The Origin of Language (by Edward Vajda)

Yesterday we discussed the gulf that separates the creative use of language by humans from the inborn
signals of animals. Bees returning from their first flight out of the hive know perfectly how to perform their
complex nectar dances. With humans, the precise form of language must be acquired through exposure to a
speech community. Words are definitely not inborn, but the capacity to acquire and language and use it
creatively seems to be inborn. Noam Chomsky calls this ability the LAD (Language Acquisition
Device). Today we will ask two questions: how did this language instinct in humans originate? And how did
the first language come into being?

Concerning the origin of the first language, there are two main hypotheses, or beliefs. Neither can be
proven or disproved given present knowledge.

1) Belief in divine creation. Many societies throughout history believed that language is the gift of the gods to
humans. The most familiar is found in Genesis 2:20, which tells us that Adam gave names to all living
creatures. This belief predicates that humans were created from the start with an innate capacity to use
language.

It can't be proven that language is as old as humans, but it is definitely true that language and human
society are inseparable. Wherever humans exist language exists. Every stone age tribe ever encountered
has a language equal to English, Latin, or Greek in terms of its expressive potential and grammatical
complexity. Technologies may be complex or simple, but language is always complex. Charles Darwin noted
this fact when he stated that as far as concerns language, "Shakespeare walks with the Macedonian
swineherd, and Plato with the wild savage of Assam." In fact, it sometimes seems that languages spoken by
preindustrial societies are much more complex grammatically than languages such as English (example:
English has about seven tense forms and three noun genders; Kivunjo, a Bantu language spoken on the
slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, has 14 tenses and about 20 noun classes.) There are no primitive languages, nor
are any known to have existed in the past--even among the most remote tribes of stone age hunter-gatherers.

Nevertheless, it is impossible to prove that the first anatomically modern humans possessed creative
language. It is also impossible to disprove the hypothesis that primitive languages might have existed at some
point in the distant past of Homo sapiens development.

2) Natural evolution hypothesis. At some point in their evolutionary development humans acquired a more
sophisticated brain which made language invention and learning possible. In other words, at some point in
time humans evolved a language acquisition device, whatever this may be in real physical terms. The simple
vocalizations and gestures inherited from our primate ancestors then quickly gave way to a creative system of
language--perhaps within a single generation or two. /Mention the hypothesis about rewiring the visual cortex
of the brain into a language area./ According to the natural evolution hypothesis, as soon as humans
developed the biological, or neurological, capacity for creative language, the cultural development of some
specific system of forms with meanings would have been an inevitable next step.
 This hypothesis cannot be proven either. Archeological evidence unearthed thus far, seems to indicate
that modern humans, Homo sapiens, emerged within the last 150,000 years. By 30,000, BC all other species
of humanoids seem to have been supplanted by Homo sapiens. Could the success of our species vis-a-vis
other hominids be explained by its possession of superior communicative skills? Speaking people could
teach, plan, organize, and convey more sophisticated information. This would have given them unparalleled
advantage over hominid groups without creative language. Of course, no one knows whether other species of
humanoids--Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalis -- used creative language. Perhaps they also did. In any
case, Homo sapiens, "the wise human," should perhaps really be called Homo loquens, "the speaking human"
because language and humans are everywhere found together, whereas wisdom among humans is much
more selectively distributed.

Invention hypotheses. Moving on to our second question, if humans acquired the capacity for language either
by divine gift or by evolution, then exactly how might humans have devised the first language? There are
several hypotheses as to how language might have been consciously invented by humans based on a more
primitive system of hominid communication. Each hypothesis is predicated on the idea that the invention of
language and its gradual refinement served as a continuous impetus to additional human mental development.
None of the invention hypotheses I will mention is convincing and most sane linguists agree that the origin of
language is still a mystery. But the inventive, sarcastic names given these hypotheses by their critics prove
that even linguists can at times be creative.

First, there are four imitation hypotheses that hold that language began through some sort of human
mimicry of naturally occurring sounds or movements:

1) The "ding-dong" hypothesis. Language began when humans started naming objects, actions and
phenomena after a recognizable sound associated with it in real life. This hypothesis holds that the first
human words were a type of verbal icon, a sign whose form is an exact image of its meaning: crash became
the word for thunder, boom for explosion. Some words in language obviously did derive from imitation of
natural sounds associated with some object: Chinook Indian word for heart--tun-tun, Basque word for knife: ai-
ai (literally ouch-ouch). Each of these iconic words would derive from an index, a sign whose form is naturally
associatied with its meaning in real space and time.

