Language, Culture and Society Assignment Mahnoor Zahid Section H

How Language Transformed Humanity Mark Pegel

Who wouldnt agree with the fact that language has had a major impact on humanity, after all, if
it wasnt for our cognitive ability to communicate with each other I doubt there would have been
a major difference between humans and animals. According to Pegel, Language really is the
most potent trait ever evolved, and who would deny that? At least no human would.

If it werent for language, there would not exist the education we have today, and hence, the
entire world would have been an illiterate mess. Now, education, some may say does not make
us human, and it may be true to some extent keeping in mind, there are several in the world who
are illiterate. However, if there was no language there wouldnt exist medicine, or technology,
and we would have been far from where we are today. The major difference between animals
and humans is language; its the act of easily communicating with the people around you, if
humans didnt have language, per se, there probably would have been absolutely no difference
between the two species. As Pegel has also said, language is the only difference between humans
and chimpanzees. Language has had a major impact on humanity over the years, whereas, no
one really knows where language exactly came from; we know how it has evolved over the
years. With there being very less languages in the beginning, the number has risen up to 7000-
8000 different languages.

Pegel believes that even though the world is one and humanity seems to be destined to have one
single language in order to achieve cooperation, he supports the diversity of languages. When
you think about it, if there was one single language all around the world, there would have
absolutely been no communication barrier, and that would have resulted in a smooth flow of
communication all across the world, with perhaps, way less chaos. For instance, the issue of UN
spending a large sum of money only on translators, because of the fact that members from
different countries speak different languages which are not universally understood. Even though,
English is a universal language, there are billions of people who do not understand it. Therefore,
it could be said that the language barrier is perhaps causing a delay in the process of human
evolution/transformation; though faster than other species, it is not as fast as it could have been if
the world had one single language. However, yes, theres the whole point of diversity and being
Language, Culture and Society Assignment Mahnoor Zahid Section H

different from people in other regions; having some sort of uniqueness, but it could be argued
that wanting diversity over cooperation and peace wouldnt be the wisest choice.