A lot of organs such as lungs, larynx, mouth, pharynx, tongue, teeth, and brain participate in the speaking process. Although animals possess all these organs, their structure is different from that in the humans. For speaking, it is important to properly control the processes involved, mainly breathing. This is done for us by our brain. First the air is inhaled, and then deviated through the larynx from the lungs. The larynx has small muscles called the vocal cords. When the air passes through the stretched elastic vocal folds it causes them to vibrate, producing sound. The teeth, tongue, gums, and lips then form the words.
People who have developed a cipher language know how difficult it is to do so. One way is to attach a certain syllable after vowels: such as ‘sche’ after a, ‘blo’ after ‘e’, ‘ning’ after ‘u’, and so on. ‘Apple pie’ then becomes ‘Ascheppleblo pieblo’. If you do not know how to decipher the text, it is almost impossible to understand what is written. In 1941, the Japanese secret service cracked the code used by the Americans, and Japan attacked USA. The Navajo – Indians in the US offered to develop a new radio code from their language, which was understood only by the Navajo at that time. No one was able to decode this till the end of the war.
A computer needs clear instructions, called programs, which are written by programmers. Today, our demands from computers are very high: Process images, compare thousands of medical data, send e-mails, and instruct robots to build a car. Different programming languages were developed over a period of time to meet all these requirements. With some languages, you can write commands to process data in a database, with others, robots can be controlled perfectly.
People who are hearing impaired communicate with the help of gestures – energetic movements of the hand accompanied by a lively facial expression. Like every other language, gestures must also be learnt. While speaking a person may need a lot of words to say ‘shall we cross the bridge’, but a single gesture suffices for the deaf. This language is also used at places where listening is not possible: under water by divers or in space by astronauts.
Almost 900 million people speak Chinese, which is the most widely spoken language of the world. Russian is at the second place followed by English. German, with around 100 million people speaking it, is at the tenth place. Many countries such as Germany or Norway generally speak only one language; in India hundreds of languages are spoken. If a country remains under a foreign influence for too long, native languages can die out. In Wales, which is a part of Great Britain, this almost happened because; barring a few adults, people could speak only English. Schools and radio programmes are now promoting the native language Celtic ‘Welsh’.
On many signs there is a text telling us what to do: ‘Exit’, ‘Diversion’, and ‘Parking’. People who cannot read the text of the signs can understand them through the figure or picture. For instance, the shape of the arrow on the signs for exit helps understand the direction of the exit. Some signs convey information by means of a picture: ‘Pedestrian crossing’ and ‘Play Street’ are some examples. Then there are signs the look the same in all countries, such as the signs for “Main road” and “Give way”. One can always understand a ‘STOP’ sign even if it is written in Arabic!
Both humans and animals communicate a lot through their body postures. A cat, when energy humps its back and its skin ruffles up so that it appears bigger and more dangerous. In this way, it warns its opponent not to come near. Humans frown when in doubt and smile when happy. We use the thumbs up or the thumbs down signs as common gestures of approval or disapproval by extending the thumb upward or downward. We also make use of a universal sign language; we know what an index finger on the lips or a waving hand is trying to tell us. But watch out: signs do not mean the same all over the world – if you make an ‘O’ with the index finger and the thumb, it means ‘okay’ in USA, but at other places it is an insult.
Dogs, bark, growl, and whine. Deer bell, mice squeak. When a bee has detected food, it informs the other bees by a kind of a dance, and whales inform each other by means of the whale song. Their sounds can be heard in water from several hundred kilometres. The communication of the whales has increasingly become difficult, because there are so many other sounds in the oceans now, like those of ships or of oil rigs. In general, animals of the same species communicate with one another without a problem; between species, there could be misunderstandings! For example, a cat purrs with satisfaction, but the dog may think that the cat is snarling at it!