The problem with this hypothesis is that onomatopoeia (imitation of sound, auditory iconicity) is a very
limited part of the vocabulary of any language; imitative sounds differ from language to language: Russian: ba-
bakh=bang, bukh= thud. Even if onomotopoeia provided the first dozen or so words, then where did names
for the thousands of naturally noiseless concepts such as rock, sun, sky or love come from?

2) The "pooh-pooh" hypothesis holds that the first words came from involuntary exclamations of dislike,
hunger, pain, or pleasure, eventually leading to the expression of more developed ideas and emotions. In this
case the first word would have been an involuntary ha-ha-ha, wa-wa-wa These began to be used to name the
actions which caused these sounds.
 The problem with this hypothesis is that, once again, emotional exclamations are a very small part of any
language. They are also highly language specific. For instance, to express sudden pain or discomfort:
Eng. ouch; Russ. oi.; Cherokee eee. Thus, exclamations are more like other words in that they reflect the
phonology of each separate language. Unlike sneezes, tears, hiccoughs or laughter, which are innate human
responses to stimuli, the form of exclamations depends on language rather than precedes language. Also,
exclamations, like most other words are symbols, showing at least a partially arbitrary relationship between
sound and meaning.

3) The "bow-wow" hypothesis (the most famous and therefore the most ridiculed hypothesis) holds that
vocabulary developed from imitations of animal noises, such as: Moo, bark, hiss, meow, quack-quack. In
other words, the first human words were a type of index, a sign whose form is naturally connected with its
meaning in time and space.

But, once again, onomotopoeia is a limited part of the vocabulary of any language. The linguistic renditions
of animal sounds differ considerably from language to language, although each species of animal everywhere
makes essentially the same sound:

a) Dog:bow-wow; Chinese:wu-wu; Jap.wan-wan Russ gaf-gaf, tyaff-tyaff;

b) Cat-meow, Russ.myaoo, Chin--mao, Jap.nya-nya purr in French is ron ron.

c) Pig: oink-oink; Russ. hryu-hryu; Chin.--oh-ee-oh-ee; Jap. bu-bu.

d) Russian rooster: kukareiku. Japanese kokekoko

e) Russian owl:ukh; Cherokee goo-ku Spanish, Japanese-- no special word

Thus, the human interpretation of animal sounds is dependent upon the individual language, and it seems
unlikely than entire vocabularies derived from them.

4) A somewhat different hypothesis is the "ta-ta" hypothesis. Charles Darwin hypothesized (though he himself
was sceptical about his own hypothesis) that speech may have developed as a sort of mouth pantomime: the
organs of speech were used to imitate the gestures of the hand. In other words, language developed from
gestures that began to be imitated by the organs of speech--the first words were lip icons of hand gestures.

It is very possible that human language, which today is mostly verbal, had its origin in some system of
gestures; other primates rely on gesture as an integral part of communication, so it is plausible that human
communication began in the same way. Human gestures, however, just like onomotopoeic words, differ from
culture to culture. Cf. English crossing the finger for good luck vs. Russian "fig" gesture; nodding for yes vs.
for no in Turkish and Bulgarian; knocking on wood vs. spitting over the left shoulder three times.

A second set of hypotheses on language origin holds that language began as a response to some acute
necessity in the community. Here are several necessity hypotheses of the invention of language:
1) Warning hypothesis. Language may have evolved from warning signals such as those used by
animals. Perhaps language started with a warning to others, such as Look out, Run, or Help to alert members
of the tribe when some lumbering beast was approaching. Other first words could have been hunting
instructions or instructions connected with other work. In other words, the first words were indexes used during
everyday activities and situations.

2) The "yo-he-ho" hypothesis. Language developed on the basis of human cooperative efforts.

The earliest language was chanting to simulate collective effort, whether moving great stones to block off
cave entrances from roving carnivores or repeating warlike phrases to inflame the fighting spirit.

It is fairly certain that the first poetry and song came from this aspect of beginning speech. Songs of this
type are still with us: Volga boatmen, military marching chants, seven dwarfs working song.

Plato also believed that language developed out of sheer practical necessity. And Modern English has the
saying: Necessity is the mother of invention. Speech and right hand coordination are both controlled in
the left hemisphere of the brain. Could this be a possible clue that manual dexterity and the need to
communicate developed in unison?

3) A more colorful idea is the lying hypothesis. E. H. Sturtevant argued that, since all real intentions or
emotions get involuntarily expressed by gesture, look or sound, voluntary communication must have been
invented for the purpose of lying or deceiving. He proposed that the need to deceive and lie--to use language
in contrast to reality for selfish ends-- was the social prompting that got language started.

