The origins of language

1. Theories of the origins of language

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 wilde fire.

  George Boeree C. (2003). 

2. Pidgin and creole languages

 Pidgin and creole languages are new language varieties, which developed out of contacts between colonial nonstandard varieties of a European language and several non-European languages around the Atlantic and in the Indian and Pacific Oceans during the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries.

Pidgins typically emerged in trade colonies which developed around trade forts or along trade routes, such as on the coast of West Africa. They are reduced in structures and specialized in functions (typically trade), and initially they served as non-native lingua francas to users who preserved their native vernaculars for their day-to-day interactions. Some pidgins have expanded into regular vernaculars, especially in urban settings, and are called `expanded pidgins.' Examples include Bislama and Tok Pisin (in Melanesia) and Nigerian and Cameroon Pidgin English.

Structurally, they are as complex as Creoles. The latter vernaculars developed in settlement colonies whose primary industry consisted of sugar cane plantations or rice fields, which employed massive non-European slave labor. Examples include Cape Verdian Criolou (lexified by Portuguese) and Papiamentu in the Netherlands Antilles (apparently– Portuguese-based but influenced by Spanish); Haitian, Mauritian, and Seychellois (lexified by French); Jamaican, Guyanese, and Hawaiian Creole, as well as Gullah in the USA (all lexified by English); and Saramaccan and Sranan in Surinam (lexified by English, with the former heavily influenced by Portuguese and the latter by Dutch). Note that although Melanesian pidgins are associated with sugar cane plantations, they apparently originated in trade settings and were adopted on the plantations (Keesing 1988).

The terms Creole and pidgin have also been extended to some other varieties that developed during the same period out of contacts among primarily non- European languages. Examples include Delaware Pidgin, Chinook Jargon, and Mobilian in North America; Sango, (Kikongo-) Kituba, and Lingala in Central Africa, Kinubi in Southern Sudan and in Uganda; and Hiri Motu in Papua New Guinea (Holm 1989, Smith 1995). In the original, lay people's naming practice, the term jargon was an alternate to pidgin. However, some creolists claim that pidgins are more stable and jargons are an earlier stage in the `life-cycle' that putatively progresses from Jargon, to Pidgin, to Creole, to Post-Creole by progressive structural expansion, stabilization, and closer approximations of the lexifier–the language which contributed the largest part of a Creole's lexicon.

2.1. Differences between pidgin and creole

2.2. Features of Pidgin and Creole

Pidgin: 

• Generally have limited vocabulary

• Simplified grammar

• Use many onomatopoeias (words that sound like the thing they are referring to, e.g., 'bang', 'slap', 'woosh', 'sizzle')

• Consonant clusters often get simplified (e.g., instead of pronouncing all the sounds in the phrase 'best player', the pidgin pronunciation might be 'bes player' where the /t/ is dropped from the '-st' consonant cluster)

• Not typically a native language of any country, but spoken as a second language

• Commonly seen as being low prestige language varieties

• Simplified sentence and phrase structures

• Linguistic characteristics such as gender and number (singular and plural forms) are often non-existent.

Creole: 

• Fully developed grammar

• Extensive vocabulary

• Full, native languages that have derived from pidgins

• Most commonly viewed as vernacular languages, although in countries where they are widely used, they are viewed as having higher prestige

• Most creoles are born of contact between European and native languages, and creoles might include some words and structures from European languages (such as French and Portuguese). That said, not all creoles are based on European languages. For example, Betawi is a Malay-based creole with no European influence.