The First Words... The Origin of Human Language
What is present can be referred to by the simple act of pointing. Earliest man used this means first and exclusively to refer to what was present, since, like any animal, he was not yet aware of the possibility and power of absence. And of course we still use this means of referring to present things as when I 'point out' which building on this street is the library. However, ONLY when an object is ABSENT, is there a need to 'call' it back into presence. Pointing to a present object with the index finger is the precursor to language. But language itself is born when the game, the berries, the food to be found in the bush, the life-sustaining water in the stream, for some reason, this year, does not appear as usual. It's the ABSENCE of the thing that requires a name for it and this naming is first a 'calling' of it back from its terrifying absence.
The first words were born in this state of longing, fairly desperate, for absent, 'missing' things. The first words were 'calls' to these things that were suddenly not there. The missing thing needs a name to call it by. The calling of a thing back from absence gave the impetus for replacing it with a word or an artistic representation, formed in mud or drawn on the wall of a dwelling. In the same way, the first naming of human beings was born of the need to call an absent dear-one back to the fold. As long as the circle is complete and all heads are counted, there is no need for names. Only when one is missing, must he or she be given a name and called, probably desperately, back from the danger and into the circle.
Slowly, over hundreds of thousands of years, words and ideas began to replace all kinds of things, whether they were present or not, so that they could be 'conceived' at will and man would no longer be at their mercy, subject to their loss. As the names of things proliferated, language was required to comprehend the nuances, actions and interactions of things as well as their relatively static, nominal state of being. Thus developed the need for verbs, adjectival and adverbial expressions and well as nominal ones. Over a vast period of time, more and more things with their events, patterns and structures - 'ideas', were 'held in mind' by man and so his brain naturally grew to outsize proportions. At the same time, the power of mute pointing receded and is present to us today as a mere vestige, useful in only the most trivial circumstances of signifying as in the case of my mutely pointing out the library on the street.
Thus, on loss, absence and a more or less desperate calling, is the modern world of human language strangely founded. And the calling and recalling of longed-for absent things (and others) is exactly what we do all day. 'Primitive' man would be no stranger to us.
The first words were born in this state of longing, fairly desperate, for absent, 'missing' things. The first words were 'calls' to these things that were suddenly not there. The missing thing needs a name to call it by. The calling of a thing back from absence gave the impetus for replacing it with a word or an artistic representation, formed in mud or drawn on the wall of a dwelling. In the same way, the first naming of human beings was born of the need to call an absent dear-one back to the fold. As long as the circle is complete and all heads are counted, there is no need for names. Only when one is missing, must he or she be given a name and called, probably desperately, back from the danger and into the circle.
Slowly, over hundreds of thousands of years, words and ideas began to replace all kinds of things, whether they were present or not, so that they could be 'conceived' at will and man would no longer be at their mercy, subject to their loss. As the names of things proliferated, language was required to comprehend the nuances, actions and interactions of things as well as their relatively static, nominal state of being. Thus developed the need for verbs, adjectival and adverbial expressions and well as nominal ones. Over a vast period of time, more and more things with their events, patterns and structures - 'ideas', were 'held in mind' by man and so his brain naturally grew to outsize proportions. At the same time, the power of mute pointing receded and is present to us today as a mere vestige, useful in only the most trivial circumstances of signifying as in the case of my mutely pointing out the library on the street.
Thus, on loss, absence and a more or less desperate calling, is the modern world of human language strangely founded. And the calling and recalling of longed-for absent things (and others) is exactly what we do all day. 'Primitive' man would be no stranger to us.
Comments (46)
I would have thought that need would have been a bigger motivator than longing for absent things. It might be that in some cases they overlap, but I doubt that man learned to speak so that he could call the old lady to come home.(Or vise versa so as not to seem sexist)
Or before that, the first "words" would have pointed at socially present ideas. So they would have highlighted real possibilities present to both parties at that moment. Or at least present to one mind, and so an attempt to attract the attention of another mind to that sharable focus on doing something social (and thus fairly abstract).
We get this from observing social communication in chimps especially. There is a lot said in eye gaze, hand gestures and expressive vocalisation. Holding out a hand can mean please share.
So the crucible of language development would be this basic need - sophisticated co-ordination of behaviour within a co-operative troop structure. And the first thing to refer to would be "things we could be doing" - with at least one mind already thinking about the presence of said possibility.
Pointing to that which is absent - physically or socially - is then a still more sophisticated level of thought or rationality. And that would require proper articulate speech - words and rules.
