talks, ideas, writings etc. Scientifically, thinking can be defined as ‘logical operations’ performed in brain by intellect, following established rules/criteria and basic learnings; e.g., (1+10)-5 = 6 is a piece of mathematical logic. Similarly, ‘be honest’ is a socially established piece of logic or moral. Comparing, associating, aligning, relating, reasoning and discussing are some thinking ways. In the same way as words are united together meaningfully and grammatically to form ideas, ideas are to be united or aligned meaningfully and logically to generate intelligence. This is done by intellect or mind by thinking . Mnemonic thinking and rhyming are ways of forming new words, ideas, rhythms and poems. This is different from basic thinking, mathematical thinking and philosophising. For example, consider the word ‘guesstimate’. This colloquial word means something between a guess and estimate. Similarly steadfast means ‘steady and fast’ also; revolution also means re-evolution when society is in turmoil. Rhymes and rhythms add style and harmony to verse and prose. “Naughty boys make knotty notes”, “some holy men are hallowed hollowly” are examples. ‘Mixing’ or mis-thinking is out of fuzzing and leads to guessing, fussing, mis-wording, chatting, laugher etc. These can happen mnemonically or without conscious effort. The prefix ‘mis’ is an ‘easy-to-pronounce’ version of ‘mix’ (or fusing and merging). So mistakes and misbehaviours happen due to mixing in mind, caused by uncertainties and hurrying. The words mislead, misconstrue and miscellaneous point to mixing effects or lack of clarity.

Different human communications commune or ‘common-ise’ , sense, ideas, fundamentals, joy, happiness, worry, tension, etc. by listeners, readers and viewers to different degrees. Talking,teaching, reading, playing, celebrating, discussing etc., are some communication ways. These can be superficial and shallow in mind or deep and stable. Music, songs, dances etc. transmit, convey or mix-in ideas, emotions and feelings to different degrees. Many ways of communications developed fast with tools of writing, printing, publishing, transmiting etc. Internet, web sites, storing devices like pen drives and disks increased communications enormously in volume and content. Similarly human potential for spreading indiscipline, vices, confusion and violence also increased.

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