The origin of language: theories and hypotheses. Why is English so famous

One of the hardest puzzles in human life is language. How did it appear, why do people prefer to communicate with it, why are there so many varieties of speech on the planet? The answers to these questions are the subject of scientific research.

Biological theories of the origin of language

If we consider the origin of language, theories will tell us a lot. All of them are divided into two groups: biological and social.

The first group of theories claims that the development of the language sphere in a person is associated with the development of his brain and speech apparatus. This is the theory of onomatopoeia, which says that words in human speech appeared as an imitation of the phenomena of the surrounding world. For example, people heard the sound of the wind, the cry of a bird, the roar of an animal and created words.

This theory, explaining the origin and imitation of natural sounds, was soon rejected. Indeed, there are words that imitate the sounds of the surrounding world. But basically, the sounds of nature are no longer heard in our cities, and new words are created in other ways.

The origin of the language, the theory of the development of words and word forms - all this is the subject of research by philologists. Already in ancient times, scientists were engaged in this, and the theory of interjections once played a role. It originated in the 18th century.

Its essence lies in the fact that initially the words expressed various and emotional cries were the first to appear in speech.

social contract

Many have investigated the origin of the language, linguistics as a science has developed thanks to these scientists. Gradually, the biological theories of the origin of the language were rejected, they were replaced by social ones.

Such theories of the origin of language appeared in antiquity. He argued that people agreed with each other to name objects in a certain way. These ideas were developed by the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the eighteenth century.

Engels' views

The origin and development of language has always attracted scientists who have sought to solve this mystery. In 1876, the work of Friedrich Engels appeared "The role of labor in the process of turning a monkey into a man." The main idea put forward by Engels is that speaking contributed to the transformation of the monkey into a man and everything developed in the team during joint labor activities. Together with Karl, he created many works on the development of speech. Many subsequent hypotheses of the origin of language originate from Marx and Engels.

According to Engels, language and consciousness are closely related to each other, and the basis of consciousness is practical vigorous activity person. Gradually, with the development of society, different dialects of human speech appear, and the expression of the consciousness of the elite strata of society becomes literary language, which is opposed to folk dialect. Thus, according to Engels, the development of the German and English languages took place.

divine origin of language

Language, including literary language, is a gift given to man from above by God. So thought many thinkers of the past. Gregory of Nyssa, a prominent Christian thinker, wrote that "God gave man the gift of speech." He adhered to similar views. In his opinion, speech was given to man by divine forces, and this happened at one moment, without preliminary development. Along with the creation of the human body, God put a soul and the ability to speak into it. The hypothesis of the monogenesis of languages and the biblical story about how the Lord mixed human dialects so that they could no longer understand each other completely coincide with this theory.

This version was developed by such scientists as Alfredo Trombetti, Nikolai Marr, Alexander Melnichuk. The American linguist Morris Swadesh proved the existence of large macrofamilies of languages and the existence of family ties between them. The largest group is Nostratic, it includes Kartvelian, Dravidian, Altai, Eskimo-Aleut dialects. All of them have common features.

Now consider the origin of some of them.

Origin of the Russian language: Old Russian period

Russian is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. It is spoken by approximately 260 million people. It ranks fifth in popularity on the planet.

The history of the Russian language has several periods. The initial period of its development is Old Russian, which lasted from the sixth to the fourteenth century AD. Old Russian period is divided into pre-literate, that is, before the 11th century, and written, from the 11th century. But since the 11th century, the Old Russian language has been disintegrating into separate dialects. This is due to the invasion of the Mongol-Tatars, with the division of united Russia into various states. Russian origin modern language originates in a later era, but in modern times there are archaic layers of vocabulary.

Old Russian period

The second period of development is the Old Russian, which lasted from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries. At this time, two different layers coexist in one culture - this is the Church Slavonic version of the Russian dialect and the Russian literary language itself, based on the folk dialect. As a result, the Moscow koine begins to dominate.

The history of the Russian language allows us to trace how it was formed, what features were lost in the process of formation. Already in the Old Russian period, such features disappeared without a trace, as was lost vocative(which, however, remained in the Ukrainian language), the types of declension were unified.

Russian national language

The beginning of the formation of the Russian national language can be considered the middle of the seventeenth century. The origin of its modern version is attributed to a later period, namely to the 19th century. Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin had a great influence on his formation.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the scope of the use of Church Slavonic vocabulary gradually narrowed, as society became more secular and the worldly was honored. In the eighteenth century, the norms of Russian grammar and spelling were laid down, and Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov played a big role in this. His "Russian Grammar" becomes the basis for subsequent linguists and everyone who is interested in Russian grammar, lexicology, morphology.

Pushkin's work finally formed the Russian literary language and allowed him to take his rightful place in the world. Russian national speech characterized by the fact that the role of borrowing in it is quite large. If in the seventeenth century they came from Polish, in the eighteenth - from Dutch and German, then in the nineteenth century French comes to the fore, and in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries - English. And now the number of words coming from English is simply huge.

What else do scientists know in such a field of research as the origin of language? Theories are numerous, especially with regard to the Russian language, but this issue has not been fully clarified at the moment.

How the Ukrainian language appeared

The Ukrainian language appeared on the basis of the same dialects as Russian. Origin Ukrainian language attributed to the fourteenth century. In the period from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries, the old Ukrainian developed, and from the end of the eighteenth - the modern Ukrainian.

The foundations of the literary Ukrainian language were developed by Ivan Petrovich Kotlyarevsky, who created the immortal works "Aeneid" and "Natalka Poltavka". In them, he witty combines the motifs of ancient literature with contemporary realities. But the majority of scientists attribute the origin of the Ukrainian dialect to creativity. It was the latter that brought Ukrainian to the level characteristic of world languages. Shevchenko's work gave Ukrainians the opportunity to express themselves. Such works as "Kobzar", "Katerina", "Dream" were translated into other languages of the world, and the author himself was included in the host of the most famous writers and philosophers who gave humanity new values.

The origin of the Ukrainian language is studied by many researchers, including well-known Canadian scientists.

Why is English so famous

English is the most widely spoken language in the world after Chinese and Spanish. The number of people who speak it is approaching a billion people.

The origin of the languages of the world is of interest to everyone, especially those who study English. Now it is widely used in business, trade, international cooperation, and this is because british empire conquered half the world in the nineteenth century. At present, the United States has a huge influence on the planet, official language in which is also English.

The history of Shakespeare's language is divided into different periods. Old English existed from the fifth to the eleventh centuries AD, Middle English from the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries, and New English has existed from the fifteenth to the present. It must be said that the origin has much in common with the origin of English.

In shaping the speech of the British, the languages of different tribes that lived on the territory of the country for a long time, as well as the languages of the Vikings who invaded the island, played an important role. Later, the Normans appeared in Britain. Thanks to them, a large layer appeared in the English dialect French words. William Shakespeare is a writer who made a huge contribution to the development of the language of the inhabitants. His works have become the cultural heritage of the British. The origin of the language, about which there are so many theories, is due to the influence of famous writers.

Now English language occupies a leading position in the world. It is a means of communication in the Internet, science and business. Most of the negotiation processes in different countries, diplomatic correspondence takes place in English.

The number of its dialects is very large. But the English and American versions oppose each other.

There are a number of hypotheses about the origin of the language, but none of them can be confirmed by facts due to the huge remoteness of the event in time. They remain hypotheses, since they can neither be observed nor reproduced in an experiment.

