I’m a Scientist is like school science lessons meet the X Factor! School students choose which scientist gets a prize of $1000 to communicate their work.
Scientists and students talk on this website. They both break down barriers, have fun and learn. But only the students get to vote.
This zone is the Boron Zone. It has a range of scientists studying all different topics. Who gets the prize? YOU decide!
Awesome Q halle12 🙂
I don’t know the answer, and in fact it may well be a question that is not possible to answer with science – early scholars like Charles Darwin referred to the origins of language it as one of the “hardest problems in science”. So you are in good company with your question as it has been baffling scientists for 100s of years 🙂 So, last day of the competition and you ask us one of the toughest questions known to science 🙂 I love it.
But I have a friend who works with linguistics (study of language) in Indigenous societies and she gave me some tips. There have been dozens of theories but the three that seem to have most theoretical support are (1) the language gradually evolved from our ancestors – such as from simple sounds up to words (2) language appeared in a very short amount of time possibly with genetics as a base and (3) combinations of the above.
The main reason the origins of language are not known is that there is no written or pictorial history from which to base assumptions. So scientists can not verify the theories.
Sorry for my simplistic answer but it’s a tough question 🙂
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What a great question! I’ve learnt something again. Thanks to Mark and his friend! 😉
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