Language Universals Are the Real facts that exist in every language of world.If you are the student of language and linguistics you must know what are the universalism in every language. We will discuss in detail in this article.
Nearly five thousand languages are spoken in the world today. They seem to be quite different, but still, many of them show similar principles, such as word order. For example, in languages such as English, French, and Italian, the words of the clause take the order of first the subject, then the verb, and then the direct object. There even exist basic patterns or principles that are shared by all languages. These patterns are called universals. When the same principles are shared by several languages, we speak of language types. There are several examples for universals.
Universal language means a common language that is understood by people from various nations around the world. Universal itself means general, which applies to all people or to the whole world.
The existence of a universal language makes all people from various nations have a universal way to communicate.Imagine if you could talk to anyone on this earth in a way they understood and you could understand the answer.Some people say universal communication will happen through technology. Simultaneous translators are getting faster and better, but they still have a ways to go.In addition, they must conquer the 7,000-plus existing languages in order to be considered universal. So is it possible for any language to eventually become universal?
Types of Universal Languages
Here are 10 forms of communication that are closest to universal forms of communication between humans. Almost all of them are non-verbal communication .
10. Facial Expressions
Facial expressions are a universal language that everyone in the world can understand. You think you know what an angry, sad, and happy expression looks like on a person’s face?
Chances are you actually did. Humans express core emotions on their faces as the primary form of communication. Moreover, this expression seems archaic because it is used together across cultures.
The greatest naturalist, Charles Darwin, recognized his work. He wrote his third book on this fact. He titled The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals and suggested that key emotions could even be read in animals.
If you’ve ever seen great apes, you can see them “feeling”. Research shows that chimpanzees laugh when tickled, even as babies, and can smile. They can also read facial expressions of pleasure and disgust.
Although facial expressions for emotions may be close to universal, they are less nuanced. You may signal that the world is falling apart and you will cry, but you may not be able to tell someone how to bake a cake or fix a car. Deep but impractical.
9. Movement
Gestures add to what you can do with facial expressions. Anyone trying to communicate through a soundproofed window, for example, might enter this set of information-giving instructions.
It’s easy enough to point the way to signal and suggest movement (up, down, left, right) or signal a target of interest (point to yourself, point to someone else), but cues vary widely between cultures.
Just look at the extensive Japanese body language: to begin with, be polite, you never point.
In Western culture, eye contact is considered the cornerstone of polite conversation. In Japan, this signifies aggression.
8. Hobo Sign
Non-verbal signals can also be written. An interesting set of symbols created by people who traveled the American railroads, often looking for work, were the hobo signs or hobo codes.
Used from the 1880s through WWII, and especially widespread during the depression, hibo marks can appear in flat, bare locations from walls to fences.
You can leave a slanted T to warn others to “get out quickly”, a tic-tack-toe symbol to mark a policeman’s house or five circles, meaning “good chance to make some money here”.
A more complex form means “help here if you are sick”, “assess” or convey other information that is useful to people new to the city.
This form of communication is evolving in an altruistic way – to help those who follow in your footsteps.
Naturally, the motivation for doing so comes from the hope that someone will tell you before you get to the next place.
Symbols have the advantage of not being language dependent. The downside is that you have to see them to use them as communication.
A Hobo sign has the great advantage of lasting long after the person who “uttered it” has left, especially if it is carved in stone. Then again, a thorn bush might grow over it and silence it.
7. Emoticon
Emoticons are the modern-day equivalent of the Hobo emblem, but are recognized globally. Again, they start with facial emotions, add gestures (think the famous thumbs up emoji) and then add most of our most common vocabulary in visual form.
What started as a “ smiling face ” has exploded into ‘pizza’, ‘coffee cups’ and ‘sailboats’. Almost everything, it seems.
Every kind of leaf, flower, and tree seems to be included. Hearts breed and there’s a literal zoo, including humans doing a number of poses, and let’s not forget the cats. Especially the heart-eyed cat.
The vocabulary of this wordless language is so rich that a crowdsourcing project translated Herman Melville’s Moby Dick to Emoji Dick. Good thing there’s a whale emoji.
A picture can contain a thousand words ( a picture is worth a thousand words ), but emoji are still very simple.
