Human Language, (Its Concept, Features and Functions)

Abstract

The human language possesses features that distinguish it from other non-human languages - if this expression is correct - it determines the humanity of man. Without it society would be without spirit and man and animals would be equal in this respect. Language is a human phenomenon; because only man can place his mental activity in linguistic symbols, and accordingly, creatures other than man cannot acquire any human language in one form or another; because it is not prepared or equipped for that, it does not have the mental capacity to acquire the language, and it does not have sufficient intelligence to develop linguistic symbols through which they can formulate a language suitable for understanding, with its own connotations, and its distinctive phonological manifestations. If these animals are unable to place their mental activity in linguistic symbols, then the basis of human mental activity is the use of linguistic symbols, as he has awareness of the signs that he uses as means to achieve his purposes, and he also has a conscious intention when using them, and then he chooses from among them what he deems appropriate. For the position that it expresses. As for the animal, it does not have this perception, or this intention, because the person possesses an innate apparatus called the linguistic faculty (the linguistic ability) or what is called (the latent competence) in the mind, which makes the person ready to acquire any language that lives in its surroundings without effort. In addition to the fact that a person is able to pass on this language that he acquired to the generations that follow without intentionally or preparing, so language is acquired and inherited without effort or planning. Although researchers on the issue of the genesis of human language have not reached - with certainty - to determine how it arose, and in what form it arose, no one denies the importance of language for all of humanity; because research in language is a search in the human being himself. For this reason, God Almighty has distinguished man with language, language has distinguished him from other animals, and those who think that language is merely a means of expressing ideas, or a means of communication between man and those around him are mistaken; because language is often in response to man’s innate tendency to prove His social presence.