This document discusses several theories about the origins of human language. It presents the hypothesis that language first developed between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago with the emergence of homo sapiens. Several proposed sources of early language are examined, including the idea that language had divine or spiritual origins, emerged from natural sounds in the environment, developed from physical gestures, was enabled by physical adaptations in the vocal tract and brain, or has innate genetic foundations. However, the document concludes that no single theory has been proven and the precise origins of language remain unclear.

1. The Origins
of
Language
PRESENTED BY:
IBRAHIM T. ISMAIL
BAROZH S. GHADHBAN JUNE 2015

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

3. What is Language ?
When and how language
begun ?

4. The origins of language:
 No one knows exactly when or how human beings
came up with spoken language.
 One hypothesis is that language began between
100,000 and 50,000 years ago, with the advent of
modern man, i.e. homo sapiens.
 This is well before the invention of the written
language, about 5,000 years ago. We have direct
evidence and artifacts about writing.

5. The divine source:
 Genesis 2/19: 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.

6. The divine source(cont.)
 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.

7. 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!!

8. Some theories of origins of language
invented by Max Müller

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 Yo-he-ho theory:
based on the notion that speech arose
from physical environmental needs which
produced communal, rhythmical grunts
which later on developed into chants

11. The oral-gesture source
 Originally a set of physical gestures was developed as a means of
communication, Then a set of oral gestures, specifically involving the
mouth, developed for expressing ideas.
Physical gesture
(except mouth)
Physical gesture
(including mouth)
Speech
sounds

12. The physical adaption Source
 Human beings are genetically with
some physical features that are
responsible of producing speech
sounds.

13. The genetic (innateness) source
 According to Chomsky, language is
partly innate and partly acquired.

14. Conclusion
 All presented theories do not precisely demonstrate
what is the origin language, but that is clear-cut in the
past people were only able do some gestures and
produce a few sounds.

15. References
 Vajda, E. The Origin of Language, retrieved from:
http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ling201/test1materials/o
rigin_of_language.htm
 Wijaya, A. (year). The Origins of Language. (article).
Retrieved from:
http://awinlanguage.blogspot.com.tr/2013/04/the-origins-
of-language.html
 Yule,G.,(2010), The Study Of Language. 4th ed,
Cambridge, Cambridge university press.