Alexandra Jane Santos Retorika at Panitikan ng Pilipinas

Section 88 Feb 4, 2021

Every day throughout the whole world we communicate with one another regarding our
thoughts and opinions, we may differ in language it is a necessary part of our every day life.
Without language we wouldn’t be able to communicate with one another. Language as defined is
the principal method of human communication, consisting of words used in a structured and
conventional way and conveyed by speech, writing, or gesture. According to Henry Sweet, an
English philologist, phonetician, and language scholar, “Language is the expression of ideas by
means of speech-sound combined into words. Words are combined into sentences, this
combination answering to that of ideas into thoughts.” However, how did language come to be?

From the six theories regarding the origin of language the most feasible theory of the
origin of language for me is the bow-wow theory, stating that humans imitated the natural sounds
from living creatures. The way we communicate is unique as we have an unlimited number of
ways to talk to one another, to describe an object, to express one’s emotion unlike that of how
animals communicate wherein it usually limited to inform of danger, threat, hunt or more. And
according to research, our closest primate relatives, the chimpanzees and bonobos’ way of
communication have counterpart through human’s body language. I believe that through
imitating the sounds of animals they gave these imitations of their own meanings and over time
these imitations could’ve transformed into another thus continuously changing as they evolved.
Although, some may argue there are limited words that are onomatopoeic as it also varies
regarding one’s language such as a dog’s bark in Chinese is wang, wang, woof, woof in English,
ouaf, ouaf in French. However, this can be due to being in different continents/ countries in
which each one has their own language that came to be and history. In addition, compared to
other theories this is the most logical thing on how language came to be and comparing it to the
ding-dong theory indicating that the speech arose in correspondent to the qualities of the objects
around them but there isn’t any evidence according to my research that indicates a connection
between sound and meaning.

All in all, for me the bow-wow theory is the most feasible theory of the origin of
language as it has the most potential compared to other theory. As there are evidence that we
have similar ways of communication through body language as that of our closest primate
relatives, the chimpanzees and bonobos. As well as how our ancestors could have imitated the
sounds of the animals and then transformed it throughout their evolution into the languages we
have today.

References:

Nordquist, R., 2020, Five Theories on the Origins of Language, ThoughtCo.,

https://www.thoughtco.com/where-does-language-come-from-1691015

FAQ: How did language begin?, Linguistic Society of America,

https://www.linguisticsociety.org/resource/faq-how-did-language-begin