Language

Theories of Origin
 Bow-Wow Theory

 States that language is an imitation of natural sounds

 Sounds heard in nature- cries of animals, sounds of natural phenomenon,
movement of wind, ripple of waters
 Onomatopoeic words
 Eg:- puff, rattle, crash etc
 Valid and reliable theory to explain the formation of a few words
 Drawback – silent about the majority of words
unable to answer questions like language acquired its
articulatory nature
how language signs have become arbitrary in nature
 Ding-Dong Theory

 Associated with the name of the German scholar and philologist

Max Muller.
 Stresses the rhythmical nature of the universe and the sense of
rhythm innate to all human beings.
 Believes that every impression that man received from nature
found expression as vocal sounds or ding dongs
 Early man ding-donged phonetically to the swaying of the trees
in wind, flow of water in the stream etc
 Pooh- Pooh Theory

 Traces all human speech utterances to the basic emotions

of man- those evoked by pain, pleasure, excitement,
shock etc
 Believes that the words we use now are only a refined
form of the brute noises which earlier man made in
response to situations evoking them
 (pooh-pooh means to belittle somebody or something/
implying contempt or dislike)
 Gesture Theory

 Believes that every human gesture is followed by

movements of the tongue, the lips and the jaws
 Initially signs and gestures employed for communication
 Later replaced by corresponding movements of the
tongue, lips and jaws
 Sign language to spoken language
 Put forth by Wilhelm Wundt and Sir Richard Paget
 Yo-He-Ho Theory

 Put forth by the 19th century scholar Noire

 Stresses that language has been formed from the words
uttered by groups of people engaged in joint labour of
some sort
 Can be understood when we observe people engaged in
group work like pushing a heavy object, cutting a tree etc
 A way of unburdening themselves to a certain extent
 Involuntary sounds; result of the sudden release of the air
accumulated in the lungs
 Musical Theory

 Put forward by Swiss linguist Otto Jespersen

 Sees the origin of language in music
 Believes language originated in the form of songs; as
reactions to emotions, especially love and joy
 Is there one plausible theory ?

 No one complete theory

 No theory conclusively proves how language originated
 All theories sound plausible but no one theory accounts for all the
words of a language/ languages
 Still a debatable topic : Was there one common original language
or were languages invented at different places at different
periods?
Thank you