Lecture 5. Origin of language

1. The origin of language

THE ORIGIN OF
LANGUAGE
Lecture 5.

2. introduction

Spoken
language must have developed
INTRODUCTION
between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago.
Spoken language developed before written
language.
Written language developed about 5,000
years ago

3.

4.

• We never find any direct
evidence or artifacts relating
to the speech of our distant
ancestors.

5. DIVINE SOURCE

In the Biblical
tradition (Genesis),
God created Adam
Hindu tradition, Language
comes from goddess
Saraswati, wife of Brahma,
creator of the Universe

6. DIVINE SOURCE

The Tower of Babel
(Biblical Tradition)
In the Bible (Genesis 11:1-9),
the story of the Tower of
Babel explains the origin of
different languages as an act
of God. According to the
story, humanity once spoke a
single language, but God
confused their speech to
prevent them from building a
tower to heaven, resulting in
multiple languages.
Hindu Tradition
In Hinduism, language is
often linked to the goddess
Saraswati, the deity of
wisdom, knowledge, and
speech. Sanskrit, one of the
oldest languages, is
considered divine and
revealed to sages by the gods.

7. DIVINE SOURCE

Ancient Egyptian Beliefs
The ancient Egyptians believed that the god Thoth was the inventor of
writing and sacred language, which was a gift from the divine to
humanity.
Islamic Tradition
In Islam, the Arabic language is considered sacred as it was revealed to
the Prophet Muhammad by Allah through the angel Gabriel. The
Quran is believed to be the literal word of God in Arabic.
These perspectives reflect the spiritual view
that language is a gift from the divine,
meant to connect humans with each other
and with the divine realm.

8. Experiment 1

EXPERIMENT 1
There were a number of experiments to
discover the original divine language:
• Around 2,500 years ago,
Psammetichus tried the experiment
with two newborn babies. They were
isolated with goats and mute shepherd
for two years

9. Experiment 2

EXPERIMENT 2
• Around the year 1500, King James
carried out similar experiment, and the
children were reported to speak
Hebrew

10. Some proofs…

German scholar Süßmilch (XVIII century) argues that language
originates either in humans or in God, the creator of all things. If it is
of human origin, it arises either from natural impulses or it is based on
understanding and reason.
Against the former possibility, he insists that human language differs
radically from the sounds that animals make, which are necessary and
invariable. Human language, in contrast, is arbitrary, changeable and
divided into divers idioms. The articulation of words is arbitrary, and
they are joined to concepts at will, without any natural necessity.

11.

The words of a human language are also structured regularly and
orderly, which presupposes, according to Süßmilch, reflection,
reason and wisdom.
Such order cannot be due to accident, any more than any other
purposeful and orderly structures such as clocks or buildings.
So, the inventor of language must have been able to reason,
which, however, according to Süßmilch, is impossible without
signs, speech or writing – which humans obviously, by
definition, did not possess before the invention of language.
Consequently, language cannot be of human origin, but must
have been bestowed on humans miraculously by God

12. Traditional theories about the language origin

Many of those theories have traditional
amusing names (invented by Max Müller
and George Romanes a century ago)

13. The mama theory.

Language began with the
easiest syllables attached
to the most significant
objects.

14. The ta-ta theory. 

The ta-ta theory.
Sir Richard Paget, influenced by Darwin, believed that
body movement preceded language.
Language began as an unconscious vocal imitation
of these movements - like the way a child’s mouth
will move when they use scissors, or my tongue sticks
out when I try to play the guitar.
This evolved into the popular idea that language may
have derived from gestures.

15.

The "Ta-ta" Example:
The most common example
used to illustrate the theory
is saying "ta-ta" to mean
goodbye. The tongue moves
back and forth in the
mouth, effectively
mimicking the physical
gesture of a hand waving
goodbye.
Evolution of
Communication: It argues
that early communication
relied heavily on physical
body language. As the hands
got busy, humans began
making audible sounds that
mirrored those gestures,
eventually shifting the
primary method of
communication from
gesture to voice

16.

17. The Ta-ta Theory Critique

It points the cultural roots of varying hand gestures
suggests that this is most likely not the reason behind
language.
Where in some places nodding means “yes, ” in others
nodding means the opposite. argues that a unimodal
communication system, using gesture or sign alone, could
not have evolved into modern human communication.
Instead, they believe on the idea that manual languages
are found only when speech is unavailable. Thus, leading
to the notion that speech is the medium of linguistic
segmentation.

18.

