A year ago, in a Berkeley Starbucks, I met a linguistics professor in town for a conference. I asked him how he thought language began. He dismissed the question: We will never know, he said. Speculations on the question are pseudo-science. Johanna Nichols and I taught a graduate seminar about the evolution of language and I will admit that none of the papers we read were impressive.
All were by linguists and all looked at language and nothing else. If you look more widely at how humans differ from our closest ancestors the question of how language evolved becomes easier. It’s one of many changes that pulled in the same direction: the rise of occupational specialization and trading. Language began because it made trading much easier. Language — single words — made it much easier for the two sides of a trade to find each other.
Single words are still used this way. In any business district, you will see single words on signs that advertise what a business has for sale (e.g., “doughnuts”). Long ago, of course, there were no signs: People just said words in the hope of finding someone who wanted what they had or had what they wanted.
This theory implies that possession (who has what?) was the very first topic of conversation. This theory is supported by the fact that the verb to have plays a remarkably central role in English: I have written, I had a good time, I had had a fair amount, I have to reach. You might think to be would be more important, but it isn’t. This pattern suggests that to have was one of the very first verbs, maybe the first.
Chinese has no tense markers (I go yesterday, I go today, I go tomorrow) but again possession appears to have been present close to the beginning of the language. Here is how you negate a verb in Chinese:
to have and other “state” verbs : with mei
all other verbs: with bu
The more irregular a verb, the older it is likely to be. (Thanks to Navanit Arakeri for the link.)
I wonder if trade was the first application…it seems rather advanced.
Wouldn’t a possible order be:
– shriek of danger (alert rest of group)
– variations on the above, associated with particular kinds of threats
– extensions to add direction to or location of threat
then adapting the above for hunting:
– particular sounds associated with coordinating attacks by the group
ie, wouldn’t language evolve to enable the behavior below before trading of goods?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1WBs74W4ik
Tom, your scenario would apply to hundreds of species. Hundreds of species have alarm vocalizations.
Did you hear about Bonnie the Orangutan who spontaneously started whistling?
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100875176
The story suggests that some think this phenomenon may provide some insight into the beginnings of language.
I’ve wondered when and why written prices came about – e.g., the thing above and behind the counter at McDonald’s. I assume it was so customers could be more confident a merchant was charging everybody the same price.
Linguists’ abhorrence of this topic is famous and longstanding, to quote wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_language
The question of language origins seemed inaccessible to methodical approaches, and in 1866 the Linguistic Society of Paris famously banned all discussion of the origin of language, deeming it to be an unanswerable problem.
Seth, I never noticed that “mei” (the correct pin yin spelling of the word, you spelled it as “mai” – it is pronounced as “may”) is only used to negate “you” (to have), and all other verbs in Mandarin are negated with “bu”. Q: “Ni You, mei you che fan?” = “Have you eaten yet?” (note that “mei you” is pronounced as “mayo” as in “tuna on rye, hold the mayo”). A: “you” = I have. “mei you” = I haven’t. Q: “Ni Shi, bu shi da xue lao shi” = “Are you a college professor?”. A: “Shi” = I am. “Bu shi” = I am not.
It’s also interesting that many languages such as French (and other Latin-based languages?) express feelings and states of being with an ownership verb. Such as “I have hunger”, “I have 34 years” (instead of I am 34 years old).
Thanks for the spelling correction, Aaron. My observation about mei and bu comes from my Chinese textbook. I once called your house and asked for you. “Mei you” said the woman who answered the phone.
Literally speaking, the verb “to have/possess” does not exist in Hungarian. One has to use the verb for “to be/to exist” and apply the proper possessive suffix.
For example:
Van blogom .
Translated: I have a blog.
Literally translated: It exists/is blog-my.
Patrik,
How Zen!
This could be a fun notion to speculate about, but (1) it’s not subject to experiment, and (2) it’s _particularly_ not subject to self-experiment. No one has any sound reason to pay attention to what you say about it, and anyone else caught up in it is the least likely to have anything interesting to say. This is your blog, and you can write about whatever you like, but as it gets less interesting, it gets harder to justify time to read it.
I have my own cranks.
Nathan, this particular data is tied in with many other data that support my ideas about human evolution, which I’ve blogged about many times. You seem to be saying because I’m not a linguist “no one has any sound reason to pay attention” but I think you’re wrong: I think linguists should be interested in how data outside linguistics — from my many other posts on human evolution — can shed light on how language began. This is the sort of thing that a non-linguist is more likely to do than a linguist.
That came out more combative than I intended.
My contention that nobody has any reason to pay attention to such speculations is not because you’re not a linguist. Rather, it’s simply because nobody — not me, not a linguist, and not you — can have anything useful to say about the origin of human language. It’s not subject to any sort of verification. All our historical evidence, including any irregularities in treatment of “to have”, is many, many linguistic generations removed from language’s origins. There’s just been plenty of time for all echoes of the origins to wash away and be replaced by modern substitutions, and for those to wash away and be replaced again.
I don’t know what extra-linguistic data you mean.
Nathan, you can find a directory of the extra-linguistic data here:
https://sethroberts.org/category/human-evolution/my-theory-of-human-evolution-directory/
“It’s not subject to any sort of verification.” I think you’re overlooking something. There’s a principle of inference: If two rare events might have the same cause, they probably do. Lightning doesn’t strike twice in one place for different reasons. Humans differ in a dozen different ways from all other species. In other words, ten thousand species, including our closest relatives, are one way; humans are another way. Language is just one example of human exceptionalism. The dozen different ways that humans differ from all other animals, if they might have the same explanation, they probably do have the same explanation. So the explanation for the origin of language should be consistent, if possible, with the explanation of the many other ways humans differ. That’s a test.