Religious theories

Language was created by God, gods or divine sages. This hypothesis is reflected in the religions of different nations.

According to the Indian Vedas (XX century BC), the main god gave names to other gods, and holy sages gave names to things with the help of the main god. In the Upanishads, religious texts from the 10th century B.C. it is said that being created heat, heat - water, and water - food, i.e. alive. God, entering into the living, creates in it the name and form of the living being. What is absorbed by a person is divided into the grossest part, the middle part and the subtlest part. Thus, food is divided into feces, meat and mind. Water is divided into urine, blood and breath, and heat is divided into bone, brain and speech.

Labor hypotheses

Spontaneous jump hypothesis

According to this hypothesis, the language arose abruptly, immediately with a rich vocabulary and language system. expressed a hypothesis German linguist Wilhelm Humboldt(1767-1835): “Language cannot arise otherwise than immediately and suddenly, or, more precisely, everything must be characteristic of the language at every moment of its existence, thanks to which it becomes a single whole ... It would be impossible to invent a language if its type was no longer embedded in the human mind. In order for a person to be able to comprehend at least one word not just as a sensual impulse, but as an articulate sound denoting a concept, the entire language and in all its interconnections must already be embedded in it. There is nothing singular in language; each individual element manifests itself only as part of the whole. No matter how natural the assumption of the gradual formation of languages may seem, they could arise only immediately. A person is a person only because of language, and in order to create a language, he must already be a person. The first word already presupposes the existence of the whole language.

Jumps in the emergence of biological species also speak in favor of this seemingly strange hypothesis. For example, when developing from worms (which appeared 700 million years ago) to the appearance of the first vertebrates - trilobites, 2000 million years of evolution would be required, but they appeared 10 times faster as a result of some kind of qualitative leap.

Animal language

Animal language is innate. He doesn't have to learn from animals. If the chick hatched in isolation, then he owns " vocabulary", which is supposed to have a chicken or a rooster.
Animals use language unintentionally. The signals express them emotional condition and are not intended for their associates. Their language is not an instrument of knowledge, but the result of the work of the sense organs. The gander does not report danger, but with a cry infects the flock with its fear. The thinking of animals is figurative and not connected with concepts.
Animal communication is unidirectional. Dialogues are possible, but rare. Usually these are two independent monologues, pronounced simultaneously.
There are no clear boundaries between animal signals; their meaning depends on the situation in which they are reproduced. Therefore, it is difficult to count the number of words and their meanings, to understand many "words". They do not put words into phrases and sentences. On average, animals have about 60 signals.
In the communication of animals, information not about oneself is impossible. They cannot talk about the past or the future. This information is operational and expressive.

However, animals are able to assimilate the signals of animals of other species (“Esperanto” of ravens and magpies, which is understood by all the inhabitants of the forest), that is, to passively master their language. Such animals include monkeys, elephants, bears, dogs, horses, pigs.

But only a few developed animals are able to actively master someone else's speech (reproduce words and sometimes use them as signals). These are parrots and mockingbirds (starlings, crows, jackdaws, etc.). Many parrots "know" up to 500 words, but do not understand their meaning. It's different with people. A tax collector in Stockholm provoked dogs by imitating 20 kinds of barks.

Since the speech apparatus of monkeys is poorly adapted to pronouncing the sounds of the human language, the spouses Beatrice and Allende Gardners taught the chimpanzee Washoe sign language (up to 100 - 200 words of American Sign Language for the deaf and dumb - Amslen ( amslang), more than 300 combinations of several and words, and Washoe even learned to independently compose simple phrases like “dirty Jack, give me a drink” (offended by a zookeeper), “water bird” (about a duck). Other monkeys have been taught to communicate by typing messages on a computer keyboard.

Human origin and language

The brain of a chimpanzee is about 400 grams (cc), a gorilla is about 500 grams. Australopithecus, the predecessor of man, had the same brain. Archanthrope appeared about 2.5 million years ago.

First stage - homo habilis(man of skill).
He worked stones. Brain - 700 gr.

This is the stage of transition from monkey to man. The approximate boundary separating the brain of a monkey from a person is approximately 750 gr.
Second phase - Homo erectus(upright man).
Introduced various types: Pithecanthropus, Sinanthropus, heidelberg man. It originated about 1.5 million years ago. Knew fire. The mass of the brain was 750 - 1250 gr. Apparently, during this period, the beginnings of speech already appeared.

Paleoanthropist appeared about 200-400 thousand years ago.

Homo sapiens(reasonable man) - this is already the species to which we belong - was first presented in the form of a Neanderthal. He made tools from stone, bone, wood. Buried the dead. The weight of the brain even reached 1500 gr. more than the average for a modern person.

Neoanthrope lived about 40 thousand years ago. Represented by Cro-Magnon man. Height 180 cm. Brain - 1500 gr. Perhaps we are not the descendants of Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon man, but of another branch of protohumans, whose fossil remains have not been preserved.

Modern man

On average, the weight of the brain of a man is 1400 grams, women - 1250 grams, the brain of a newborn weighs about 350 grams. Since the 19th century, the brain has become heavier in men by 50 grams, in women by 25 grams.

The maximum weight - 2000 grams - was with I. S. Turgenev, at least 1100 grams - with the French writer Anatole France.

The heaviest female brain- 1550 grams - belonged to the killer.

The yellow race has a slightly larger brain than the white race.

Humans have the highest brain to body weight ratio of 1 to 40-50. Dolphin is in second place. An elephant has a larger brain than a human. Therefore, it is not the absolute weight that is more important, but the relative one. Women have smaller brains on average due to their lower body weight, and the ratio is the same.

Language is the second signaling system

The thinking of animals is at the level of the first signal system, that is, the system of direct perception of reality created by the senses. These are direct concrete signals.

Human thinking is at the level of the second signal system. It is created not only by the sense organs, but also by the brain, which turns the data of the sense organs into second-order signals. These second signals are signal signals.

Second signaling system, i.e. speech is a distraction from reality and allows for generalization.

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So, the primitive language cannot be investigated and experimentally tested.

However, this question has interested mankind since ancient times.

Even in the biblical legends, we find two conflicting solutions to the question of the origin of the language, reflecting different historical eras perspectives on this issue. AT I chapter of the book of Genesis says that God created by a verbal spell and man himself was created by the power of the word, and in II the chapter of the same book tells that God created “silently”, and then brought all creatures to Adam (i.e., to the first man), so that the man would give them names, and whatever he would call, so that it would be henceforth.

In these naive legends, two points of view on the origin of the language have already been identified:

1) language not from a person and 2) language about a person.

At various times historical development mankind, this question was solved in different ways.

The extrahuman origin of the language was initially explained as a "divine gift", but not only ancient thinkers gave other explanations for this issue, but also the "fathers of the church" in early middle ages, ready to admit that everything comes from God, including the gift of speech, doubted that God could turn into a “school teacher” who would teach people vocabulary and grammar, from where the formula arose: God gave man the gift of speech, but did not open people the names of objects (Gregory of Nyssa, 4th century n. e.) 1 .

1 See: Pogodin A. L. Language as creativity (Questions of the theory and psychology of creativity), 1913. P. 376.

Since antiquity, there have been many theories about the origin of the language.

