Where does language come from?

Abstract

It is always interesting to ask about the origin of things, but for this we also need to consider what it is for which we seek the beginning. What, then, is ‘language’ – voice, words, text? This leads to a number of questions: what are the current and earlier theories about how language began? did language come just once to humankind and from one single source? can language and verbal text come in dreams and visions (the paper discusses and analyses an ethnographically-attested example of this)? what of the source of the multiple languages we know today? how and in what form(s) do we create language anew? Much of the earlier theorising centred on speech – that is, on oral (in practice multi-sensory) language. But there are also the written forms of language. The emergence and the number of scripts is remarkable, as are, when we know them, their creators. How did these many forms of written language start? Language is a key human-divine art, among our greatest, to be celebrated. Yet in a sense we know so little about it and are right to continue our search for its origin.