Associating words with symbols can only go so far, unless they begin to come to a consensus about the interrelationship of arbitrary words and images for complex concepts and things that are hard to cram into small pictures.
Plus, you can’t hear them, they work visually. So, emoticons are a great help for communication but fail as a complete form of human communication.
6. Sign Language
In the 1500s, Benedictine monks signed the ‘oath of silence’. One of the monks transgressed. Pedro Ponce de León is called the father of education for the deaf. He invented the first manual of the alphabet for finger spelling.
Perhaps the most famous finger seller in history is Helen Keller. Blind and deaf after a childhood illness, he wrote and lectured extensively, championed disability rights, worked as an educator and humanitarian, and co-founded the ACLU.
He is a hero to many and changed the way the world sees people unable to see, hear, or speak.
French Sign Language emerged in the second half of the 1700s and led to the most widely used form of sign language, American Sign Language (ASL).
Marlee Matlin famously signed her way to an Academy Award in the film Children of a Lesser God. Currently, an ASL speaker who only understands English and an ASL speaker who only understands Greek can still speak fluently, for example, making traveling abroad among the deaf to be one of mutual understanding.
Sign language can be written in pictures reminiscent of hieroglyphs, and there have been several attempts to codify the writing system. There’s even a request to create an ASL version of Wikipedia on SignWriting.
Still, the finger-spelling aspect of gestures is language-dependent. In addition, there are more than 100 variants of sign language used worldwide, so not all signature systems can be understood by each other. But the main drawback remains silence.
5. Music
Music, like love, is often spoken of as a universal language. Music can be used to express things that seem beyond words, and that’s why it’s included on this list.
Music can express complex feelings and moods that are almost indescribable in words. In doing so, he tapped into the deepest realm of what it meant to be human.
Music is basically a universal rhythm language. Rhythm is something that all cultures have in common, through dance or music, no matter what kind of music or instrument they have.
Anyone can play a rhythm — even just by using the palm of the hand on a noisy surface.
Outside of rhythm, the brain responds to different combinations of notes in different ways. We can distinguish peaceful music from frenetic music, for example. We can distinguish happy from sad.
Music has long been used as a backdrop for films because it enhances emotional response and even signals upcoming action.
For example, play music for individuals from a tribe in Congo and residents of Montreal and they will exhibit the same emotional and physiological responses to music, even though their musical preferences vary widely.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is famously quoted for writing “Music is the universal language of all mankind.” Science supports the widely accepted notion of the universality of music.
However, different cultures have very varied musical styles, and after all, how is one going to ask, “who do you prefer, Chopin or Liszt?”
4. The Big Five Languages
So, if we need a full spoken and written language as a candidate for a future universal language, we have some clear choices.
While more than 7,000 languages are spoken on earth today according to Ethnologue, most have a limited group of speakers.
Only 8 languages have more than 100 million native speakers and nearly 4,000 have fewer than 10,000 speakers; 692 has fewer than 100 speakers and the language will soon become extinct.
For example, 68 languages are still spoken in Mexico, but the most endangered is Ayapaneco and its last two fluent speakers don’t care to speak.
Some of the ‘mega-languages’ that have ruled the world are Chinese (1.2 billion speakers), Spanish (400 million), English (360 million), Hindi (350 million) and Arabic (250 million).
3. English
English stands out among the top 5 candidates for the first universal language for many reasons.
It’s relatively easy to learn, uses Latin script so it’s relatively easy to write, and has long been a language associated with upward mobility.
Also, if you add up the number of non-native speakers of the top five languages, the numbers each increase, but none as dramatically as English.
The total number of English speakers in the world may reach 2 billion. This is driven by the fact that in many places English is the language of business, the language of science and technology, and entertainment, with English-language cinema and pop music being exported worldwide.
However, English may still be mastered. The figures show that by population size, French is on the rise, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.
Given how China has stepped up as a world leader, many parents of English-speaking children employ nannies who can teach Mandarin. While language teaching in the US is declining, the number of Chinese classes is increasing rapidly.
2. Math
Now, we turn to the universal language – the language of nature. Mathematics ( math ) explains how the world works and mathematical literacy is called numeracy.