1. Theory of onomatopoeia comes from the Stoics and received support in XIX and even XX in. The essence of this theory is that the “languageless person”, hearing the sounds of nature (the murmur of a stream, the singing of birds, etc.), tried to imitate these sounds with his own speech apparatus. In any language, of course, there are a number of onomatopoeic words like coo-coo, woof-woof, oink-oink, bang-bang, cap-cap, apchi, xa- xa- xaandetc. and derivatives of the type cuckoo, cuckoo, bark, grunt, pig, ha-hanki etc. But, firstly, there are very few such words, and secondly, “onomatopoeia” can only be “sounding”, but how then can we call “mute”: stones, houses, triangles and squares, and much more?

It is impossible to deny onomatopoeic words in language, but it would be completely wrong to think that language arose in such a mechanical and passive way. Language arises and develops in a person together with thinking, and with onomatopoeia, thinking is reduced to photography. Observation of languages shows that there are more onomatopoeic words in new, developed languages than in the languages of more primitive peoples. This is explained by the fact that in order to “imitate onomatopoeia”, one must be able to perfectly control the speech apparatus, which a primitive person with an undeveloped larynx could not master.

2. Interjection theory comes from the Epicureans, opponents of the Stoics, and lies in the fact that primitive people turned instinctive animal cries into “natural sounds” - interjections that accompany emotions, from where all other words allegedly originated. This point of view was supported by 18th century J.-J. Rousseau.

Interjections are included in the vocabulary of any language and can have derivative words, as in Russian:ax, oxand gasp, groan etc. But again, there are very few such words in languages and even fewer than onomatopoeic ones. In addition, the reason for the emergence of language by supporters of this theory is reduced to an expressive function. Without denying the presence of this function, it should be said that there is a lot in the language that is not related to expression, and these aspects of the language are the most important, for which the language could have arisen, and not just for the sake of emotions and desires, which animals are not deprived of, however, they do not have a language. In addition, this theory assumes the existence of a "man without language", who came to the language through passions and emotions.

3. The theory of "labor cries" at first glance, it seems to be a real materialistic theory of the origin of language. This theory originated in XIX in. in the writings of vulgar materialists (L. Noiret, K. Bucher) and boiled down to the fact that language arose from the cries that accompanied collective labor. But these "labor cries" are only a means of rhythmizing labor, they do not express anything, not even emotions, but are only an external, technical means at work. Not a single function that characterizes the language can be found in these “labor cries”, since they are neither communicative, nor nominative, nor expressive.

The erroneous opinion that this theory is close to the labor theory of F. Engels is simply refuted by the fact that Engels does not say anything about “labor cries”, and the emergence of language is associated with completely different needs and conditions.

4. From the middle XVIII in. appeared "social contract theory". This theory was based on some opinions of antiquity (the thoughts of Democritus in the transmission of Diodorus Siculus, some passages from Plato's dialogue "Cratylus", etc.) 1 and in many respects corresponded to the rationalism of the 18th century

1 See: Ancient Theories of Language and Style, 1936.

Adam Smith proclaimed it the first opportunity for the formation of a language. Rousseau had a different interpretation in connection with his theory of two periods in the life of mankind: the first - "natural", when people were part of nature and language "came" from feelings ( passions ), and the second - "civilized", when the language could be the product of "social agreement".

In these arguments, the grain of truth lies in the fact that in the later epochs of the development of languages it is possible to “agree” on certain words, especially in the field of terminology; for example, the system of international chemical nomenclature was developed at the international congress of chemists from different countries in Geneva in 1892.

But it is also quite clear that this theory does nothing to explain the primitive language, since, first of all, in order to “agree” on a language, one must already have a language in which they “agree”. In addition, this theory assumes consciousness in a person before the formation of this consciousness, which develops along with the language (see below about F. Engels' understanding of this issue).

The trouble with all the theories outlined is that the question of the origin of language is taken in isolation, without connection with the origin of man himself and the formation of primary human groups.

As we said above (chap. I ), there is no language outside of society and there is no society outside of language.

Various theories of the origin of language (meaning spoken language) and gestures that have existed for a long time also do not explain anything and are untenable (L. Geiger, W. Wundt - in XIX in., J. Van-Ginneken, N. Ya. Marr - in XX in.). All references to supposedly purely "sign languages" cannot be supported by facts; gestures always act as something secondary for people who have a spoken language: such are the gestures of shamans, intertribal relations of the population with different languages, cases of using gestures during periods of prohibition of use sound language for women of some tribes at a low stage of development, etc.

There are no "words" among gestures, and gestures are not connected with concepts. Gestures can be indicative, expressive, but by themselves they cannot name and express concepts, but only accompany the language of words that has these functions 1 .

1 Under the conditions of a conversation in the dark, on the telephone, or reporting into a microphone, the question of gestures generally disappears, although the speaker may have them.

It is also unjustified to derive the origin of the language from the analogy with the mating songs of birds as a manifestation of the instinct of self-preservation (Ch. Darwin) and even more so from human singing (J.-J. Rousseau–v XVIII in., O. Jespersen - in XX c.) or even "fun" (O. Jespersen).

All such theories ignore language as a social phenomenon.

We find a different interpretation of the question of the origin of language in F. Engels in his unfinished work "The Role of Labor in the Process of the Transformation of Apes into Humans", which became the property of science in 20th century

Based on a materialistic understanding of the history of society and man, F. Engels in his "Introduction" to the "Dialectics of Nature" explains the conditions for the emergence of language in the following way:

“When, after a thousand-year struggle, the hand finally differentiated from the leg and a straight gait was established, then man separated from the monkey, and the foundation was laid for the development of articulate speech ...” 1

1 Marx K., Engels F. Works. 2nd ed. T. 20. S. 357.

W. von Humboldt wrote about the role of the vertical position for the development of speech: “ speech sound corresponds to the vertical position of a person (which is denied to an animal) "", as well as X . Steinthal 2 and J. A. Baudouin de Courtenay 3 .

1 Humboldt V. On the difference in the structure of human languages and its influence on the spiritual development of the human race // Zvegintsev V. A. The history of linguistics in the 19th–20th centuries in essays and extracts. 3rd ed., add. M .: Education, 1964. S. 97. (New ed.: Humboldt V. fon. Selected works on linguistics. M., 1984).

2 See: S t e i n t h a 1 H. Der Ursprung der Sprache. 1st ed., 1851; 2nd ed. Uber Ursprung der Sprache im Zusammenhang mit den letzen Fragen alles Wissens, 1888.

3 See: Baudouin de Courtenay I. A. On one of the sides of the gradual humanization of the language in the process of development from monkey to man in the field of pronunciation in connection with anthropology // Yearbook of the Russian Anthropological Society. Ch. I, 1905. See: Baudouin de Courtenay I. A. Selected Works on General Linguistics. T. 2, M., 1963. S. 120.

Vertical gait was in human development both a prerequisite for the emergence of speech, and a prerequisite for the expansion and development of consciousness.

The revolution that man introduces into nature consists, first of all, in the fact that man's labor is different from that of animals, it is labor with the use of tools, and, moreover, made by those who should own them, and thus progressive and social labor. No matter how skillful architects we consider ants and bees, they “do not know what they are doing”: their work is instinctive, their art is not conscious, and they work with the whole organism, purely biologically, without using tools, and therefore no progress in their work no: both 10 and 20 thousand years ago they worked in the same way as they work now.

