科研成果详情

Answering the question "Which notions ('concepts') of languages ('linguistic communication') existed prior to the time of historical age and documented language use?” aiming at the understanding of the phenomenon of natural language use we present in this article concepts of linguistic communication preserved in the hypothetical roots of proto-languages with reflexes in historical words in contemporary languages. Such hypothetical roots are present in natural languages not only limited to a specific language family, but also across the boundaries of the model of the language families. Our analysis of Borean roots referring to linguistic communication shows that the chain building process across language families mostly occurs in the exchange between the Afroasiatic language family, the Eurasiatic language family, and the Sino-Caucasian language family, while the Australic language family and the Amerindian language family are less represented. Building a chain across traditional language families, the roots continue in two to four language families, a fact, which allows us to conclude that many languages on the globe share a set of phonetic sounds as common origin for their thesaurus of linguistic communication independently from their classification in traditional language families.