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LANGUAGE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION:

A SPECULATIVE HISTORY

Adrija Chakraborty
Roll no. 3532
DSC English
November 24, 2023
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Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten- a thrill of returning

thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that
w-a-t-e-r meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand.

It might be strange for an average person to have to think on what ‘water’ signifies,
yet for Hellen Keller1 and several others with certain disabilities they must. Few of us
can truly remember when we first became aware that words signified something, but
it would be undoubtedly similar to Hellen Keller’s account sans the process of the
revelation.
Language is such a bewildering yet necessary tool for communication, and the
etymology2 of it plays a big role in the understanding of it. The origin of language is
an even more bewildering study. Perhaps just like Hellen Keller’s association of the
word/ sound to the sensation, origin of language can be studied. The study of pidgin
and creole languages and of children’s acquisition of language may especially be
helpful in the origins of language. Pidgins are simplified languages and lack many of
the building blocks found in the languages of whole societies. Pidgins sometimes
expand to incorporate grammar or words of another language, creating a whole new
language itself. When studying all these only can we trace back the origin of a
language.
Language Origin and Families with their Culture History
Most languages today can be grouped into fewer than 30 families. Most of the
languages currently spoken in Europe and some of them spoken in India all fall under
the Indo-European family. While the second largest family, spoken by about 1.3
billion people would be the Sino- Tibetan3.
The first signs of the origin of language being from one common language
was first noticed by Sir William Jones who noticed similarities between Sanskrit and
classical Greek, Latin and the more recent European languages. The ancestral Indo-
European language whose features have been almost reconstructed, is now called
proto-Indo-European or PIE for short. Based on the mentioned flora and fauna in the
language, there are two opinions on the origin place of the language. Paul Friedrich
suggesting eastern Ukraine while Colin Renfrew disagrees with the notion believing
eastern Anatolia (Ukraine).
Although the history of language origin is a jigsaw puzzle still waiting to be
unravelled, anthropological research taking the relationship between culture and
language outlines the possible path of evolution; tracing back which one could guess
the origin. At the heart of such tracings lies the two well-known edicts of sorts
followed by Societe de Linguistique de Paris in 1866 and the Philological Society of
London; that a language’s origin should not rely on empirical evidence but merely
have a mainly theoretical character. The two methods being used to reflect on the
cultural influences on language currently are looking at basic words for colours,
plants, and animals and the other being grammar.
Based on such linguistic studies many family trees have been drawn,
including the Indo-European language family tree. This family in turn let’s us study
the difference in the culture of the diverse network of people, interconnecting them.
1. Hellen Keller, American author, and disability rights activist. Suffered from blindness and deafness
from the age of 19 months.
2. Etymology - The study of origin of words.
3. Sino- Tibetan is a language family consisting of languages of northern and southern China.
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Even the simple study of historical linguistics studying the change of language
over time, paired with the dialects, morphology4, phonology5, and syntax6 has helped
to set apart languages and the weight they hold in everyday life for humans across the
globe. Although confusing in its origin and development, and the ambiguity it holds
when performed as art, ‘Language’ still is the tool of communication which bridges
the gap between the population.

Bibliography

1. Ember, Carol R., ‘Anthropology,’ 15th edition, Noida: Pearson, January, 2023
2. Hymes, Dell, ‘Foundation in sociolinguistics: An ethnographic approach.’
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1974.

4. Morphology is the study of how sound sequences convey meaning.

5. Phonology is the study of the sounds in a language and how they are used.
6. Syntax are the ways in which words are arranged to form phrases and sentences .