The document explores the origins and development of language, emphasizing its role as a human cognitive skill and a system of communication through sounds or gestures. It examines early theories of language origin, the evolution of writing systems, and the scientific study of linguistics, including its various branches and applications. The historical and comparative aspects of linguistics, as well as contributions by figures such as Noam Chomsky and Pāṇini, are also discussed.

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Origins of Language
& Linguistics
An Introduction
S. Mohan Raj
Ph.D Research Scholar
VIT, Vellore.
9751660760
rajmohan251@gmail.com

2. Origins of Language and
Development of Writing
Language is a system that associates sounds
(or gestures) with meanings in a way that
uses words and sentences.
The term ‘language’ can be used to refer to a variety of concepts/things, such as
“the particular form of words and speech used by the people of a country, area
or social group”, or “the method of human communication using spoken or
written words”.
2
- Susan Dostert

3. A further meaning of ‘language’ is “the
style or types of words used by a person
or group”, which is a topic generally
studied within sociolinguistics.
- Susan Dostert
Language is a purely human and non-
instinctive method of communicating ideas,
emotions and desires by means of voluntarily
produced symbols - (Sapir 1921).
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4. thought (reference)
symbol referent/reality
(de Saussure triangle)
Communication vs. language
Communication = the passing on or exchange of
information – distinguishes what is living from what
is non-living in nature. (O'Grady et al. 1996)
Language as a form of human communication
1. Displacement
2. Arbitrariness
3. Productivity
4. Cultural transmission
5. Duality
Yule’s (2006) Characteristics of human language
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5. Language and the brain
Language is a cognitive skill
whose roots are situated in the
*evolution of the brain.
**Language aphasia shows
that there are two major areas
of the brain specialised in
language processing,
production and comprehension:
***Broca’s and Wernicke’s
areas, situated in the left
hemisphere.
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Early Theories about the Origin of Language
1. The bow-wow theory - imitating sounds that things make.
2. The pooh-pooh theory - speech comes from the automatic vocal.
3. The ding-dong theory - speech reflects some mystical resonance in the world.
4. The yo-he-ho theory - speech started with the rhythmic chants.
5. The ta-ta theory - speech from tongue/mouth gestures to mimic manual gestures.
6. The la-la theory - speech emerged from the sounds Inspired.

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The emergence of writing systems is regarded as one of the most
significant milestones towards human civilisation (Han, 2012).
It is believed that the invention of writing was the result of an
improvement to an ancient system of tallies and labels, where
things were depicted pictographically to reduce ambiguity and
ease the process of recall (Fischer, 2007)
A writing system is a conventionalised method of
representing verbal communication visually, which is regarded
as a reliable form of information storage and transfer.
Origins and Evolution of Writing Systems

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Writing systems generally use both phonetic and semantic symbols in their characters,
there are three main ways of classifying writing systems around the world (Elbow, 2012):
Alphabetic, Syllabic and Logographic.
Cuneiform
Oracle Bone Inscription
Bronze Inscription
Seal Script Clerical ScriptSquare Script
Hieroglyphs
Writing Systems

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Writing Systems
Linguistic analysis, by which the phonological
and/or morphological units of a language are
identified and assigned to symbols.

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The study of writing systems, or grammatology, is concerned with the
means by which languages are represented by graphic symbols.
The scientific study of language and its structure, including the study of
grammar, syntax, and phonetics. Specific branches of linguistics include
sociolinguistics, dialectology, psycholinguistics, computational linguistics,
comparative linguistics, and structural linguistics. (Oxford dictionary)
ம ொழியியல்

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Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It tries,
 to observe languages and to describe them accurately,
 to find generalizations within what has been described, and
 to draw conclusions about the general nature of human language.

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Linguistics seeks explicit knowledge about language, by submitting it to
systematic and objective study. Linguistics is the scientific study of language.
A study that is systematic, objective, and
seeks explicit knowledge is scientific.
The product of linguistics is an objective, systematic, and explicit account
of (some aspect of) language, i.e. an explicit grammar.
A linguist is a person who is professionally
engaged in the scientific study of some
aspect of language.
The word "linguistics" is derived from the
Latin word for tongue. Linguistics is the
scientific study of human language.

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Applied linguistics attempts to make practical
use of the knowledge derived from
general linguistic research { in order, for
example, to:
improve the ways in which a student's native
language is taught
help people learn foreign language more
eciently
write better dictionaries
improve therapy for people with language
problems
search the Internet more eciently and
successfully
Linguistics overlaps and (ideally) cooperates
with: psychology, sociology, anthropology,
philosophy, logic, mathematics, computer
science, speech pathology, acoustics, music,
cryptanalysis, etc.

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The main branches of linguistics are:
 Historical linguistics.
 Geographical linguistics.
 Descriptive linguistics.
 Comparative and contrastive linguistics.
 Psycholinguistics.
 Sociolinguistics.
 Ethno linguistics.
 Syntactic/Grammar.
Noam Chomsky is known as the father of modern linguistics.
Back in 1957, Chomsky, with his revolutionary book “Syntactic
Structures,” laid the foundation of his theory of language.
Five major components of the
structure of language are
1. Phonemes,
2. Morphemes,
3. Lexemes,
4. Syntax, and
5. Context.
Around 6th century BC, linguistics began to be studied systematically by the Indian
scholar Pānini, who is generally regarded as the “father of linguistics.”
Formal linguistics later developed in Ancient Greece and around 4th century
BC, China also developed its own grammatical traditions.

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Applied linguistics attempts to make practical use of the knowledge derived
from general linguistic research in order, for example, to
 Improve the ways in which a student’s native language is taught.
 Help people learn a foreign language more efficiently.
 Write better dictionaries.
 Improve therapy for people with language problems.
 Search the Internet more efficiently and successfully.
A glimpse into a few type of linguistics
Linguistics overlaps and (ideally) cooperates with:
psychology, sociology, anthropology,
philosophy, logic, mathematics, computer
science, speech pathology, acoustics, music,
cryptanalysis, etc.

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The diachronic
study of language
in general, historical
linguistics deals
with the history of
the English
language.
Historical linguistics
is mainly
comparative field of
study, looking at
related languages,
establishing
language families
by using the family
tree model.

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Reference
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History of linguistics
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Indo-European-languages
https://linguistics.ucsc.edu/about/what-is-linguistics.html
https://mentalfloss.com/article/48631/6-early-theories-about-origin-language
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin of language
http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ling201/test1materials/origin of language.htm
https://www.thoughtco.com/where-does-language-come-from-1691015
http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ab13
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c0a1/c3cf559427e80f27ddae69984519029f1765.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle of reference
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writing system
https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/linguistics

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