Origin of Language Theory

If brain size does not determine language ability, we might ask what other factors led to the first attempts at language. Of course, this is a matter of speculation, since we have no records of early speech.

One theory is that natural sounds used as interjection began to take on more generalized meanings. For example , the English word ‘ouch’ may be uttered by someone who has just been hurt but may then be used to mean “pain” or “the act of hurting oneself” or even “watch out!”

Early languages might have been formed through such expansions of meaning. Natural sounds might have been added to interjections, and these sounds might have developed into vocabulary that was shared by a group of people.

But this theory barely touches on the real question of the origin of language. The more important question is how arbitrary sounds took on meanings that were shared by an entire group of people, and how they were tied to a particular thing or event.

A second theory suggests that language might have been derived from children’s games.

For example, children involved in make-believe battle or hunt may have created new sounds. These sound could have taken on special meanings for the children, just as you and your playmates probably had what you called “secret codes” used as signals for certain activities or objects.

As the children grew up, the sound would have become more useful in actual hunting or in battle, and their use would have spread to other members of the group, gaining standardized meanings in the process.

Although this is just a guest, it is a plausible explanation of how meanings were assigned to sounds. It is easy to imagine how, once the usefulness of this type of communication was evident, it would have been expanded to include a large number of sounds with different meaning.
Origin of Language Theory