“Language Lies at the Root of That Transformation of the Environment That We Call Civilization.” How Is Language Encouraged in the Montessori Environment?
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.
It is part of the human tendencies to want to communicate with others and this could underlie the emergence of language. Montessori said, “To talk is the nature of man.” Humans needed language in order to communicate, and soon, the powers that come with language revealed. The evolution of the human language began when communication was done through pictograms and drawings.
It then developed into ideograms when pictures began to turn into symbols. Later, these symbols became words, words involved letters, vowels emerged, one symbol came to represent one sound, and an alphabet was created, and then came the alphabet we now use today. And just as language evolved hundreds of thousands of years ago, it also changes with each generation. Unneeded words are dropped and new words come into use. Language rose and continues to rise with the collective intelligence. This also marked the civilisation of mankind.
Language differentiates a community from one another but at the time it also unites and binds human being of different races together through a common language.
Content
Language is the ability to understand speech and a desire to convey one’s feelings and thoughts. It is through communication that human beings are able to cooperate with each other to solve common problems. It is through communication based on written and oral language in particular that each generation has passed on its accumulating wisdom to the next. “Language, we may say, grow with human thought”. (Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind, p109)
The learning of language is truly the child’s most remarkable intellectual achievement and is amazingly accomplished rapidly in a very short time span. “By merely living and without any conscious effort the individual absorbs from the environment even a complex cultural like language” (Elizabeth
It is part of the human tendencies to want to communicate with others and this could underlie the emergence of language. Montessori said, “To talk is the nature of man.” Humans needed language in order to communicate, and soon, the powers that come with language revealed. The evolution of the human language began when communication was done through pictograms and drawings.
It then developed into ideograms when pictures began to turn into symbols. Later, these symbols became words, words involved letters, vowels emerged, one symbol came to represent one sound, and an alphabet was created, and then came the alphabet we now use today. And just as language evolved hundreds of thousands of years ago, it also changes with each generation. Unneeded words are dropped and new words come into use. Language rose and continues to rise with the collective intelligence. This also marked the civilisation of mankind.
Language differentiates a community from one another but at the time it also unites and binds human being of different races together through a common language.
Content
Language is the ability to understand speech and a desire to convey one’s feelings and thoughts. It is through communication that human beings are able to cooperate with each other to solve common problems. It is through communication based on written and oral language in particular that each generation has passed on its accumulating wisdom to the next. “Language, we may say, grow with human thought”. (Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind, p109)
The learning of language is truly the child’s most remarkable intellectual achievement and is amazingly accomplished rapidly in a very short time span. “By merely living and without any conscious effort the individual absorbs from the environment even a complex cultural like language” (Elizabeth
Bibliography: Gettman, David Basic Montessori St Martin’s Press New York, 1987 Paula Polk Lillard Montessori: A Modern Approach Schocken, 1988 Britton, Lesley Montessori Play & Learn Vermilion, 1992 Montessori, Maria The Secret Of Childhood Balantine, 1972 Montessori, Maria, The Discovery Of the Child Clio Press Oxford, 200