Counting is the same in all cultures. Pi is always the “ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter” and equals 3.14 (with infinite trailing digits).
Using the language of mathematics, you can do anything from describing the laws of nature, calculating how to land a lunar module on the moon, to calculating your money.
Although the basics of mathematics, from geometric addition to calculus, are uniform, the numbers are not. If a child reads aloud “2 + 2 = 4” in English, you will likely hear “two plus two is four, or equals 4.”
Numbers in the Western world were based on Arabic numerals, but if you look at the numbers 1 through 10 it shows how different Arabic numerals were from our numbers today.
Chinese uses pictograms and Hindi as the Devanagari script, making this series of numbers incomprehensible.
Variables are codified, especially constants which are universally recognized, but will still be described differently in spoken words. E = mc2 is the most famous equation in history, and the letters represent Energy, mass and speed of light (c).
But Einstein’s original equations were written in German, and switched to English after he fled the Nazis and settled in America.
But despite the power of math, you can’t use it to ask someone out.
1. Programming Language
What can describe all the math, much more, and be used to talk to computers to make them do some amazing calculations?
Computers make the world go round, from banking to the internet to searching for intelligent alien life, and it all depends on programming languages designed by humans.
Actually, there are thousands of programming languages, but it’s about a general concept: absorption speed means ‘universal’. They are written in the language of logic and mathematics using symbols and the majority take words from English.
Programming languages originate from English-speaking countries or are designed by non-native speakers of English to promote absorption.
Programming languages have vocabulary and syntax (word order) like native languages. Keywords (such as “print”) define functions to perform tasks and symbols (such as quotes and brackets) help organize logic and actions (add, divide, multiply).
While a Java programmer may speak any native language, he or she will always type “print” to make the computer send a message to the screen. This code is readable by all Java programmers.
However, there are still non-English programming languages and only a small part of the world can read programming code, let alone write it from scratch. And of course, the programming code runs chatbots that mimic the human ability to communicate in languages, but so far you can’t use ‘code’ to order coffee.
Maybe one day, a group of programmers, who come from different human languages, will create a universal translator software and bring us all together.
Those are the 10 universal languages as reported by the Top Tenz page .
List of 9 Universal Language Words
The following are some of the universal languages beyond sign language that are understood by many global citizens as quoted by Liputan6 from the List Verse page .
1. Pajamas
The term pajama comes from the words “pajama” which is Hindi and Urdu, referring to loose trousers tied around the waist – a very popular fashion of clothing in India.
After colonization, the British brought the clothes home. The style and the word developed rapidly. The word has also been passed down to a number of national or local languages, but is still the same.
For example, bijama in Arabic or pizsama in Hungarian. The word “pajama” even appears in languages like Basque and Irish.
2. Taxi
The term “taxi” ( taxi ) is now understood and widely accepted by many people of the world. It’s probably the easiest and shortest word to describe a more complicated idea.
In Japan, taxis are actually referred to as ippan jokyaku ryokaku jidosha (literally: “motorized vehicles for general passengers and travelers”).
However, the word takushii is becoming commonly used nowadays. Besides being shorter, the writing also saves ink more.
Some argue, perhaps the term “taxi” has been popularized in some places thanks to the development of cross-country tourism.
3. Kopi, Coffee
“Coffee” is a fairly universal term, though not exactly the same. The drink is referred to as “kof-ee,” “kahve,” and “kava.”
This is because most languages borrow the Turkish word kahve which is a slang term for coffee, which is also based on the ancient Arabic word “qahua”.
Other languages also have terms that are not too far from that word. In fact, English uses “coffee”, most of Europe changes “v” to “f” (like “cafe” in French), while the Netherlands changes “a” to “o”.
However, all are still very much related to the word Turkic. The drink’s popularity spread quickly, and the word came with it.
4. Chocolate
Chocolate is a food that is loved by many people in the world. The name hardly differs from one country to another.
This word comes from the Nahuatl word xocolatl. In Aztec culture, these cacao beans were widely consumed as a drink called cacahuatl, possibly from the origin of the word “cocoa.”
The Spaniards coined the term “chocolate,” and the word moved from Spanish to many other European languages, including English.