There are no scientific tests to evaluate between these competing hypotheses. All of them seem equally
far-fetched. This is why in the late 19th century the Royal Linguistic Society in London actually banned
discussion and debate on the origin of language out of fear that none of the arguments had any scientific basis
at all and that time would be needlessly wasted on this fruitless enquiry. Attempts to explain the origin of
language are usually taken no more seriously today either. Recently, commedian Lily Tomlin came up with
her own language invention hypothesis: she claimed that men invented language so that they could complain.

Each of the imitation hypotheses might explain how certain isolated words of language developed. Very
few words in human language are verbal icons. Most are symbols, displaying an arbitrary relationship of
sound and meaning. (Example: the word tree in several languages: Spanish árbol; French arbre;
Slovak strom; Georgian he; Ket oks; Estonian puu; German Baum; Russian derevo; Latvian koks;
Hawaiian lä'au)

And each of the necessity hypotheses might explain how involuntary sounds made out of need in certain
contexts might have come to be manipulated as words for an object even out of context. However, the
extended use of natural indexes still leaves unexplained the development of grammar--the patterns in
language which have definite structural functions but no specific meaning. The creative, generative aspect of
human language that we call grammar is language's most unique feature. Where did grammar come
from? There is nothing like grammar (patterns with definite functions yet no set meaning) in animal systems of
communication.

In isolated instances it can be shown that a grammatical pattern developed from chance lexical
combinations:

a) suffix -hood from OE word haeda= state. childhood, boyhood, puppyhood.

b) Continuous action: form of verb to be + main verb comes from a locative phrase I am working > I am at
working-- cf. the song I'm a working on the railroad.

But these are isolated instances. How language developed a complex grammar remains a complete
mystery. This means that how language developed is equally a mystery. We simply don't know how
language may have actually evolved from simple animal systems of sounds and gestures.

Hypotheses regarding Language Diversity

Regardless of whether language was a special gift from the gods, a natural evolutionary acquisition, or an
ingenious, conscious human invention made at some specific moment in our species' distant past, the fact
remains that language does exist. And since so many languages exist today, a second question arises: Was
there one or more than one original language? Was there one or more than one invention of language? There
are about 5,000 languages spoken on Earth today. We know that there were even more spoken in the past,
when most people lived in small bands or tribes rather than in large states.

There are two age-old beliefs regarding the origin or the world's present linguistic diversity.

1) The oldest belief is that there was a single, original language. The idea of a single ancestor tongue is
known today as monogenesis. In Judeo-Christian tradition, the original language was confused by divine
intervention, as described in the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis. There is a similar story from the
Toltecs of pre-Columbian Mexico, who tell of the building of the great pyramid at Cholula, and the dispersal of
the builders by an angry god. And similar stories are found in other parts of the world.

It may be interesting to note here that people who believe in a single origin for language have different
hypotheses as to what that first language may have been.

a) A Basque scholar claimed that the first language was Basque.

b) A German philologist of the last century maintained that German was the first language and that all
other languages are inferior corruptions of it. Other European linguists conferred the same exalted status on
Greek or Sanskrit.

c) One Swedish philologist claimed that in the Garden of Eden God spoke Swedish, Adam spoke Danish
and the serpent spoke French.
2) There is a second hypothesis of human origin and, consequently, of the origin of human language: the
hypothesis of parallel evolution. This hypothesis holds that, as humans evolved parallel in more than one
location; each group developed its own unique language. The hypothesis of the multiple origin of humankind
is sometimes called the Candelabra theory. The candelabra hypothesis tends to be favored in East Asia and
by a smaller number of scientists in the West. The hypothesis of multiple linguistic origins that often goes
along with this hypothesis is known as polygenesis. Each of the original languages then would then have
diverged into numerous forms. The major language families of today would be descended from these
separate mother tongues.

3) Scientific monogenesis: The Mother Tongue theory.

Theories of monogenesis do not necessarily derive from religious belief. Many modern scholars believe in
a theory of monogenesis that has come to be called the Mother Tongue Theory. This theory holds that one
original language spoken by a single group of Homo sapiens perhaps as early as 150 thousand years ago
gave rise to all human languages spoken on the Earth today. As humans colonized various continents, this
original mother tongue diverged through time to form the numerous languages spoken today. Since many
scientists believe that the first fully modern humans appeared in Africa, the mother tongue theory is connected
with a more general theory of human origin known as the Out of Africa theory. Currently, the theory of
evolutionary monogenesis tends to be favored by a group of linguists working in the United States.

