Though some echo words may be very old, the great majority are not; at any rate, in looking up the earliest ascertained date of a goodly number of such words in the NED, I have been struck by the fact of so many of them being quite recent, not more than a few centuries old, and some not even that. To some extent their recent appearance in writing may be ascribed to the general character of the old literature as contrasted with our modern literature, which is less conventional, freer in many ways, more true to life with its infinite variety and more true, too, to the spoken language of every day. But that cannot account for everything, and there is every probability that this class of words is really more frequent in the spoken language of recent times than it was formerly, because people speak in a more vivid and fresh fashion than their ancestors of hundreds or thousands of years ago. The time of psychological reaction is shorter than it used to be, life moves at a more rapid rate, and people are less tied down to tradition than in former ages, consequently they are more apt to create and to adopt new words of this particular type, which are felt at once to be significant and expressive. In all languages the creation and use of echoic and symbolic words seems to have been on the increase in historical times. If to this we add the selective process through which words which have only secondarily acquired symbolical value survive at the cost of less adequate expressions, or less adequate forms of the same words, and subsequently give rise to a host of derivatives, then we may say that languages in course of time grow richer and richer in symbolic words. So far from believing in a golden primitive age, in which everything in language was expressive and immediately intelligible on account of the significative value of each group of sounds, we arrive rather, here as in other domains, at the conception of a slow progressive development towards a greater number of easy and adequate expressions—expressions in which sound and sense are united in a marriage-union closer than was ever known to our remote ancestors.
[CHAPTER XXI]
THE ORIGIN OF SPEECH
§ 1. Introduction. § 2. Former Theories. § 3. Method. § 4. Sounds. § 5. Grammar. § 6. Units. § 7. Irregularities. § 8. Savage Tribes. § 9. Law of Development. § 10. Vocabulary. § 11. Poetry and Prose. § 12. Emotional Songs. § 13. Primitive Singing. § 14. Approach to Language. § 15. The Earliest Sentences. § 16. Conclusion.
XXI.—§ 1. Introduction.
Much of what is contained in the last chapters is preparatory to the theme which is to occupy us in this chapter, the ultimate origin of human speech. We have already seen the feeling with which this subject has often been regarded by eminent linguists, the feeling which led to an absolute taboo of the question in the French Société de linguistique (p. [96]). One may here quote Whitney: “No theme in linguistic science is more often and more voluminously treated than this, and by scholars of every grade and tendency; nor any, it may be added, with less profitable result in proportion to the labour expended; the greater part of what is said and written upon it is mere windy talk, the assertion of subjective views which commend themselves to no mind save the one that produces them, and which are apt to be offered with a confidence, and defended with a tenacity, that are in inverse ratio to their acceptableness. This has given the whole question a bad repute among sober-minded philologists” (OLS 1. 279).
Nevertheless, linguistic science cannot refrain for ever from asking about the whence (and about the whither) of linguistic evolution. And here we must first of all realize that man is not the only animal that has a ‘language,’ though at present we know very little about the real nature and expressiveness of the languages of birds and mammals or of the signalling system of ants, etc. The speech of some animals may be more like our language than most people are willing to admit—it may also in some respects be even more perfect than human language precisely because it is unlike it and has developed along lines about which we can know nothing; but it is of little avail to speculate on these matters. What is certain is that no race of mankind is without a language which in everything essential is identical in character with our own, and that there are a certain number of circumstances which have been of signal importance in assisting mankind in developing language (cf. Gabelentz Spr 294 ff.).
First of all, man has an upright gait; this gives him two limbs more than the dog has, for instance: he can carry things and yet jabber on; he is not reduced to defending himself by biting, but can use his mouth for other purposes. Feeding also takes less time in his case than in that of the cow, who has little time for anything else than chewing and a moo now and then. The sexual life of man is not restricted to one particular time of the year, the two sexes remain together the whole year round, and thus sociability is promoted; the helplessness of babies works in the same direction through necessitating a more continuous family life, in which there is also time enough for all kinds of sports, including play with the vocal organs. Thus conditions have been generally favourable for the development of singing and talking, but the problem is, how could sounds and ideas come to be connected as they are in language?
What method or methods have we for the solution of this question? With very few exceptions those who have written about our subject have conjured up in their imagination a primitive era, and then asked themselves: How would it be possible for men or manlike beings, hitherto unfurnished with speech, to acquire speech as a means of communication of thought? Not only is this method followed, so to speak, instinctively by investigators, but we are even positively told (by Marty) that it is the only method possible. In direct opposition to this assertion, I think that it is chiefly and principally due to this method and to this way of putting the question that so little has yet been done to solve it. If we are to have any hope of success in our investigation we must try new methods and new ways—and fortunately there are ways which lead us to a point from which we may expect to see the world of primitive language revealed to us in a new light. But let us first cast a rapid glance at those theories which have been advanced by followers of the speculative or a priori method.