Chapter one from the study of language, George Yule, 5th Edition.

1. The Origins of Language
Rabar Azad

2. Outline
The origin of language
 The divine sources
 The natural sound source
 The oral-gesture source
 The physical adaption source
 The genetic (innateness) source

3. What is Language?
Language is one of the most
means by which human
communicate.

4. The origins of language
• There was a time when people didn’t have the ability to talk.
• Humans developed language between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago.
• This is well before the invention of the written language, about 5,000
years ago. We have direct evidence and artifacts about writing.
• There is no physical evidence about when and how of language in
humans emerged.
• All what is said in this regard is a matter of speculation.

5. Some of these speculations are from four
different sources
• Divine Source
• Natural Sound Source
• Physical Adaptation Source
• Genetic Source

6. The divine source
• Genesis: God created Adam and “whatsoever Adam called every
living creature, was the name thereof.”
• The Qur’an: He said, “O Adam, inform them of their names.” And
when he had informed them of their names… (Al Baqarah, 2/31-33)
• A Hindu belief: language came from Saraswati, wife of Brahma,
creator of the universe.

7. The divine source
• Attempts to find a divine, God-given language Psamtik carried out an
experiment with two babies depriving them of human contact. They
uttered the word bekos ‘bread’ in Phrygian!!
• King James the Fourth did a similar experiment and the kids were
reported to speak Hebrew.
• The fact is children who are deprived of any language contact cannot
learn any language.

8. The natural sound source
• Language emerged from natural sounds.
• Primitive words are considered to be imitations of natural sounds that
people hear around them.
• The natural sound a bird makes is argued to have been used to describe
that particular animal.
• The fact that in many languages there are words such as drip, click,
meow and honk that sound like what they mean supports this claim.
• Not every sound is onomatopoeic in languages!!

9. The Bow-wow 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.

10. The pooh-pooh theory
• Pain: Ouch!
• Anger: Ah!
• disgust: yuck!
These are produced with intakes of breath!
But normal spoken language is produced when air is exhaled rather than
inhaled!

11. The Social interaction source
• The Yo-he-ho theory
• Sounds made due to physical effort involving several people could be
the source of our language:
• Grunts
• Groans
• Curses
• This theory is based on the social and cultural cooperation found
among early men.
• However, apes have grunts but they do not have a language like ours!

12. The physical adaption Source
• This source depends on the
physical features humans
possess, especially those that are
distinct from other creatures

13. Human physical features that help language
• Human teeth are upright / f, v/
• The lips are made of intricate muscles /p, b/
• The tongue is also helpful.
• Human larynx (voice box: containing vocal cords)
• pharynx (resonator).
• Human brain: left hemisphere, in most of the people is responsible for
controlling the above organs of speech.

14. The genetic (innateness) source
• The reason why physical adaptation takes place in humans & why deaf
and dumb can be fluent sign language users is answered by supporters
of innateness hypothesis (human offspring are born with a special
capacity for language).
• According to Chomsky, language is partly innate and partly acquired.
• The language capacity is genetically hardwired in born babies.