Regardless of the origin of language, the fact remains that there are over 5,000 mutually unintelligible
forms of human speech used on Earth today. And, although many are radically different from one another in
structure--the differences are superficial since each and every one of these languages can be used creatively.

Languages do not differ in terms of their creative potential but rather in terms of the level upon which
particular distinctions are realized in each particular language. What is expressed concisely in one language
requires a phrase in another language. (Examples of aspect and evidentiality; also words like
Swahili mumagamagama "a person who habitually loses things" and Russian zajchik "the rainbow reflection
from glass." Linguists study how each particular language structures the expression of concepts. Such cross-
language comparisons fall under a branch of linguistics called language typology.

If the structural diversity of human languages is superficial, then why in language typology important? Why
do so many linguists spend so much time studying language diversity?

1) First, to try to trace the original mother tongue (or mother tongues). Linguists who compare modern
languages try to reconstruct ancient languages are called comparative linguists.

2) Second, because languages change more slowly than the environment in which they are spoken,
languages contain all sorts of indications of bygone culture. For historians and anthropologists, language
provides a special window into the past: ursus/bear/ medved; time/tide/vremya. Study a language--any
language--and you will learn much about the history of the people who speak that language. You will also be
taking a crucial step toward understanding the contemporary culture of the speakers. Linguists who study
language from this cultural standpoint are called anthropological linguists.

Remember that--contrary to the hypothesis of linguistic determinism--studying a language will not help you
predict the future for the people who speak that language. The future will happen with little regard for language
structure, and language will be shaped by that future, not the other way around.

And this is why will we spend the next four weeks studying the morphology, syntax and phonology of
diverse languages. And during the second half of the course we will return to questions of language in society
and the connection between language and the brain.

Timeline: Evolution of Human Language Research

For centuries, scholars and thinkers have tried to unravel the nature of human language. Our understanding of
language has grown immensely, especially in the past 50 years. But there are still huge gaps in our
knowledge. Here, a timeline of how experts from fields as diverse as anthropology, neuroscience, genetics,
psychology, evolutionary biology, linguistics and artificial intelligence have shaped our thinking about
language.

******************************************

1770s

Philosophers were the first to ponder the roots of human language. The radical philosopher Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, left, says that use of words for communication stems from a desire to express our emotions. Also
in the 1700s, Johann Gottfried von Herder writes two essays arguing that human rationality is the basis for
language.

1860s

Pierre Paul Broca, left, a French doctor, identifies Broca's Area in the brain's left hemisphere, a region he says
controls human grammar and speech. Damage to Broca's Area impairs the ability to use words and construct
grammatically correct sentences. Later, Karl Wernicke, a German doctor, discovers another area related to
language in the left hemisphere. Patients with injuries to Wernicke's Area speak fluently and grammatically,
but make little or no sense.

1870s
In 1871, Charles Darwin, left, writes about a human "instinct for language" in his book, Descent of Man. He
suggests that language evolved from more primal communication abilities in other animals. Scientists strive to
understand how and why human language evolved by studying communication in other animals. Researchers
note that chimpanzees physically groom each other, while humans "groom with words" when gossiping or
making small talk. Both are ways of strengthening social bonds.

1950s

Noam Chomsky, a linguist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, left, says humans are born with an
innate, or hardwired, knowledge of a universal grammar. He observes that all languages share certain rules
and that children learn languages with astonishing speed. Researchers continue to ask: Is language a
uniquely human skill? And is language capacity a self-contained part of the brain or part of a more complex,
integrated system of cognitive skills?

1980s

Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, a primatologist at Georgia State University, begins to publish research on an ape
named Kanzi. Tests show that Kanzi understands not only words but basic grammar — the strongest evidence
so far that species other than humans can acquire human language skills.

1994

MIT linguist Steven Pinker, left, tries to combine the ideas of Noam Chomsky and Charles Darwin in his
book, The Language Instinct. He offers an explanation for how natural selection might have shaped the
evolution of human's "innate grammar."

2001

Teams led by Oxford University geneticist Anthony Monaco and London neuroscientist Faraneh Vargha-
Khadem identify a single gene that governs certain aspects of intelligence and language. People with a
mutation in this gene struggle to pronounce certain words — or make fine movements of the lip and the
tongue — and have trouble with grammar. Within a year, SvAnte Paabo and Wolfgang Enard, at Leipzig's Max
Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, find a gene — foxp2 — that is almost identical in all animals.
Three years later, Stephanie White, left, and researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles find that
in zebra finches, a kind of songbird, this gene is involved in their learned song

2002
In a co-authored paper published in the journal Science, Chomsky says that human language might have
evolved from other, simpler forms of communication. The authors propose closer collaborations between
linguists, biologists, anthropologists and psychologists to study the evolution and neurology of language.

