The Origins of Human Language: The Rise of the Human Being
According to SIL International, approximately 7,102 living languages are spoken around the world today. However, some projections claim that by the time the year 2100 arrives, all languages that are spoken by populations and groups of fewer than 10,000 people will be gone. While that is a sobering thought, it really does make you think about the origins of language and its evolution over time.
The possibility of knowing human language’s origins would be exciting, and finding out when and how more than 7,000 languages emerged from that first one would be more exciting still. What caused language to emerge? That is a question that continues to be one of the major unsolved scientific mysteries of humanity.
At the same time, we must recognize that there have been a lot of scientists whose theories have begun to shed some light on this topic, or at least spark some interesting dialogue about it. We must recognize that Darwin, for example, is still influential and important over a hundred years after his death, mostly due to many of his evolutionary theories. His work and words continue to attract the interest of the scientific community, as you can see in many studies, papers, and hypotheses.
Just as his theories lived on, many origin theories for language have survived and are still discussed today. This blog post is intended to introduce you to only a few current and traditional theories on language’s origins. Who made these theories? We actually are not sure on that for many of these, but let’s take a look at what we do know:
The bow-wow theory: This states that language would have begun as imitations of natural sounds: chu-chu, pash, bzz, and meow. This is better known under the name onomatopoeia.
The pooh-pooh theory: The idea that speech comes from automatic vocal responses to pain, fear, surprise, or other emotions, as it is indicated in expressions such as: Ouch! or Oh! But plenty of animals make these kinds of sounds too, and they didn't end up with language.
The ding-dong theory: Some people, including the famous linguist Max Muller, have argued that there is a mysterious correspondence between types of sounds and their meanings. English words like ‘small’ or ‘sharp’ have sounds he calls “high" and tend to have vocal acuteness in many languages. On the other hand, words like big, or round generally have sounds he calls “low,” and tend to have closed back vowels. This is also known as sound symbolism, though trying to investigate this method would be difficult.
The yo-he-ho theory: This theory suggests that language would have started with rhythmic chants, perhaps ultimately from the grunts of heavy work. The linguist D. S Diamond suggests that perhaps these were callings of support or cooperation accompanied by appropriate gestures.
The ta-ta theory: Sir Richard Paget, who was influenced by Darwin, postulated that body movement preceded language. The language would have started as a unconscious vocal imitation of these movements - such as a child's mouth moves when using scissors, or the way some people bite their tongue between their teeth when playing guitar.
Another question is: how many times did language emerge? Was conceived repeatedly by different groups of people? Maybe it was invented once, by some primary ancestors - perhaps by the first ones that had the genetic and psychological needs to produce complex sounds and organize them into sets of properties. This theory is called monogenesis. The opposing theory is that it was invented many times - polygenesis - for many people.
There is a recent theory as to language’s origins by MIT professor Shigeru Miyagawa, who continues to inspire conversation about when and how we were first moved to words. To learn more and to help us understand his viewpoint, he has put together a free short online course, and there are still a couple of days left until it begins. The Origins of Human Language Seriesled by professor Shigeru Miyagawa will cover several topics in six different modules:
Module 1: Introducing the basic issues
Module 2: Language and the brain
Module 3: Some hypotheses about language evolution
Module 4: Some basic facts about human language
Module 5: Primates and songbirds
Module 6: Integration Hypothesis
These will investigate how the human mind works, how language works, and how this knowledge might lend some insight as to how we went from silence to speaking. The debate is always open, and there are many questions related to the origins of language that remain unanswered. However, we hope to find some ideas and clues in the Origins of Human Language Series. It starts soon, on June 15th, and you can enroll now for free at the link below:
https://www.edcast.org/learn/origins-of-human-language-birds-monkeys-and-humans-spring2015
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