The first human tool was the freed hand, other tools developed further as additions to the hand (stick, hoe, rake, etc.); even later, a person shifts the burden to an elephant, a camel, an ox, a horse, and he only manages them, finally, a technical engine appears and replaces the animals.

Simultaneously with the role of the first instrument of labor, the hand could sometimes also act as an instrument of communication (gesture), but, as we saw above, this is not connected with “incarnation”.

“In short, the forming people came to what they had the need to say something each other. Need created its own organ: the undeveloped larynx of the monkey was slowly but steadily transformed by modulation for more and more developed modulation, and the organs of the mouth gradually learned to pronounce one articulate sound after another.

1 Engels F. Dialectics of nature (The role of labor in the process of turning a monkey into a man) // Marx K., Engels F. Works. 2nd ed. T. 20. S. 489.

Thus, not mimicry of nature (the theory of "onomatopoeia"), not an affective expression of expression (the theory of "interjections"), not meaningless "hooting" at work (the theory of "labor cries"), but the need for reasonable communication (by no means in "public contract”), where the communicative, semasiological, and nominative (and, moreover, expressive) functions of the language are carried out at once - the main functions without which the language cannot be a language - caused the appearance of the language. And language could arise only as a collective property necessary for mutual understanding, but not as an individual property of this or that incarnated individual.

General Process F. Engels presents human development as the interaction of labor, consciousness and language:

“First, labor, and then, along with it, articulate speech, were the two most important stimuli, under the influence of which the brain of a monkey gradually turned into a human brain ...” abstraction and inference had a reciprocal effect on labor and language, giving both more and more impetus to further development» 2 . "Thanks to joint activities hands, organs of speech and brain, not only in each individual, but also in society, people have acquired the ability to perform more and more complex operations set yourself higher and higher goals and achieve them” 3 .

1 Ibid. S. 490.

2 There.

3 T a m. S. 493.

The main propositions arising from Engels's doctrine of the origin of language are as follows:

1) It is impossible to consider the question of the origin of language outside the origin of man.

2) The origin of the language cannot be scientifically proven, but one can only build more or less probable hypotheses.

3) Some linguists cannot solve this issue; thus this question is subject to resolution of many sciences (linguistics, ethnography, anthropology, archeology, paleontology and general history).

4) If the language was “born” together with the person, then there could not be a “languageless person”.

5) Language appeared as one of the first "signs" of a person; without language man could not be man.

6) If “language is the most important means of human communication” (Lenin), then it appeared when the need for “human communication” arose. Engels says so: "when the need arose to say something to each other."

7) Language is called upon to express concepts that animals do not have, but it is the presence of concepts along with language that distinguishes man from animals.

8) The facts of a language, to varying degrees, from the very beginning must have all the functions of a real language: language must communicate, name things and phenomena of reality, express concepts, express feelings and desires; without it, language is not "language".

9) Language appeared as a spoken language.

This is also mentioned by Engels in his work "The Origin of the Family, private property and the state" (Introduction) and in the work "The role of labor in the process of turning apes into humans".

Consequently, the question of the origin of the language can be resolved, but by no means on the basis of linguistic data alone.

These solutions are hypothetical in nature and are unlikely to turn into a theory. Nevertheless, the only way to solve the question of the origin of the language, if based on the real data of languages and on the general theory of the development of society in Marxist science.

Russian archaeologist, Ph.D. PhD, Leading Researcher, Department of Paleolithic Archeology, Institute of History material culture RAS (IIMK RAS, St. Petersburg).

“From the heat, the bamboo cracked and splinters
broke up in different sides. So the first
people appeared hands and feet, and on the head
- eyes, ears and nostrils. But here it resounded especially
loud crack: "Waaah!". It's in the first people
their mouths opened and they were speechless.”

"Myths and Traditions of the Papuans Marind-Anim".

In almost any large work on the origin of language, one can find a mention of the fact that there were times in the history of science when this topic enjoyed a very bad reputation among scientists, and prohibitions were even imposed on its consideration. So, in particular, the Parisian Linguistic Society acted in 1866, introducing an appropriate clause into its charter, which then existed in it for decades. In general, it is not difficult to understand the reason for such discrimination: too many, based on nothing but imagination, not based, purely speculative, and even semi-fantastic theories, once gave rise to a discussion of the problem that interests us. As noted by O.A. Donskikh, in fact, the word "theory" in many such cases consecrated some elementary consideration, which then, thanks to an unrestrained flight of fancy, grew in different authors in pictures of the origin of speech. one

Now there are no formal prohibitions on discussing anything, but the topic of the origin of the language does not cease to be less slippery for this. If, thanks to archeology, there is information about the early stages of the evolution of material culture, although far from exhaustive, but still sufficient for some general reconstructions, then the early stages of the evolution of linguistic behavior have to be judged mainly by indirect data. Therefore, today, as in the 19th century, the topic of this section continues to give rise to many speculative assumptions and hypotheses based not so much on facts as on their absence. In such a situation, it is especially important to clearly distinguish between what we really know and what we can only assume with a greater or lesser degree of probability. Alas, we must immediately admit that the overall balance here is far from being in favor of the reliably known.

First of all, let's try to formulate the problem as clearly as possible. What, in fact, do we seek to learn and understand by exploring the origin of the language? To begin with, let us recall that we have agreed to call language any system of differentiated signs corresponding to differentiated concepts. This definition, as well as the definition of what a sign is, was already discussed in Chapter 4. Although language is often identified with speech, in principle any of the five senses can serve to transmit and perceive signs. The deaf-mute communicate by sight, the blind read and write by touch, it is quite easy to imagine the language of smells or taste sensations. Thus, despite the fact that for the vast majority of people, language is, first of all, sound, the problem of the origin of language is much broader than the problem of the origin of speech. The ability to use language can be exercised in many ways, not necessarily in sound form. Our speech is only one of possible forms sign communication, and the verbal-sound language underlying it is only one of possible types languages.

The problem of the origin of the language can be represented as a series of separate, albeit closely interrelated issues. Firstly, I would like to understand why the language was needed at all. Secondly, it is necessary to understand how its biological foundation was formed, i.e. organs serving for the formation, transmission and perception of linguistic signs. Thirdly, it would be interesting to try to imagine how these signs themselves were formed, and what they originally represented. Finally, the questions of when, in what epoch and at what stage of human evolution the language ability was formed and when it was realized stand apart. Let us consider all the selected aspects of the problem of the origin of language in the order in which we have listed them here.

So why does language appear at all? Does it arise in connection with the need to improve the ways of exchanging information, or only as a means of thinking? Which of these two functions was the original, main, and which was the secondary, derivative? What came first - language or thought? Is thought possible without language?

Some scientists are firmly convinced that the mind, thinking, is a product of language, and not vice versa. Even T. Hobbes believed that initially language did not serve communication, but only thinking, and some people think the same way. contemporary authors. 2 Others, on the contrary, are convinced that language is a means of communicating thoughts, and not of producing them, and, therefore, thinking is independent of language and has its own genetic roots and compositional structure. “For me, there is no doubt that our thinking proceeds mainly bypassing symbols (words) and, moreover, unconsciously,” wrote, for example, A. Einstein, and zoopsychologists have long been talking about “preverbal concepts” that higher animals have. In light of what we now know about the great apes, the second view seems more plausible. Their example shows that thinking, if we mean the formation of concepts and operating with them, clearly arises before the ability to communicate these concepts, i.e. before language. Of course, having arisen, the language began to serve as an instrument of thinking, but this role was still, most likely, secondary, derived from the main one, which was the communicative function.

