Question: before translating other languages was available, how did people figure out what things meant for definate? like how do they know bonjour is hello? it could mean time or bye or say or anything.. ?

Tim Fosker answered on 17 Jun 2011:

Hi @nhanlon12

@Damien can probably answer this question best, but the problem is very similar to the way young children initially experience language. Put another way, how did you learn your first naming words (nouns)? I’m guessing you learnt the meaning of bonjour (literally meaning ‘good day’) because someone explained to you what it meant in other words, but how then did you learn the meanings of your first words when you didn’t understand any other words for someone to explain them to you?
There are several theories about how this word learning is accomplished so quickly by children and not everyone agrees about what is most important, but generally it seems we learn by hearing many examples under different conditions and we often initially make mistakes. For example when babies learn to say dadda is it common for them to call all men dadda – they haven’t understood that dadda refers to one specific man, but the more people speak to them the more they will notice that no one says dadda to all men but only in the presence of their father. Learning this way means that names are really only learnt for objects that are present, but as we develop an understanding of what a word means we can talk about objects that aren’t present.

I hope this helps answer your question.