• Müller explained the theory in his
lectures best, saying “…According to
them, man must have lived for a time in a
state of mutism, his only means of
communication consisting in gestures of
the body, and changes in countenance,
till at last, when ideas multiplied that
could no longer be pointed at with the
fingers, “they found it necessary to
invent artificial signs of which the
meaning was fixed by mutual
agreement…” (Müller 1862: 28)

19.

20. The bow-wow theory.

Language began as
imitations of natural
sounds - moo, choo-choo,
crash, clang, buzz, bang,
meow...
This is more technically
referred to as
onomatopoeia or echoism.

21.

22. The pooh-pooh theory. 

The pooh-pooh theory.
Language began with
interjections, instinctive
emotive cries such as oh! for
surprise and ouch! for pain.

23. The ding-dong theory. 

The ding-dong theory.
Some people, including the famous linguist Max Muller, have
pointed out that there is a rather mysterious correspondence
between sounds and meanings.
Small, sharp, high things tend to have words with high front
vowels in many languages, while big, round, low things tend to
have round back vowels! Compare
itsy bitsy teeny weeny with moon, for example. This is
often referred to as sound symbolism.

24.  The yo-he-ho theory.

The yo-he-ho theory.
Language began as
rhythmic chants, perhaps
ultimately from the grunts
of heavy work (heaveho!). The linguist A. S.
Diamond suggests that
these were perhaps calls
for assistance or
cooperation accompanied
by appropriate gestures.
This may relate yo-he-ho
to the ding-dong theory,
as in such words as cut,
break, crush, strike...

25.

26. The sing-song theory. 

The sing-song theory.
Danish linguist Jespersen suggested that
language comes out of play, laughter, cooing,
courtship, emotional mutterings and the
like. He even suggests that, contrary to other
theories, perhaps some of our first words
were actually long and musical, rather than
the short grunts many assume we started
with.

27. The hey you! theory.

• A linguist by the name of Revesz suggested
that we have always needed interpersonal
contact, and that language began as sounds to
signal both identity (here I am!) and
belonging (I’m with you!). We may also cry
out in fear, anger, or hurt (help me!). This is
more commonly called the contact theory.

28.

29. The hocus pocus theory. 

The hocus pocus theory.
George Boeree’s contribution to these is the idea
that language may have had some roots in a sort of
magical or religious aspect of our ancestors' lives.
Perhaps we began by calling out to game
animals with magical sounds, which became
their names.

30. The EUREKA! Theory

And finally, perhaps
language was consciously
invented. Perhaps some
ancestor had the idea of
assigning arbitrary sounds
to mean certain things.
Clearly, once the idea was
had, it would catch on like
wild-fire!

31. The natural sound theory

THE NATURAL SOUND THEORY
Primitive words are imitations of
the natural sounds which early man
and women heard around them.
E.g.: object flew by → cuckoo
sound→name cuckoo

32.

Explanation
for
onomatopoeic
words:
E.g. splash,
bang, boom,
rattle, buzz, hiss

33.

• Natural cries of emotion: pain, anger,
joy:→
e.g. ouch
• Yo-he-ho theory: sounds of a person
involved in physical effort e.g. when
lifting trees or mammoths

34. Oral gesture theory

ORAL GESTURE THEORY
• Hypothesis: link between physical
gesture and orally produced sounds
• Movement of the tongue when saying
‘goodbye’ resembles movement of
waving of the hand

35. Physiological adaptation theory

PHYSIOLOGICAL ADAPTATION
THEORY
• Physical features of human beings: good
clues for their capacity for speech
• Human teeth, lips, and tongue are designed
in a way that makes them play a major role
in producing speech sounds.
• Human lips: flexibility, needed for sounds
like ‘p,b and w’

36.

• The human larynx and pharynx are
different than that of a monkey.
• Human larynx: position lower than
with monkeys
• → longer cavity called ‘pharynx’ acts
as resonator

37.

The human brain controls the physical parts
involved in sound production.
The human brain is lateralized.
Has special functions in each of the two
hemispheres:
• Left hemisphere: analytic, tool using language
• Right hemisphere: holistic, music, visuo-spatial skills

38.

• It may be that there is an evolutionary
connection between the languageusing and tool-using abilities of
humans and that both are involved in
the development of the speaking
brain.

39. The genetic theory

THE GENETIC THEORY
The automatic set of developments and the
complexity of the young child’s language have led
some scholars to look for something more powerful
than small adaptations of the species over time.
The innateness hypothesis point out to
something in human genetics as the source.

40.

Thank you for your
attention!