Communicative Competence
If a language learner is asked what they think the goal of a language course is, they would probably answer
that it is to teach the grammar and vocabulary of that language. However, if they are asked what their goal is
as language learners, they would most probably answer that it is to be able to communicate in that language.

I am not saying that in actuality the goal of a language course is to teach solely grammar and vocabulary —
well, at least it shouldn’t be just that anymore. (I’ve been in a course with such an outdated approach, and the
results were, of course, poor). Fortunately, the focus of second language teaching has moved from purely
teaching grammar and vocabulary, to providing the skills for effective communication. In linguistics
terminology, a language course should not only have “linguistic competence” as its goal, but “communicative
competence” in general.

But what do these terms mean? Communicative competence is a term coined by Dell Hymes in 1966 in
reaction to Noam Chomsky’s (1965) notion of “linguistic competence”. Communicative competence is the
intuitive functional knowledge and control of the principles of language usage. As Hymes observes:

“…a normal child acquires knowledge of sentences not only as grammatical, but also as appropriate. He or
she acquires competence as to when to speak, when not, and as to what to talk about with whom, when,
where, in what manner. In short, a child becomes able to accomplish a repertoire of speech acts, to take part
in speech events, and to evaluate their accomplishment by others.”
(Hymes 1972, 277)
In other words, a language user needs to use the language not only correctly (based on linguistic
competence), but also appropriately (based on communicative competence). Of course, this approach does
not diminish the importance of learning the grammatical rules of a language. In fact, it is one of the four
components of communicative competence: linguistic, sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic competence.

1. Linguistic competence is the knowledge of the language code, i.e. its grammar and vocabulary, and
also of the conventions of its written representation (script and orthography). The grammar component
includes the knowledge of the sounds and their pronunciation (i.e. phonetics), the rules that govern sound
interactions and patterns (i.e. phonology), the formation of words by means of e.g. inflection and derivation
(i.e. morphology), the rules that govern the combination of words and phrases to structure sentences (i.e.
syntax), and the way that meaning is conveyed through language (i.e. semantics).
2. Sociolinguistic competence is the knowledge of sociocultural rules of use, i.e. knowing how to use
and respond to language appropriately. The appropriateness depends on the setting of the
communication, the topic, and the relationships among the people communicating. Moreover, being
appropriate depends on knowing what the taboos of the other culture are, what politeness indices are
used in each case, what the politically correct term would be for something, how a specific attitude
(authority, friendliness, courtesy, irony etc.) is expressed etc.
3. Discourse competence is the knowledge of how to produce and comprehend oral or written texts in
the modes of speaking/writing and listening/reading respectively. It’s knowing how to combine language
structures into a cohesive and coherent oral or written text of different types. Thus, discourse competence
deals with organising words, phrases and sentences in order to create conversations, speeches, poetry,
email messages, newspaper articles etc.
4. Strategic competence is the ability to recognise and repair communication breakdowns before,
during, or after they occur. For instance, the speaker may not know a certain word, thus will plan to either
paraphrase, or ask what that word is in the target language. During the conversation, background noise or
other factors may hinder communication; thus the speaker must know how to keep the communication
 channel open. If the communication was unsuccessful due to external factors (such as interruptions), or
due to the message being misunderstood, the speaker must know how to restore communication. These
strategies may be requests for repetition, clarification, slower speech, or the usage of gestures, taking
turns in conversation etc.

These four components of communicative competence should be respected in teaching a foreign language —
and they usually are by modern teaching methods employed in second language teaching. Usually most of the
above are best learned if the language learner immerses into the culture of a country that speaks the target
language. Wouldn’t it be great if the language teaching methodologies helped language learners reach
communicative competence to a great degree even if the learner has never immersed into the target culture?

References:
Chomsky, Noam (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge: M.I.T. Press.
Hymes, Dell H. (1966). “Two types of linguistic relativity”. In Bright, W. Sociolinguistics. The Hague: Mouton.
pp. 114–158.
Hymes, Dell H. (1972). “On communicative competence”. In Pride, J.B.; Holmes, J. Sociolinguistics: selected
readings. Harmondsworth: Penguin. pp. 269–293.