So if grammatical speech is what you are talking about, then the reference to counterfactual possibilities - absences - does look to arise at that point.
But again, I would argue that the ability to point to some particular social action I have in mind was the fertile ground that got language started.
Probably in its old form umpha umpha.
Followed by "you."
Clearly language developed very rapidly--we moved from
Quoting Sir2u
to
Quoting Banno
to Quoting Thorongil
to the more grammatically and anatomically complex "go fuck yourself" all within the first 10 minutes of the dawn of spoken language. Which suggests that there were concepts bubbling up in the forebrain just waiting for verbal expression. One fine day an ambitious neuron burrowed all the way from the prefrontal cortex into Broca's area and VOILA! speech.
That is why they feel like involuntary explosions that take some conscious effort to suppress. Or that socially they communicate a state of feeling rather than some cogent meaning.
This all goes to the evolutionary argument that vocalisation started off at a lower brain level - emotional vocalisation akin to expressive grunts and coos. Then connecting the new higher level brain organisation - developed for "articulate" tool use and tool making - back to that, was the crucial pre-adaptation for grammatical speech acts.
Broca's area is really just another part of the pre-motor frontal planning hierarchy. So we evolved careful voluntary control over the use of our hands to chip flints and throw spears.
Rather than neurons burrowing upwards, more important was higher level neurons burrowing down to begin to regulate lower level execution in imaginatively deliberate fashion. The cingulate then was no longer top dog as the rather automatic producer of expressive social noises. The higher brain became the more generalised planner and controller. But still, swear words expose the existence of the old system.
And to communicate. Some people have to talk with their hands (and not sign language, exactly) and since the development of writing, some people insist on having a stylus, pen, pencil, or keyboard at the ready in order to communicate important stuff. I'm somewhat keyboard dependent.
Which is why many aphasic stroke victims can curse, but can utter nothing else.
Sure. But in recreating a likely evolutionary sequence, we can be sure that tool-use started a million years ahead of symbolic thought, and hence symbolic communication. Art and decoration only started about 100,000 years ago. But hominids were handy with spears 400,000 years ago, and possibly making fire a million years ago.
So a selective pressure that led to a lateralisation and tighter organisation of the hominid brain would have had a long time working on motor skills - generalised planning and fine motor control. The evolution of the opposable thumb following the evolution of bipedalism, etc.
Then speech itself - as further brain specialisation - would be the johnny come lately, piggybacking on that rise in pre-motor specialisation for sequential/serial motor organisation. The main actual changes would be a redesign of the hominid palate, tongue and vocal tract. Our jaws got pulled in, the tongue hunched to fill the palate, the hyoid dropped in ways that created a new choking hazard.
So in terms of the probable evolutionary trajectory, sign language would have come after vocal language, just like writing and typing did. Signing has disadvantages as the first departure point because - unlike speaking - signing isn't as serially restricted. It has too many degrees of freedom. Speech eliminates those and forces a grammatical structure as a result.
At least that is my summary of the paleo evidence and the many theories going around.
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(14)00666-6
There's a bias here towards the philosopher's error of treating all language as naming. It isn't. It's far more likely that early language would have been about doing - enticing others to act as a group. It's not absence, but acting together, that leads to language.
How is need not a form of "longing for absent things"?
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Thanks!
Longing for absent things like a Saber-Tooth Tiger?
Michael Ossipoff
because the loudness of expression of pain make it the most likely to be remembered and understood by the "audience" of the word (when there is no direct context for them to understand the meaning from).
Another important word must be food/hungry.
Quoting Banno
Hunting ?
Most other actions (give, follow, sleep, leave) can much easier be communicated by doing; sleeping can be played(pretended?), leaving can be communicated by pointing away.
I can long for the girlfriend I had when I was 18, but I don't need her.
I can long for a peanut butter sandwich, but I don't need one.
I need food.
I need water.
Seems to me there is a bit of a difference.
So we got from Umpha umpha to fuck then fuck you and on to let's go fucky fucky.
Not a bad days work for early man.
Homersapien: Scientists have found that D'Oh may have been one of the first words spoken by humans
You sort of made this up. There's no way to know that the first man did.
I remember when my kids were little, I would point to things and they'd look at my finger. It made sense, considering I was showing them my finger. My cat does the same thing, but she smells my finger. It's sort of how we say hello to each other.
I don't think Banno was far off in his comment because I think earliest man did in fact prioritize procreation. I'd think when the lady caveman saw the man caveman coming at her in full arousal, she understood what that pointing meant. She would either scamper toward or away depending upon her mood, sort of like how it is now.