According to a very popular and quite plausible hypothesis, initially the need for the formation of a language was associated, first of all, with the complication of social life in hominin associations. It was already mentioned in the first chapter that in primates there is a fairly stable direct relationship between the size of the cerebral cortex and the number of communities characteristic of a given species. The English primatologist R. Dunbar, starting from the fact of such a correlation, proposed an original hypothesis of the origin of the language. He noticed that there is a direct connection not only between relative value cortex and group size, but also between group size and the amount of time each group spends on grooming. 3 Grooming, in addition to the fact that it performs purely hygienic functions, also plays an important socio-psychological role. It helps to relieve tension in relationships between individuals, establish friendly relations between them, maintain cohesion within groups and preserve their integrity. However, the amount of time spent on grooming cannot increase indefinitely without compromising other vital activities (foraging, sleeping, etc.). Therefore, it is logical to assume that when hominin communities reached a certain threshold value of abundance, it should become necessary to replace or, in any case, supplement grooming with some other means of ensuring social stability less time-consuming, but no less effective. According to Dunbar, language became such a means. True, it remains unclear what could have caused the constant growth in the size of groups, but it is possible that, speaking of hominids, the leading role should be given not to the quantitative change of communities (as Dunbar believes), but to their qualitative complication due to the emergence of new areas of social life. , new aspects of relationships, and also required an increase in the time spent on grooming.

We will return to Dunbar's conjecture when we will talk about the time of the origin of the language, and now let's turn to the question of what anatomical organs our ancestors should have needed when they finally came to the conclusion that they had something to say to each other, and how these organs were formed. Of course, our cognitive capabilities in this area are severely limited due to the specifics of fossil material - everything has to be judged only by bones, and, as a rule, anthropologists have much fewer of them than we would like - but still something interesting you can find out.

The development of the brain has been and is being studied most intensively. The main material for such studies is the so-called endocrine reflux, i.e. dummies of the brain cavity (Fig. 7.1). They make it possible to get an idea not only about the volume of the brain of fossil forms, but also about some important features of its structure, which are reflected in the relief of the inner surface of the skull. So. It has long been observed that the endocranial tides of late Australopithecus, and in particular of Australopithecus africanus, show bulges in some of the areas where the main speech centers are thought to be located in humans. Three such centers are usually distinguished, but one of them, located on the medial surface of the frontal lobe of the brain, does not leave an imprint on the bones of the skull, and therefore it is impossible to judge the degree of its development and its very existence in fossil hominids. The other two leave such prints. These are Broca's field (stress on the last syllable), associated with the lateral surface of the left frontal lobe, and Wernicke's field, also located on the lateral surface of the left hemisphere at the border of the parietal and temporal regions (Fig. 7.2). On the endocranial tides of Australopithecus africanus, the presence of Broca's field is noted, and in one case, Wernicke's field was also presumably identified. The first members of the genus Homo both of these structures are already quite distinct.

If understanding the evolution of the brain is important for assessing the capacity for language behavior in general, then studying the structure of the respiratory and vocal organs of fossil hominids sheds light on the development of the speech ability necessary for our verbal-sound language. 4 One area of this kind of research, called paleolaryngology, aims to reconstruct the upper airways of our ancestors. Reconstructions are possible due to the fact that the anatomy of the base of the skull (basicranium) to some extent reflects some features of the soft tissues of the upper respiratory tract. In particular, there is a relationship between the degree of curvature of the base of the skull and the position of the larynx in the throat: with a slightly curved base, the larynx is located high, and with a strongly curved base, it is much lower. last line, i.e. low location of the larynx, characteristic only for people. True, in children under two years old, the larynx is located as high as in animals (which, by the way, gives them and animals the opportunity to eat and breathe almost simultaneously), and only in the third year of life does it begin to descend (which allows for better and more varied articulation of sounds, but poses a risk of choking).

In order to reconstruct changes in the position of the larynx during human evolution, basicraniums of fossil hominids have been studied. Australopithecus has been found to be much closer in this respect to the great apes than to modern humans. Consequently, their vocal repertoire was most likely very limited. Changes in the modern direction began at the stage of Homo erectus: analysis of the skull of KNM-ER 3733, about 1.5 million years old, revealed a rudimentary bending of the basicranium. On the skulls of early paleoanthropes, about half a million years old, a complete bend is already fixed, close to what is characteristic of modern people. The situation with Neanderthals is somewhat more complicated, but, most likely, their larynx was located low enough so that they could pronounce all the sounds necessary for articulate speech. We will return to this topic again in the next chapter.

Another organ associated with speech activity is the diaphragm, which provides the precise control of breathing necessary for rapid, articulate speech. In modern people, one of the consequences of this function of the diaphragm is an increase in the number of bodies nerve cells in spinal cord thoracic vertebrae, resulting in a widening of the thoracic spinal canal compared to other primates. It is possible that such an expansion already occurred among the archanthropes, as evidenced by some finds from the eastern shore of Lake Turkana. True, there are materials that contradict this conclusion. In particular, judging by the thoracic vertebrae of the skeleton from Nariokotome in East Africa(age about 1.6 million years), its owner in the respect we are interested in was closer to monkeys than to modern people. On the contrary, Neanderthals practically do not differ from us in terms of the trait under consideration.

Of great importance for the development of the speech abilities of fossil hominids, of course, were changes in the size and structure of the jaws and oral cavity, organs that are most directly involved in the articulation of sounds. The bulky, heavy jaws of most early hominins, such as Australopithecus massive (it was named massive because of the large size of the jaws and teeth), could be a serious obstacle to fluent speech, even if the brain and respiratory organs were they were no different from ours. However, soon after the appearance of the genus Homo this issue has been largely resolved. In any case, judging by the structure of the bones of the oral part of the skull, belonging to members of the Homo erectus species, they could make all the movements of the tongue necessary in order to successfully articulate vowels and consonants.

To many authors who touch upon the problem of the origin of language in one way or another, the most important thing in it seems to be the question of the natural sources and stages of the genesis of linguistic signs. How did they arise? In what form: verbal, gestural, or otherwise? What were the sources of their formation, how was a certain meaning attached to them? Often these questions simply obscure the whole problem. Meanwhile, they are, in general, secondary. They would be of paramount importance only if we returned to the concept of the intellectual gulf separating man and animals. Then the problem that interests us would be a match for the problem, say, of the origin of the living from the non-living. In fact, however, as I tried to show in one of the previous chapters, the formation of the signs of human language is rather the development of an already existing quality than the emergence of an absolutely new quality. Denying the abyss thus significantly lowers the rank of the question. It is in many ways akin to, for example, the question of whether our ancestors made their first tools from stone, bone, or wood, and perhaps even less hope to get a convincing answer to it someday. Both, of course, are extremely curious, awaken the imagination, give scope for many hypotheses, but at the same time, they are very reminiscent of such a fragment of a crossword puzzle with which no other line intersects and the solution of which, therefore, although interesting in itself , does little to solve the crossword puzzle as a whole.