I’ve read some of the pages you linked. Specialization is a very late, perhaps even civilized development. Our own recent ancestors, almost in living memory, spun, wove, and sewed their own clothes. Ötzi the Iceman, 5300 years ago, made his own arrows and participated directly in smelting copper, yet roamed the hills like a shepherd.
You have to go back to Homo erectus — more than a million years — to discover what differences set humanity on its exceptional course, and then somehow distinguish those from others that arose because we were different. If H. erectus had speech, then speech happened far too long ago to relate to any detail in present human behavior. If speech came later, then it’s a downline consequence of human exceptionalism.
Anyway, it’s absurd to conjecture that a dozen defining differences arose spontaneously at the same time. One or two distinguished us, and the rest are consequences or incidentals. Speech cannot be among the one or two, because the rest (e.g. upright posture) cannot be consequents of it.
American libertarians insist that free markets are not an invention, but arise spontaneously as a necessary consequence of natural laws. You’re drifting dangerously close to their orbit.
Yes, it’s interesting that commerce is an example of an activity that can make use of subgrammatical language, but that’s no basis for a theory of language origin.
“Specialization is a very late, perhaps even civilized development.” Hmm. What do you mean by “very late”? And how do you know?
I’m not saying that “a dozen defining differences arose spontaneously at the same time.” I’m saying, and apparently you agree, that they combine to make a coherent story.
This reminds me of the language-learning game “Where Are Your Keys?” devised by Evan Gardner. As I understand it, the language learner has to use signing and the objects to hand to get from the teacher how to name things and talk about their ownership and possession (hence the game’s name). One of the first challenges is to persuade the teacher to hand over (or swap) something of his.
Gardner claims this play makes for very rapid language acquisition, which seems to chime with your theory.
“Where Are Your Keys?” sounds fascinating but seems to have only a very few converts. The only information I have about it is from the podcast below:
https://www.mythic-cartography.org/2009/03/04/episode-23-where-are-your-keys-an-interview-with-evan-gardner/
Where Are Your Keys? only has a few converts because I have only told a few people about it. It is a game that I made up by watching how the most effective teachers teach. The subject matter is not that important. The important thing is that certain learning/teaching techniques work, so why not use the most effective techniques as much of the time as possible… and why not train the students to use the same techniques on the teacher not only to more effectively “fish” for the target information but to simultaneously show the teacher their (the student’s) current level of mastery both in the target subject as well as the teaching methodology. In that way you train fluent students who are at the same time teachers in training.
That is the quick answer of Where Are Your Keys?
As to the learning of a language… SPEED is the most important uniting concept.
1. Speed to acquire the target information ( a new language),
2. Speed to acquire faster more effective learning tools to exponentially increase the learning itself.
If you are going to learn a language then learn it as fast as possible.
In order the learning and teaching of languages should proceed in this order…
Limit the number of nouns. 10 nouns should teach you any language.
(choose your nouns well)
Agree on hand signs for each of the nouns.
Agree on hand signs for the following words in this order. ( I use American Sign Language (ASL) and Pidgin Signed English (PSE) because you might as well learn two languages at the same time.
Give each participant an object…
This object or prop from the 10 nouns is now that persons (ownership).
I, you, he, she, it, we, you all, they
mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, your alls, theirs
want, have, give, take
I want your rock.
you want my food?
you want me give you my food? then you give me your rock.
If this is the fastest way to learn an language they why wouldn’t it be the foundation, the origin, the “needs gap” solution to all our problems?
I want what you have!
Small kids begin to practice their understanding of abstract language very early. They hold up and object (usually that is clearly NOT theirs) and ask “MINE?”
This question is usually linked to an object that they want or at least like.
Origin of language?
At least it is the origin of each persons’ relationship with language.
If you are in a language class of any kind and they do not cover “want, have, give, take” in the first few classes (some languages are harder to deal with than others and need some set up to get to this point) either ask or leave and find someone else who will tell you. Then go back to class and try to talk the teacher out of items that are “HIS” or “HERS” You may have to trade something of “YOURSâ€
Thanks, Evan, that’s very interesting. I suppose the game should be called “I Want Your Keys”. Animals have a sense of possession. If you try to take a dog’s food away from it it will bite you.
why the hand signs? where do they come in?
The first step of the game could very well be called “I want your keys”. But the game is called “where are your keys?” because that simple question is the next step or level in fluency progressing from “what” and “who” and “which” questions to “where” and “when” and “how” questions. A fast fluency level probing question in any language is “Where are your keys?” By the answer I know almost exactly how fluent a person is.
The hand signs are important to the speed of language transition. If a student is gesturing “yes” but is voicing “no” then I know two things… First, that the student isn’t sure of the correct language. Second, I know that the student means what they are signing and not what is coming out of their mouth. It is a strange phenomenon but almost 100% accurate. We call this technique “your lips say no but your body says yes.” So watch for the persons body language, not their verbal language… if you know how to read body language (sign language) you will gather more of the true communication and less of the noise.
Thanks, Evan. That’s brilliant.
very interesting. This topic fascinates me: I love observing how my 2 year old son acquires language and I have noticed that possession for him is of utter importance. Still it was a sad day for me when he learned to say: “mine”…
I love how your statements are shown. Lovely!
Sincerily,
Sophie Jaworsky
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