1.

THE BOW-WOW THEORY The idea that speech arose from people imitating the sounds that things
make: Bow-wow, moo, baa, etc. Not likely, since very few things we talk about have characteristic
sounds associated with them, and very few of our words sound anything at all like what they mean.
2. THE POOH-POOH THEORY The idea that speech comes from the automatic vocal responses to
pain, fear, surprise, or other emotions: a laugh, a shriek, a gasp. But plenty of animals make these kinds of
sounds too, and they didn't end up with language.
3. THE DING-DONG THEORY The idea that speech reflects some mystical resonance or harmony
connected with things in the world. Unclear how one would investigate this.
4. THE YO-HE-HO THEORY The idea that speech started with the rhythmic chants and grunts people
used to coordinate their physical actions when they worked together. There's a pretty big difference
between this kind of thing and what we do most of the time with language.
5. THE TA-TA THEORY The idea that speech came from the use of tongue and mouth gestures to
mimic manual gestures. For example, saying ta-ta is like waving goodbye with your tongue. But most of
the things we talk about do not have characteristic gestures associated with them, much less gestures you
can imitate with the tongue and mouth.
6. THE LA-LA THEORY The idea that speech emerged from the sounds of inspired playfulness, love,
poetic sensibility, and song. This one is lovely, and no more or less likely than any of the others.
These Days
About a century after banishment of the language origin question, scientists started to consider it again,
but this time using evidence from paleontology about the likely brain and vocal tract features of early
humans and hominids. Rather than speculate about which kinds of vocalizations gave rise to speech
sounds, they consider which physical, cognitive, and social factors must first be in place in order for there
to be language.
This doesn't make the question of how language started any easier to answer, but it does make you
appreciate that whatever those necessary factors are, we got all of 'em. Phew! La la la la. Ta ta!

It is an intriguing question, to which we may never have a complete answer:  How did we get from animal
vocalization (barks, howls, calls...) to human language?

Animals often make use of signs, which point to what they represent, but they don’t use symbols, which
are arbitrary and conventional.  Examples of signs include sniffles as a sign of an on-coming cold, clouds
as a sign of rain, or a scent as a sign of territory.  Symbols include things like the words we use.  Dog,
Hund, chien, cane, perro -- these are symbols that refer to the creature so named, yet each one contains
nothing in it that in anyway indicates that creature.

In addition, language is a system of symbols, with several levels of organization, at least phonetics (the
sounds), syntax (the grammar), and semantics (the meanings).

So when did language begin?  At the very beginnings of the genus Homo, perhaps 4 or 5 million years
ago?  Before that? Or with the advent of modern man, Cro-magnon, some 125,000 years ago?  Did the
neanderthal speak?  We don’t know.
There are many theories about the origins of language.  Many of these have traditional amusing names
(invented by Max Müller and George Romanes a century ago), and I will create a couple more where
needed.

1. The mama theory.  Language began with the easiest syllables attached to the most significant objects.

2. The ta-ta theory.  Sir Richard Paget, influenced by Darwin, believed that body movement preceded
language.  Language began as an unconscious vocal imitation of these movements -- like the way a
child’s mouth will move when they use scissors, or my tongue sticks out when I try to play the guitar.  
This evolved into the popular idea that language may have derived from gestures.

3.  The bow-wow theory.  Language began as imitations of natural sounds -- moo, choo-choo, crash,
clang, buzz, bang, meow...  This is more technically refered to as onomatopoeia or echoism.

4.  The pooh-pooh theory.  Language began with interjections, instinctive emotive cries such as oh! for
surprise and ouch! for pain.

5.  The ding-dong theory.  Some people, including the famous linguist Max Muller, have pointed out
that there is a rather mysterious correspondence between sounds and meanings.  Small, sharp, high things
tend to have words with high front vowels in many languages, while big, round, low things tend to have
round back vowels!  Compare itsy bitsy teeny weeny with moon, for example.  This is often referred to as
sound symbolism.

6.  The yo-he-ho theory.  Language began as rhythmic chants, perhaps ultimately from the grunts of
heavy work (heave-ho!).  The linguist A. S. Diamond suggests that these were perhaps calls for assistance
or cooperation accompanied by appropriate gestures.  This may relate yo-he-ho to the ding-dong theory,
as in such words as cut, break, crush, strike...

7.  The sing-song theory.  Danish linguist Jesperson suggested that language comes out of play, laughter,
cooing, courtship, emotional mutterings and the like.  He even suggests that, contrary to other theories,
perhaps some of our first words were actually long and musical, rather than the short grunts many assume
we started with.

8.  The hey you! theory.  A linguist by the name of Revesz suggested that we have always needed
interpersonal contact, and that language began as sounds to signal both identity (here I am!) and
belonging (I’m with you!).  We may also cry out in fear, anger, or hurt (help me!).  This is more
commonly called the contact theory.

9.  The hocus pocus theory.  My own contribution to these is the idea that language may have had some
roots in a sort of magical or religious aspect of our ancestors' lives.  Perhaps we began by calling out to
game animals with magical sounds, which became their names.

10.  The eureka! theory.  And finally, perhaps language was consciously invented.  Perhaps some
ancestor had the idea of assigning arbitrary sounds to mean certain things.  Clearly, once the idea was
had, it would catch on like wild-fire!

Another issue is how often language came into being (or was invented).  Perhaps it was invented once, by
our earliest ancestors -- perhaps the first who had whatever genetic and physiological properties needed to
make complex sounds and organize them into strings.  This is called monogenesis.  Or perhaps it was
invented many times -- polygenesis -- by many people.
We can try to reconstruct earlier forms of language, but we can only go so far before cycles of change
obliterate any possibility of reconstruction.  Many say we can only go back perhaps 10,000 years before
the trail goes cold.  So perhaps we will simply never know.

Perhaps the biggest debate among linguists and others interested in the origins of language is whether we
can account for language using only the basic mechanisms of learning, or if we need to postulate some
special built-in language-readiness.  The learning-only people (for example, B. F. Skinner) say that
childhood conditioning, or maybe modeling, can account for the complexity of language.  The language-
acquisition-device (LAD) people (such as Chomsky and Pinker) say that the ease and speed with which
children learn language requires something more.

The debate is real only for those people who prefer to take one or the other of these extreme views.  It
seems very clear to most that neither is the answer.  Is there some special neural mechanism for
language?  Not in the sense of a LAD.

In most mammals, both hemispheres looked very much alike.  Somewhere in humanity's early years, a
few people possibly inherited a mutation that left one hemisphere with a limited capacity.   Instead of
neural connections going in every direction, they tended to be organized more linearly. The left
hemisphere couldn't related to things in the usual full-blown multidimensional way.  But -- surprise! --
that same diminished capacity proved to be very good are ordering things linearly.   And that's exactly
what language needs:  The ability to convert fully dimensional events into linear sequences of sounds, and
vice versa.