There are two main points of view regarding the origin of linguistic signs. One is that they originally had a verbal-audio character and grew out of different kind natural vocalizations characteristic of our distant ancestors, while the other suggests that the sound language was preceded by sign language, which could have been formed on the basis of facial expressions and various movements, which are so widely represented in the communication repertoire of many monkeys. Within each of these two directions, speech and gesture, many competing hypotheses coexist. They consider as source material for the genesis of linguistic signs different types natural sounds and movements and the details of the reconstructed processes are drawn differently. Over the years of disputes between supporters of opposing hypotheses, many interesting, witty, or simply funny ideas have been expressed by them. Some of them are able to strike the most sophisticated imagination. So, in one of the classic works of the speech direction, the authors, giving free rein to their imagination and wanting to emphasize the irreducibility of the problem of the origin of language to the question of the evolution of the vocal organs, point to the theoretical possibility that, in a slightly different scenario of anatomical realities, speech, in principle, could be carried non-verbally. - sound, and sphincter-sound character. 5 It remains only to thank nature for not taking advantage of this opportunity.

One of the most famous and realistic scenarios of how the natural (innate) communication system of early hominids could turn into an artificial verbal-sound language was proposed by the American linguist C. Hockett. He paid special attention to the theme of the transformation of genetically fixed vocalizations of animals into words, explaining how and why individual sounds (phonemes) formed into certain semantic combinations (morphemes) and how a certain meaning was assigned to the latter. Hockett noticed that the communication system of our distant ancestors, being closed, i.e. consisting of a limited number of signals attached to an equally limited number of phenomena, inevitably had to undergo a radical transformation if it became necessary to designate an increasing number of objects. The first step in such a transformation, leading to the transformation of a closed system into an open one, could, in his opinion, be an increase in the phonetic diversity of vocalizations. However, this path is naturally limited and, moreover, fraught with an increase in the number of errors both in the production of sounds, and especially in their perception, since the differences between individual sounds, as their number increased, had to become more and more subtle and difficult to perceive. Consequently, while maintaining the tendency to increase the number of objects, phenomena and relationships that required designation, it became necessary to more effective method increasing the information capacity of the communication system. A natural solution to the problem was to give meaning not to individual, even complex sounds, but to their easily distinguishable and numerically unlimited combinations. Thus, according to Hockett, sounds became phonological components, and pre-language became language.

However, one cannot discount the hypothesis according to which language was originally sign language. Monkeys are known to communicate through several sensory channels, but vocalizations often serve not to convey specific information, but only to draw attention to gestural or other signals. In this regard, it is sometimes argued that a blind animal in the primate community would be much more impaired in terms of communication than the deaf. The hypothesis of the existence of a subsonic stage in the development of language can also be supported by the fact that the artificial signs used by chimpanzees (both in nature and under experimental conditions) are gestural, while sound signals, apparently, are innate. Figurativeness, or, as it is sometimes said, iconicity, inherent in visual signs to a much greater extent than in sound ones, is another property that could provide the historical priority of gestural communication. It is much easier to create a recognizable image of an object or action with hand movements than with movements of the lips and tongue.

The fact that speech was preceded by sign language, the development of which then led to the emergence of the language of exclamations, was written by Condillac. E. Taylor, LG Morgan, A. Wallace, W. Wundt and some other classics of anthropology, biology and philosophy also adhered to similar views. N. Ya. Marr wrote about "kinetic speech" that preceded sound speech. As for the present, now the number of adherents of the idea of the initial gestural stage in the history of language almost exceeds the number of those who believe that the language was originally sound. Various scenarios for the emergence and evolution of sign language to a sound language or in parallel with it have been proposed by a number of linguists, primatologists, and anthropologists. They have to solve, in general, the same essentially the same problems that the "speech people" struggle with, and besides, they also have to explain how and why sign language eventually turned into sound. “If spoken language was preceded by sign language, then the problem of glottogenesis is the problem of the emergence of sign language. But it, in turn, remains the problem of the origin of language. In the same way as in the case of sounds, it is necessary to indicate the sources of the development of gestures, explain the reason that gestures have received a certain meaning, and describe the syntax of the sign language. If this is done, then the problem of the emergence of a spoken language becomes the problem of the displacement of gestures by the sounds accompanying them. 6

In principle, by the way, it cannot be ruled out that the formation of the language was originally polycentric in nature, i.e. occurred independently in several geographically isolated hominin populations. In this case, the process could proceed in very different forms, but there is no way to reconstruct them, or even simply assess the degree of plausibility of such a hypothesis.

One of the main, or perhaps the most main feature of our language, clearly distinguishing it from the communication systems of monkeys and other animals, is the presence of syntax. Some researchers, who attach particular importance to this feature, believe that it is precisely and only with the advent of syntax that one can speak of language in the proper sense of the word, and archaic non-syntactic forms of sign communication, assumed for early hominids, are better called proto-language. There is a point of view that the lack of syntax limited not only the effectiveness of the language as a means of communication, but also had an extremely negative effect on thinking, making it impossible, or, in any case, making it very difficult to build complex logical chains of the type: “event x happened because an event happened y; x always happens when it happens y; if it doesn't happen x, then it will not happen and y" etc. True, speech in the last case goes already about rather complex syntactic relations and constructions, while their simplest forms (like those sometimes used by chimpanzees trained in visual signs) are also allowed for the proto-language.

Exist whole line hypotheses about the origin of syntax. Some authors believe that this event was like an explosion, i.e. happened quickly and abruptly, due to some kind of macromutation that caused a corresponding reorganization of the brain. Many adherents of this point of view believe that people have some kind of innate apparatus for acquiring a language, which not only provides the opportunity for learning, but also directly affects the nature of our speech, organizing it in accordance with a genetically determined system of rules. This learning-independent system of rules was considered by the American linguist N. Chomsky, the founder of the approach under consideration, as a kind of “universal grammar” common to our entire biological species, rooted in the neural structure of the brain (“language organ”) and providing speed and ease of learning the language and using it.

Supporters alternative point view consider the origin of syntax the result of a gradual evolutionary process. According to them, Chomsky's theory requires a sudden qualitative change linguistic abilities of primates, which can only be explained either by divine intervention or by several simultaneous and coordinated mutations, which is extremely unlikely and does not agree with the fact long evolution brain and vocal organs. Exist mathematical model, proving the inevitability of syntaxing a language, provided that the number of characters used by its native speakers exceeds a certain threshold level.

Having presented in general terms how things stood with the formation of the biological foundation of the language, and what could be the ways of the genesis of linguistic signs, we now turn to the question of the chronology of these processes. Although neither speech nor sign language, if it preceded it, are archaeologically elusive due to their immaterial nature, and it is very little to establish the exact time of their appearance, and even more so to date the main stages of the evolution of hope, approximate chronological estimates based on various kinds of indirect data are still quite possible. Most of these assessments are based on the analysis of anthropological materials, but information gleaned from primatology, comparative anatomy, archeology, and some other sciences may also be useful.

The fact of a noticeable increase in the brain already in a skilled person is usually interpreted as an indicator of the increased intellectual, including the linguistic potential of these hominids. The presence in them of formations similar to our fields of Broca and Wernicke also serves as an argument in favor of the existence of the rudiments of speech already at this early stage of evolution. Moreover, some researchers even admit that already some later Australopithecus could have had rudimentary speech abilities. However, it is worth remembering here that, firstly, as the example of great apes shows, having abilities does not mean using them, and secondly, the functions of both named fields, especially in the early stages of their evolution, have not yet been clarified exactly. It is possible that their formation was not directly related to the formation of sign behavior, and thus their presence cannot serve as "iron" proof of the existence of a language.