The new humans, pretty much like us except for the blue business, learned English--quickly; they are quite smart. They wanted to know what "fuck" was. They heard the last of the humans saying it all the time. The humans decided to tell them that fuck was the name of the god Fuck, who oversaw the old world and will oversee the new one as well. So, Fuck took on yet another meaning and is yet another place in speech -- proper noun -- (in addition to being a noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb... and of course the universal interjection).
With respect to language... Your instructions would have made no sense whatsoever to anyone prior to the 1980s. Will it make sense 30 years from now?
Not all words are nouns. Not all words represent.
Sure... Please see: Quoting Mark Aman
I see where you would think this... that I 'made it up'... but that's only if you are thinking factually about the details of 'what happened' at a certain moment in the distant past. Of course these details can not be known. But my reasoning here is not factual. What I'm looking for is not the first words 'in fact' but rather the 'first principle' of human language.
As for the 'first copulation'... well, that's hard to say indeed since, unlike with language, there is a very indistinct line between the animal version and the human version... maybe very little distinction at all in fact. That's where humans return to their animal natures and become, for better or for worse, 'speechless'.
Sure there's a difference but I didn't imply that all cases of longing for something absent are cases of need. I asked how do you conceive of need as something other than a case of longing for something absent. Do you see the difference? If longing for something absent is the larger category, then all cases of need might be cases of longing for something absent, but not all cases of longing for something absent are cases of need.
So I asked you, in response to your post, how is need not a form of longing for something absent. To answer that not all cases of longing for something absent are cases of need, does not answer the question.
As a memory aid we make markings, writing. Vocal language is used to communicate with others. The two are guided by completely different intentions and likely developed separately, in the beginning. For example, numbers probably developed in a written form, such as simple marks, prior to ever having a verbal form.
Which it is not because it is not even a synonym of need and therefore not in the same category.
Similar word to longing would be
hankering
yearning
desire
None of which actually imply need.
requirement
necessary
want
necessity
requisite
essential
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
It is obvious I think that while some people think of a desire as being the same as a necessity they are incorrect.
You're still not addressing the question. The fact that you can name many longings for something absent which are not needs, still does not necessitate the conclusion that need is not a longing for something absent. You may continue to increase your list of longings, showing that none of them imply need, but this will never demonstrate that need is not a longing.
Quoting Sir2u
Clearly I am not equating desire and need. If you think that two things are said to be the same, just because they are said to be of the same category, you sorely misunderstand.
Why do you place "want" in the category other than "desire"?
It is something about the way a word is used that gives it its meaning.
When I say "I long for a piece of cheese" is there any need implied?
When I say "I need food" it does not in anyway mean that I long for a piece of cheese. It simply means that I have to eat to survive.
Longing, as you yourself said is a desire for something absent, it does not mean that I need what is absent.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
But you are when you say that they are in the same category. Why does desire only appear as a synonym for longing and necessity not appear for longing.
Because they have different meanings!
I don't, if you look at the list it is shown as a synonym for need.
This is what I disagree with. How can you need food without having a longing for it? What validates your claim that you need it, other than your longing for it? Without the longing for it, you are just being dishonest in your claim of needing food, because you are not even hungry. It may be true that you need food to survive, but not now because you're not even hungry, so your statement "I need food" is false.
Quoting Sir2u
Two things of the same category are not the same thing, they are in some way similar. So I am saying that desire and need are similar, but not the same.
Quoting Sir2u
You have "want" as a synonym for "need", and "desire" as a synonym for "longing". Yet "desire" and "want" are commonly synonymous, and you want a categorical separation between "need" and "longing". Why?
I don't want anything of the sort. I am just trying to point out that need and longing are 2 different things. They might be related by some of their synonyms the context in which each is used is completely separate from each other.
Try this.
I need a glass of water.
I desire a glass of water.
I want a glass of water.
I long for a glass of water.
Do they all mean the same thing?
Me thinks you have it backwards.
I am not in the least hungry right now, after just finishing a can of sardines on toast and washing them down with a few beers. But I long for a big juicy steak.
If the freaking hurricane is going to come through here on Sunday I need to buy food right now, but of course I am not hungry. Nor am I longing for the food.
The need for somethings can be a requisite for life, name a longing that is necessary for your well being.
The problem, of course, is that calling something back into presence is not the only reason to 'call'...
I agree.
Also, if language developed as a modelling system (as opposed to being derived from a communication system), it seems reasonable that the first task at hand would be conceptualisation (i.e., the process of forming a concept by abstraction and designation).