How might early humans have negotiated meaning without shared linguistic conventions? What role did pointing and other forms of ostensive definition play?

Mandarin Chinese alone is the most widely spoken native language in the world ... Linguists have split Chinese into somewhere between seven and ten main language ... Source Unlike Tamil, which is still a widely spoken language, Sanskrit is the oldest language in the world but fell out of common usage around 600 B.C. It is ... Oct 4, 2013 ... Sumerian is the oldest attested written language. It was used by the people of Sumer in Southern Mesopotamia and is an isolate language. As a result, when native and non-native English speakers are combined, it is recognized as the single most widely-spoken global language. In fact, English is ... Oct 31, 2020 ... What is the oldest language in the world? This seems to be a simple and straightforward question. But it is not that simple at all. Oct 3, 2011 ... Khoisan languages are spoken in the birthplace of the human species. So it stands to reason that they would be the most conservative languages in the world. Nov 15, 2019 ... English is the world's most widely spoken language but is unusual in the fact that the vast majority of speakers are not 'native'. With a written history of more than 3,000 years, the evolved form of ancient Chinese, specifically Mandarin, is the most widely spoken mother tongue in the ... Mar 2, 2020 ... In a globalized world, many associate multilingualism with mobility and migration. Increasingly, multilingualism appears to be the new norm. But ... Jan 23, 2018 ... In her new book, Harvard Business School Professor Tsedal Neeley examines the challenge of establishing a lingua franca in global companies.