What is Language?
Language can be defined as a system of communication consisting of sounds, words and grammar, or the system of communication used by the people of a particular country or profession’. Language is a mean of communication, delivering ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized sounds and signs, thus, being the spoken and written language. Language is a set of sounds that are agreed upon by a society to carry a certain meaning. The sounds conform to rules that define not only the meaning but the order in which the words have to be arranged. Dr Maria Montessori saw development of language in three main distinct but related stages- spoken language, written language, and reading. Each stage is designed to serve the self-construction of the personality with the ability to communicate at all of the three levels. Each level requires a tremendous amount of internal and external effort on behalf of the child. The combination of this work allows both fluent self-expression and the powerful ability to understand not just words but the very thoughts of others. Language is the ability to understand conversation and a wish to express a person’s feelings and thoughts. It is a kind of difficulty which encloses a given human being corporation, and separates it from all others. It also unites men and they develop and expand according to the need of their mind. It is through communication that human beings have cooperated with each other to solve common problems. This is through communication based on written and oral language in particular that each generation has passed on its accumulated wisdom to the next. “Language, we may say, grow with human thought.” (Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind, p109).
How is language acquired?
All humans talk but no house pets or house plants do, no matter how pampered, so heredity must be involved in language. Genes play a part in the child’s ability to acquire language, just as it influences his height and eye color....