It is more difficult to question the evolutionary meaning of some transformations of the vocal organs. The fact is that the low position of the larynx, which is believed to provide the possibility of articulate speech, also has a negative side - a person, unlike other animals, can choke. It is unlikely that the risk associated with this kind of anatomical changes was their only result and was not compensated from the very beginning by another, useful feature(or functions). Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that those hominids, in which the larynx was already located quite low, not only had the possibility of articulate speech, but also used it. If this assumption is correct, then at least the early paleoanthropes, who appeared about half a million years ago, should be considered speaking creatures, while not denying the language abilities and their predecessors, referred to as Homo erectus.

Interesting possibilities for determining the time of the emergence of a language are opened by R. Dunbar's hypothesis already mentioned above. It is based, as we remember, on the fact that there is a direct relationship between the relative size of the cerebral cortex and the size of primate communities, on the one hand, and between the size of communities and the time that their members spend on grooming, on the other. Dunbar used the first of these regularities to calculate the approximate size of early hominin groups. The size of their cerebral cortex was estimated by him on the basis of data on endocranial reflux. However unreliable and controversial such calculations may seem, one cannot help but notice that the "natural" size of the community, derived by Dunbar for Homo sapiens(148 people), finds confirmation in ethnographic data on primitive and traditional societies. It corresponds to just that threshold value, up to which the relations of kinship, property and mutual assistance are quite sufficient to regulate relations between people. If this limit is exceeded, then the nature of the organization of society begins to become more complicated, it is split into subgroups, and special governing bodies and authorities appear.

Having calculated the "natural" size of communities for different species of hominids, Dunbar used the second pattern he identified to calculate how much of their time members of each species would have to spend on grooming. After that, it remains only to establish at what stage of our evolutionary history this number reached that threshold value at which it should have become necessary to replace or, in any case, supplement grooming with some other less time-consuming means of ensuring social stability. Since primates can spend up to 20% of daytime on grooming without compromising other activities, 7 then critical point presumably corresponds to such a size at which these costs would increase to 25-30% (in modern people, with a natural community size of 148 members, they would reach 40%). Such a point, as calculations show, was probably already reached 250 thousand years ago, or even twice as long, which means that at least early paleoanthropes, if not archanthropes (homo erectus), must already have had speech. It is easy to see that the dating of the origin of language, obtained by Dunbar in such an original way, is fully consistent with the conclusions drawn from the study of the evolution of the larynx and oral cavity.

Archaeologists, based on their materials, are also trying to judge the chronology of the formation of the language. Although in order to make even very complex stone tools, or to depict animal figures in charcoal and ocher, in principle, it is not at all necessary to be able to talk, there are still such activities that are impossible or at least very difficult to carry out without at least some then communication and preliminary discussion. Having fixed the reflection of such actions in the archaeological material, it is possible, therefore, with a high degree of probability to assume the presence of a language in the corresponding period.

It is sometimes argued that one of these activities was collective hunting, which required a pre-agreed plan and coordination of actions. There is undoubtedly a rational grain in this idea, but it is not so easy to use it in practice. Chimpanzees, for example, often hunt large groups, which increases the chances of success, but each monkey acts at its own discretion. In hominids, for a long time, everything could have happened in a similar way, and it is not yet possible to determine exactly when the hunt turned from a group into a truly collective one, organized in accordance with a certain plan.

Another possible archaeological indicator of the emergence of more or less developed means of sign communication is the use by people of "imported" raw materials in the manufacture of stone tools. Indeed, in order to obtain flint or, say, obsidian from deposits located tens or hundreds of kilometers from the site, one must first somehow learn about their existence and the road to them, or else establish an exchange with those groups on whose land these deposits are located. Both would be difficult to do without language.

An even more reliable sign of the use of their linguistic abilities by our ancestors may, apparently, be the fact of navigation. In fact, a long journey by sea is impossible without extensive special training, including the construction swimming facilities, the creation of reserves of provisions and water, etc., and all this requires the coordinated actions of many people and preliminary discussion. Therefore, the settlement of remote islands, where it was impossible to reach except by sea, can be considered as indirect evidence of the existence of a language in the corresponding period. Knowing, for example, that people appeared in Australia about 50 thousand years ago, we can conclude that at that time they were already quite capable of explaining themselves to each other. It is possible, however, that in fact the era of great geographical discoveries and distant sea voyages began much earlier, and that on some islands, separated from the mainland by hundreds of kilometers of deep-sea spaces, the first settlers arrived at least 700 thousand years ago. It is this time that animal bones and stones with alleged traces of processing found at several points on Flores Island (eastern Indonesia) are dated. This island, according to geologists, did not have a land connection with the mainland, and therefore the presence of such ancient stone products here would mean its settlement by sea, which, in turn, would testify in favor of the existence of a language among archanthropes. 8 Such a conclusion, in fact, has already been made by a number of authors, although, strictly speaking, the artificial origin of the objects found on Flores is still in question.

Many archaeologists, without denying the possibility of the existence of a language already in the early stages of human evolution, nevertheless argue that “completely modern”, “developed syntactic language appeared only in people of the modern physical type. However, there is no direct evidence to support such a hypothesis. Of course, there is no doubt that already in ancient period of its existence, the language has gone through many stages of conceptual, syntactic and phonetic complication, but how and when these changes were made, how significant they were and what exactly they consisted of, we do not know and probably will never know.

1 Donskikh O.A. To the origins of language. Novosibirsk: "Nauka", 1988, p. 42.

2 This point of view is also presented in fiction. For example, A. Platonov in the novel "Chevengur" writes about a man who "muttered his thoughts to himself, unable to think silently. He could not think in the dark - first he had to put his mental excitement into words, and only then, hearing the word, he could clearly feel it.

3 Grooming is the search by animals for each other's insects, cleaning of wool and similar actions.

4 True, according to some authors, the evolution of the larynx, pharynx, etc. had only a third-rate significance for the development of human speech, since, as medical practice shows, people with a removed larynx can still speak, like people with a damaged tongue, palate, and lips. On the basis of these data, it has even been suggested that if a chimpanzee's larynx is transplanted into a person, then his speech will differ little from the speech of other people. So far, no one has dared to test this hypothesis.

5 Hockett C.F., R. Ascher. The human revolution // Current Anthropology, 1964, vol. 5, p. 142.

6 Donskikh O.A. The origin of language as a philosophical problem. Novosibirsk: "Nauka", 1984, p. 6-7.

7 Interestingly, today, as a rule, people spend on different types of social interaction(conversations, participation in rituals, visits, etc.) no more or only a little more than 20% of the daytime. Evidence to support this comes from cultures ranging from Scotland to Africa to New Guinea (Dunbar R.I.M. Theory of mind and the evolution of language // Approaches to the Evolution of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 97, tabl. 6.1).

8 Bednarik R.G. Seafaring in the Pleistocene // Cambridge Archaeological Journal. 2003 Vol. 13. No. 1.

So, the primitive language cannot be investigated and experimentally tested.

However, this question has interested mankind since ancient times.

Even in the biblical legends, we find two conflicting solutions to the question of the origin of the language, reflecting different historical epochs of views on this problem. In the first chapter of the book of Genesis it is said that God created with a verbal spell and man himself was created by the power of the word, and in the second chapter of the same book it is said that God created “silently”, and then led to Adam (i.e. to the first man) all creatures, so that a man gives them names, and whatever he calls, so that it will be in the future.

