The Origins of Language

Introduction

Otto Jesperson (1921) language originated while humans were courting or enjoying themselves. Communicated to attract attention by making sounds, particularly the opposite sex.

Divine Source
Most religions claim that divinity provides humans to communicate with language. Language came from god.

The Divine Source

One view says that God created Adam and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. (Genesis 2:19).

According to Hindu tradition, language came from the goddess Sarasvati, the wife of Brahma, creator of the universe.

In an attempt to test this theory, a few experiments have been carried out, with rather conflicting results. E.g. An Egyptian pharaoh Psammetichus tried to experiment with 2 born infants in 600BC, where they are left in the company of goats and a mute shepherd.

Outcome of Experiment

After 2 years, children did not utter any Egyptian words, but Phrygian word bekos, which means bread. Pharaoh concluded that that the Phrygian language is actually the original language of god. Several people commented that the children must have picked up the word from the shepherd.

Other tests

Similar test was done by James IV of Scotland where similar results were obtained. In conclusion, children living without any access to human speech grow up without language at all. NO SPEECH = NO LANGUAGE

Aristotle, Poetics
Art is imitation, and thats all right, even good.

Imitation is natural to humans from childhood. Imitation is how children learn, and we all learn from imitations.

Natural-sound Source

Primitive words can be the imitations of natural sounds. E.g. when a flying object went by and made the sound of cuckoo, that became the name of the bird.

Natural-sound Source

Also known as the bow-wow theory.

Natural-sound Source

It is true that there are onomatopoeic words in every language, words that echo natural sounds. For example: CUCKOO, SPLASH, BANG, RATTLE, BUZZ, etc.

Natural-sound Source

Cries of emotion like pain, anger, joy brought in sounds of language

The Oral-Gesture Source

Involves a link between physical gesture and orally produced sounds. After physical gestures were developed as means of communication, oral gestures were developed involving movements of the tongue, lips, etc. oral gestures were recognized to patterns of movement similar to physical gestures.

The Oral-Gesture Source

Many of our physical gestures, using body hands and face, are means of nonverbal communication and are used by modern humans, even with their developed linguistic skills.

The "oral-gesture theory" proposes an extremely specific connection between physical and oral gesture involving a "specialized pantomime of the tongue and lips"

Glossogenetics

Biological basis of the formation and development of human language. As we evolved, our development of the human language also evolved.

Physiological Adaptation

Physical aspects of humans are not shared with other creatures. Human teeth upright, not slanting and shorter in height. [f, v, th] Human lips more intricate muscle, flexibility. [p, b, w] Human larynx (voice box) differs in position.

Human brain is lateralized. Has two hemispheres where left is responsible for language.

Human and Monkey Brain

How Humans started to interact with each other?

There are two major functions of language use:

The interactional function has to do with how humans use language to interact with each other socially or emotionally.

The transactional function has to do with communicating knowledge, skills and information.

This transactional function will have developed, in part, for the transfer of knowledge from one generation to the next. And while there are cultures that rely mainly on their oral tradition, in many cases, as speech by its nature is transient, the desire for a more permanent record must have developed: written language