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The origin of language, its relationship with human evolution, and its consequences have been subjects of study for centuries.
The origin of language is a hotly contested topic, with some languages tentatively traced back to the Paleolithic. However, archaeological and written records extend the history of language into ancient times and the Neolithic. The distribution of languages has changed substantially over time.
People also ask
Who invented language?
Do we know how language began?
When did linguistics become a subtopic of psycholinguistics?
How long ago did language originate?
- The Bow-Wow Theory
- The Ding-Dong Theory
- The La-La Theory
- The Pooh-Pooh Theory
- The Yo-He-Ho Theory
According to this theory, language began when our ancestors started imitating the natural sounds around them. The first speech was onomatopoeic—marked by echoic words such as moo, meow, splash, cuckoo, and bang.
This theory, favored by Plato and Pythagoras, maintains that speech arose in response to the essential qualities of objects in the environment. The original sounds people made were supposedly in harmony with the world around them.
The Danish linguist Otto Jespersen suggested that language may have developed from sounds associated with love, play, and (especially) song.
This theory holds that speech began with interjections—spontaneous cries of pain ("Ouch!"), surprise ("Oh!"), and other emotions ("Yabba dabba do!").
According to this theory, language evolved from the grunts, groans, and snorts evoked by heavy physical labor.
Feb 3, 2016 · To those of us who study human evolution, this incredible universality suggests that our species has had language right from when Homo sapiens arose in Africa between 200,000 and 160,000...
- Mark Pagel
Sep 1, 2018 · The Cultural Origins of Language. What makes language distinctly human. By Christine Kenneally. Victo Ngai. September 2018 Issue. Evolution. Dolphins name one another, and they click and...
Apr 26, 2018 · The expression language origins refers to theories pertaining to the emergence and development of language in human societies. Over the centuries, many theories have been put forward—and almost all of them have been challenged, discounted, and ridiculed. (See Where Does Language Come From?)
May 10, 2019 · His theory is that a possible genetic mutation in one of our human ancestors gave them the ability to speak and understand language, which was passed on to their offspring. Because of the usefulness of this ability, Darwinist evolution meant that it became a dominant feature throughout humanity.