In these naive legends, two points of view on the origin of the language have already been identified:

1) language is not from a person and 2) language is from a person.

In different periods of the historical development of mankind, this issue was resolved in different ways.

The extrahuman origin of language was initially explained as a "divine gift", but not only ancient thinkers gave other explanations for this issue, but also the "fathers of the church" in the early Middle Ages, ready to admit that everything comes from God, including the gift of speech, doubted so that God could turn into a “school teacher” who would teach people vocabulary and grammar, from where the formula arose: God gave man the gift of speech, but did not reveal to people the names of objects (Gregory of Nyssa, IV century AD) 1 .

1 See: Pogodin A. L. Language as creativity (Questions of the theory and psychology of creativity), 1913. P. 376.

Since antiquity, there have been many theories about the origin of the language.

1. The theory of onomatopoeia comes from the Stoics and received support in the 19th and even 20th centuries. The essence of this theory is that the “languageless person”, hearing the sounds of nature (the murmur of a stream, the singing of birds, etc.), tried to imitate these sounds with his speech apparatus. In any language, of course, there are a number of onomatopoeic words like coo-coo, woof-woof, oink-oink, bang-bang, cap-cap, apchi, xa-xa-xai etc. and derivatives of the type cuckoo, cuckoo, bark, grunt, pig, ha-hanki etc. But, firstly, there are very few such words, and secondly, “onomatopoeia” can only be “sounding”, but how then can we call “mute”: stones, houses, triangles and squares, and much more?

2. The theory of interjections comes from the Epicureans, opponents of the Stoics, and lies in the fact that primitive people turned instinctive animal cries into “natural sounds” - interjections that accompany emotions, from where all other words allegedly originated. This view was supported in the 18th century. J.-J. Rousseau.

Interjections are included in the vocabulary of any language and can have derivative words, as in Russian: ax, ox and gasp, groan etc. But again, there are very few such words in languages and even fewer than onomatopoeic ones. In addition, the reason for the emergence of language by supporters of this theory is reduced to an expressive function. Without denying the presence of this function, it should be said that there is a lot in the language that is not related to expression, and these aspects of the language are the most important, for which the language could have arisen, and not just for the sake of emotions and desires, which animals are not deprived of, however, they do not have a language. In addition, this theory assumes the existence of a "man without language", who came to the language through passions and emotions.

3. The theory of "labor cries" at first glance seems to be a real materialistic theory of the origin of language. This theory originated in the 19th century. in the writings of vulgar materialists (L. Noiret, K. Bucher) and boiled down to the fact that language arose from the cries that accompanied collective labor. But these "labor cries" are only a means of rhythmizing labor, they do not express anything, not even emotions, but are only an external, technical means at work. Not a single function that characterizes the language can be found in these “labor cries”, since they are neither communicative, nor nominative, nor expressive.

4. From the middle of the XVIII century. the social contract theory emerged. This theory was based on some opinions of antiquity (the thoughts of Democritus in the transmission of Diodorus Siculus, some passages from Plato's dialogue Cratylus, etc.) 1 and in many respects corresponded to the rationalism of the 18th century itself.

1 See: Ancient Theories of Language and Style, 1936.

Adam Smith proclaimed it the first opportunity for the formation of a language. Rousseau had a different interpretation in connection with his theory of two periods in the life of mankind: the first - "natural", when people were part of nature and language "came" from feelings (passions), and the second - "civilized", when language could be a product "social agreement".

As we said above (Chapter I), there is no language outside of society and there is no society outside of language.

Existing for a long time various theories the origin of the language (meaning the spoken language) and gestures also do not explain anything and are untenable (L. Geiger, W. Wundt - in the 19th century, J. Van Ginneken, N. Ya. Marr - in the 20th century) . All references to the presence of allegedly pure " sign languages» cannot be supported by facts; gestures always act as something secondary for people who have a spoken language: such are the gestures of shamans, intertribal relations of the population with different languages, cases of using gestures during periods of prohibition of the use of spoken language for women among some tribes standing at a low level of development, etc.

1 Under the conditions of a conversation in the dark, on the telephone, or reporting into a microphone, the question of gestures generally disappears, although the speaker may have them.

It is also wrong to derive the origin of language from the analogy with the mating songs of birds as a manifestation of the instinct of self-preservation (C. Darwin), and even more so from human singing (J.-J. Rousseau - in the 18th century, O. Jespersen - in the 20th century) or even "fun" (O. Jespersen).

All such theories ignore language as a social phenomenon.

1 Marx K., Engels F. Works. 2nd ed. T. 20. S. 357.

W. von Humboldt wrote about the role of the vertical position for the development of speech: “The vertical position of a person also corresponds to speech sound (which is denied to an animal)”, as well as H. Steinthal 2 and J. A. Baudouin de Courtenay 3 .

2 See: S t e i n t h a 1 H. Der Ursprung der Sprache. 1st ed., 1851; 2nd ed. Uber Ursprung der Sprache im Zusammenhang mit den letzen Fragen alles Wissens, 1888.

3 See: Baudouin de Courtenay I. A. About one of the sides of the gradual humanization of the language in the process of development from monkey to man in the field of pronunciation in connection with anthropology // Yearbook of the Russian Anthropological Society. Part I, 1905. See: Baudouin de Courtenay, I. A. Selected Works on General Linguistics. T. 2, M., 1963. S. 120.

Vertical gait was in human development both a prerequisite for the emergence of speech, and a prerequisite for the expansion and development of consciousness.

1 Engels F. Dialectics of nature (The role of labor in the process of turning a monkey into a man) // Marx K., Engels F. Works. 2nd ed. T. 20. S. 489.

F. Engels presents the general process of human development as the interaction of labor, consciousness and language:

“First, labor, and then, along with it, articulate speech were the two most important stimuli, under the influence of which the brain of a monkey gradually turned into a human brain ...” abstraction and inference had a reciprocal effect on labor and language, giving both more and more impetus to further development. “Thanks to the joint activity of the hand, the organs of speech and the brain, not only in each individual, but also in society, people have acquired the ability to perform increasingly complex operations, set themselves ever higher goals and achieve them” 3 .

1 Ibid. S. 490.

3 T a m. S. 493.

The main propositions arising from Engels's doctrine of the origin of language are as follows:

1) It is impossible to consider the question of the origin of language outside the origin of man.

2) The origin of the language cannot be scientifically proven, but one can only build more or less probable hypotheses.

3) Some linguists cannot solve this issue; thus this question is subject to resolution of many sciences (linguistics, ethnography, anthropology, archeology, paleontology and general history).

4) If the language was “born” together with the person, then there could not be a “languageless person”.

5) Language appeared as one of the first "signs" of a person; without language man could not be man.

7) Language is called upon to express concepts that animals do not have, but it is the presence of concepts along with language that distinguishes man from animals.

9) Language appeared as a spoken language.

This is also mentioned by Engels in his work The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (Introduction) and in his work The Role of Labor in the Process of the Transformation of Apes into Man.

Consequently, the question of the origin of the language can be resolved, but by no means on the basis of linguistic data alone.

These solutions are hypothetical in nature and are unlikely to turn into a theory. Nevertheless, the only way to solve the question of the origin of the language, if based on the real data of languages and on general theory development of society in Marxist science.