In ancient times most cultures and civilizations made some reference to the origin of their languages. However, they did not study language by observation or experimentation——at least as far as we can judge from records that have survived to this day. Most comments on the origins of languages come to us in folk-tales or religious writings. But the Greek historian Herodotus tells us of one experiment. An Egyptian king named Psammmetichos wished to find out which was the world’s oldest language. To gain this information he decided to isolate two new born babies until they began to speak. Because they were kept from s, they would have no patterns to imitate. The king made the assumption that the children would speak what was a natural language——which would be the oldest. After some months the children were heard to make a Sound which was recorded as "bekos". This was found to be very similar to the Phrygian word for "bread". Therefore Phrygianca language once spoken in Asia. Minor was considered to be the flint language of mankind. At least by King Psammetichos, and we may assume by his court. |
The author thinks that the king’s experiment ().
A.was the first reliable experiment in language study in history
B.proved what it meant to prove
C.was not necessarily sound though based on observation
D.was utterly ridiculous and not worth mentioning