Spoken language is a form of communication in which people uses the mouth to create recognizable sounds. These sounds come from a large vocabulary of series of sounds with agreed meanings. These series of sounds are called words, and each represents one or more objects or ideas. A shared grammar allows the speaker to form these words into statements which listeners will be able to understand.

The origins of spoken language remain unclear, although they are the subject of the research by experts. Evidence suggests that early humans used some form of vocal (发音的) communication, but it is not certain when this first became enough to be considered spoken language. Vocal communication occurs in many species of animals, but this communication does not appear to have the grammar and vocabulary which would qualify it as a language.

A study in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America suggests that the language developed in humans was about 100,000 years ago. However, the development of spoken language is extremely difficult to find the origin from the archaeological or fossil record. Unlike written language, spoken language leaves no physical trace (痕迹).

Spoken language is not the only form of human communication. Written language expresses meaning through the use of writing, in which words express the meanings of spoken language. Many languages have both a written and a spoken form, although there are a number of languages which have a spoken form but no written form. For example, the Mosuo, a group who live near Lugu Lake in China’s Yunnan, have a local language which is only spoken. However, the reverse is much less common.

When I lived in Spain, some Spanish friends of mine decided to visit England by car. Before they left, they asked me for advice about how to find accommodation (住处). I suggested that they should stay at “bed and breakfast” houses, because this kind of accommodation gives a foreign visitor a good chance to speak English with the family. My friends listened to my advice, but they came back with some funny stories.

“We didn’t stay at bed and breakfast houses,” they said, “because we found that most families were away on holiday.”

I thought this was strange. Finally I understood what had happened. My friends spoke little English, and they thought “VACANCIES” meant “holidays”, because the Spanish word for “holidays” is “vacaciones”. So they did not go to house where the sign outside said “VACANCIES”, which in English means there are free rooms. Then my friends went to the house where the sign said “NO VACANCIES”, because they thought this meant the people who owned the house were not away on holiday. But they found that these houses were all full. As a result, they stayed at hotels!

We laughed about this and about mistakes my friends made in reading other signs. In Spanish, the word “DIVERSION” means fun. In English, it means that workmen are repairing the road, and that you must take a different road. When my friends saw the word “DIVERSION” on a road sign, they thought they were going to have fun. Instead, the road ended in a large hole.

English people have problems too when they learn foreign languages. Once in Paris, when someone offered me some more coffee, I said “Thank you” in French. I meant that I would like some more. However, to my surprise, the coffee pot was taken away! Later I found out that “Thank you” in French means “No, thank you.”