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One integrative approach to the complex issue of the evolutionary origins of human language and a brain capable of human language comes from "comparative neuroprimatology." This is the study of the brains, behaviors and communication systems of monkeys, apes and humans in order to investigate "the biological and cultural evolution of the human ...
- 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.
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Apr 26, 2018 · The Gesture Theory of Language Origin - "Speculation about how languages originate and evolve has had an important place in the history of ideas, and it has been intimately linked to questions about the nature of the signed languages of the deaf and human gestural behavior in general.
- Richard Nordquist
The origin of language, its relationship with human evolution, and its consequences have been subjects of study for centuries.Scholars wishing to study the origins of language must draw inferences from evidence such as the fossil record, archaeological evidence, contemporary language diversity, studies of language acquisition, and comparisons between human language and systems of animal ...
assume that a language is only a set of words used as “names” for things. The “pooh-pooh” theory Another of Jespersen’s nicknames was the “pooh-pooh” theory, which proposed that speech developed from the instinctive sounds people make in emotional circum-stances. That is, the original sounds of language may have come from natural ...
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4.3 The Origins of Language. “I cannot doubt that language owes its origin to the imitation and modification, aided by signs and gestures, of various natural sounds, the voices of other animals, and man’s own instinctive cries”. (Darwin, 1871, p. 56). In 1866, the Linguistic Society of Paris (Société de Linguistique de Paris) banned any ...
Nearly everybody can communicate, and most do so through some form of language, and yet the question of where language came from is one of the most difficult questions in science. Psychologist and author, Michael Corballis explores the many theories of language's origins, including his own, and details how language and communication have continued to evolve, from primates' use of gestures, to ...