Like coffee, perhaps globalization which causes this food to be quickly brought to other countries keeps its name unchanged.
5. Teh
China exports tea, both product and word, all over the world. Actually, they export two different words. “Tea” is pronounced cha in most dialects throughout China, and this pronunciation spread through the Silk Road to Persian and then Urdu, Arabic, Russian, and finally as far as East African languages such as Swahili.
However, certain dialects refer to cha as “te” for example in the two main ports for Dutch trade: the coastal province of Fujian and the island of Taiwan.
From the Netherlands, the word spread to Europe and the west coast of Africa and influenced a large number of languages using the term “te”.
6. Guitar
The word “guitar” is tricky to trace, as it has been applied to stringed musical instruments, throughout history.
This modern guitar originated in Spain and is a medieval instrument known as the guitarra latina. Many Europeans took the word from this term and then popularized it.
However, if we look back further, the original word guitar has its roots from the Greek words “kithara” and Arabic “gitara”.
However, “tar” itself is the Hindi word for string, derived from the more ancient Persian and Sanskrit languages. Tar is seen in many other instrument names, such as the tardan sitar.
7. Mama
The word “mama” can almost be understood by most of the world’s population. In addition, many terms are similar from one country to another. For example, “eomma” in Korean or “mami” in Czech. The equivalent words for father are also similar but vary more widely.
How could this happen? Research shows that all of it has to do with speech development in children. Where in the early days of learning to talk babies used to say “mmmm ..” and “a …”.
These sounds combined create a common first word: “mama.” Same sound, same interpretation, same word. So whenever you want to call your mama, wherever you are in the world, people will know what’s going on.
8. Limits
The term “OK” is often referred to as one of the most famous words in the world. If you look closely, “Okay” appears in the US as a joke. The abbreviation “OK” is used to mean “orl korrekt,” a deliberate misspelling of “all correct.”
There are several theories behind the easy passage of the word “OK”. One of them is aesthetics; A curved “O” and a straight line “K” side by side are quite typical.
What’s more is that the “oh,” “k,” and “ay” sounds are present in most languages. “OK” is not yet really accepted in formal speech (though it is recognized by some dictionaries). However, the term has found its own worldwide fame.
9. Haha
“Haha” is the universal sound to describe laughter. Other variations, such as “hehe,” “hee-hee,” or “ho-ho,” are also quite popular. This word is becoming more universal when many people write their positive emotions -laughs- on their smartphone keyboards.
Every language, of course, has a different way of expressing and typing this “haha” sound. For example, Spanish is “jaja.” In Thailand, the number 5 is pronounced “ha,” so they will often express laughter on the keyboard by typing “55555!”
Such is the variety of universal languages. Humans all over the world do come from one family, the couple Adam and Eve. Greetings.*
SEMANTIC UNIVERSALS:
There are semantic categories that are shared by all cultures and referred to by all languages – these are called semantic universals. There are many examples of semantic universals. Let’s discuss two of them: one semantic universal regards our notion of color. There exist eleven basic colour terms: black, white, red, green, blue, yellow, brown, purple, pink, orange, and grey.
The pattern that all languages universally abide by, is that they do not entertain a notion of a color term outside of that range. This means, any imaginable color is conceived of as a mixture, shade, or subcategory of one of these eleven basic color terms. As a result, one way of classifying languages is by colour terms. The eleven colour terms are not in usage equally among the languages on Earth. Not all languages have all basic color terms. Some have two, some three, and some four. Others have five; six, or seven, and some have eight to eleven.
Those with two colour terms always have black and white, those with three black, white, and red, and those with more have additional basic colour terms according to the order in the list given above. This is a universal pattern. The languages which have the same basic color terms in common belong to the same language type. Hence, we find seven classes of languages according to this scheme.
Another semantic universal is the case of pronouns. Think of what it is you do when you talk to someone about yourself. There is always the “I”, representing you as the speaker, and the “you”, meaning the addressee. You could not possibly do without that, and neither could a speaker of any other language on earth. Again, we find a universal pattern here. Whenever you do not talk about yourself as a person, but as a member of a group, you use the plural “we”. English is restricted to these two classes of pronouns: singular and plural, each in the first, second, and third person. All languages that evince this structure are grouped into one language type
There are other languages that make use of even more pronouns. In some languages, it is possible to address two people with a pronoun that specifically indicates not just their being plural, but also their being ‘two’ people; this is then the dual pronoun. Other examples are languages that have pronouns to refer to the speaker and the addressee together, called inclusive pronouns. Exclusive pronouns refer to the speaker together with people other than the addressee. However, these are not among the European languages.
Facts You Must Know About Language Universals And How They Exist In Every Language
PHONOLOGICAL UNIVERSALS:
Different languages may have very different sets of vowels. If you are familiar with a few foreign languages, you may find it difficult to believe there are universal rules governing the distribution of vowels, but they do exist. Remember our example of basic color terms: A similar pattern could be drawn on the basis of the vowel system. Languages with few vowels always have the same set of vowel types. And if a language has more vowels, it is always the same type
of vowel that is added to the set. These vowels may not always sound exactly the same, but they are always created at the same location in our vocal apparatus.
SYNTACTIC UNIVERSALS
Remember the word order of English I mentioned above. Hamm, you say: that cannot be a universal rule, since you know other sentences from English and possibly from other languages which do not follow this order. You are right, but the order subject, verb, object (SVO) may be defined as the basic order of English sentences. In other languages there are different “basic” orders, such as Japanese (SOV) or Tongan (VSO), a Polynesian language. After an extensive study, one can define two different sets of basic orders that languages follow: First SVO, VSO, SOV and second VOS, OVS, OSV. What is the difference? In the first set the subject precedes the object; in the second set it follows the object. Since the first set is the one which applies to the basic structures of far more languages than the second one does, the universal rule is that there is an overwhelming tendency for the subject of a sentence to precede the direct object among the languages of the world.
ABSOLUTE UNIVERSALS
Of course, not all universals can be found in all languages. With so many tongues spoken, it would be hard not to find any exceptions. Most languages have not even been the subject of extensive research as of yet. However, some rules appear without exception in the languages which have been studied so far.
We call these absolute universals. If there are minor exceptions to the rule, we speak of universal tendencies or relative universals. In saying this, we take for granted that exceptions may be found in future surveys among languages which have remained unexplored up to the present day. Sometimes a universal holds only if a particular condition of the language structure is fulfilled.
These universals are called implicational. Universals which can be stated without a condition are called non implicational. In other words, whenever a rule “If … then …” is valid, the universal appears in the structure of the respective language. There are thus four types of universals: implicational absolute universals, implicational relative universals, non implicational absolute universals, and non implicational relative universals. The final determination of which type a universal belongs to is dependent on intensive field research.
The concept of a “Language Universal” in linguistics refers to a feature or pattern that is found across all human languages. These universals can be either absolute, meaning they are found in every known language without exception, or they can be statistical, meaning they are found in most but not all languages. They help linguists understand the commonalities and constraints in human language structure and cognition.
Here’s a guide to understanding Language Universals in a tabular format:
| Category | Description | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Phonetic Universals | Concerning sounds used in languages. | All languages have vowels and consonants. |
| Morphological Universals | Related to the structure of words. | Most languages have a way to form questions. |
| Syntactic Universals | Pertaining to sentence structure. | All languages have subjects and predicates. |
| Semantic Universals | Dealing with meaning. | All languages have words for physical objects and actions. |
| Pragmatic Universals | Related to language use in context. | All languages use language to request, inform, or question. |
| Absolute Universals | Features found in every known language without exception. | All languages have nouns and verbs. |
| Statistical Universals | Features common to most languages, but with some exceptions. | Most languages have consonants [p], [t], and [k]. |
This table simplifies a complex area of study. The actual universals in each category can be more specific and nuanced, and linguists continue to research and debate many of them.
In conclusion, understanding how language universal works sheds light on the interconnectedness of our global society. While each language has its unique characteristics, the underlying principles and universals allow us to bridge linguistic barriers and connect with one another. By continually improving our communication skills, we can foster understanding, empathy, and cooperation in our personal and professional relationships. So, let’s embrace the power of language and strive to communicate effectively, no matter the languages we speak.
