1. Onomatopoeic theory

I tried to substantiate the principles of onomatopoeic theory at the end !? early 18th century Leibniz (1646-1716). The great German thinker reasoned as follows: there are derivative, late languages, and there is a primary, "root" language, from which all subsequent derivative languages ​​were formed. According to Leibniz, onomatopoeia took place primarily in the root language, and only to the extent that "derived languages" further developed the foundations of the root language, did they develop at the same time the principles of onomatopoeia. To the same extent that derivative languages ​​moved away from the root language, their word production turned out to be less and less "naturally onomatopoeic" and more and more symbolic. Leibniz also attributed a quality connection to certain sounds. True, he believed that the same sound can be associated with several qualities at once. So, the sound l, according to Leibniz, can express something soft (leben to live, lieben to love, liegen to lie), and something completely different. For example, in the words lion (lion) lynx (lynx), loup (wolf), the sound l does not mean something gentle. Here, perhaps, a connection is found with some other quality, namely, with speed, with running (Lauf).
Taking onomatopoeia as a principle of the origin of language, as a principle on the basis of which a person's "gift of speech" arose, Leibniz rejects the significance of this principle for the subsequent development of language. The disadvantage of onomatopoeic theory can be called the following: supporters of this theory consider language not as a social, but as a natural (natural) phenomenon.

2. The theory of the emotional origin of language and the theory of interjections

Its most important representative was Zh-J Rousseau (1712-1778). In his treatise on the origin of languages, Rousseau wrote that "the first sounds of the voice caused the passions." According to Rousseau, "the first languages ​​were melodious and passionate, and only later did they become simple and methodical." According to Rousseau, it turned out that the first languages ​​were much richer than the subsequent ones. But civilization has spoiled man. That is why the language, and according to Rousseau's thought, has deteriorated from being richer, more emotional, and direct, to become dry, rational and methodical.
Rousseau's emotional theory received a kind of development in the 19th and 20th centuries and became known as the theory of interjections.
One of the defenders of this theory, the Russian linguist Kudryavsky (1863-1920) believed that interjections were a kind of first words of a person. Interjections were the most emotional words in which primitive man put different meanings depending on the situation. According to Kudryavsky, in interjections, sound and meaning were still inextricably linked. Subsequently, as the interjections turned into words, the sound and meanings diverged, and this transition of interjections into words was associated with the emergence of articulate speech.

3. The theory of sound cries

This theory arose in the 19th century in the writings of vulgar materialists (Germans Noiret, Bucher). It boiled down to the fact that language emerged from the outcries that accompanied collective work. But these labor cries can only be a means of rhythmizing labor, they do not express anything, not even emotions, but are only external, technical means at work.

4. The theory of social contract

From the middle of the 18th century, the theory of the social contract appeared.
The essence of this theory lies in the fact that in later stages of language development it is possible to agree on certain words, especially in the field of terminology.
But it is quite obvious that, first of all, in order to "agree on a language", one must already have a language in which to "agree".

5 the human origin of language

German philosopher Herder spoke about the purely human origin of language.
Herder believed that human language arose not to communicate with other people, but to communicate with oneself, to become aware of one's own self. If a person lived in perfect solitude, then, according to Herder, he would have a language. Language was the result of "a secret agreement that the human soul entered into with itself."
There are also other theories about the origin of the language. For example, the theory of gestures (Geiger, Wundt, Marr). All references to the presence of supposedly purely "sign languages" cannot be supported by facts; gestures always act as something secondary for people who have sound language... There are no words among gestures, gestures are not associated with concepts.
It is also inappropriate to deduce the origin of language from analogs with mating songs of birds as a manifestation of the instinct of self-preservation (Charles Darwin), especially from human singing (Rousseau, Espersen). The disadvantage of all the above theories is that they ignore language as a social phenomenon.

6 Engels' labor theory

Special attention should be paid to the labor theory of Engels.
In connection with the labor theory of the origin of language, one should first of all call
unfinished work of F. Engels "The role of labor in the process of transformation of a monkey into a man." In his Introduction to Dialectics of Nature, Engels explains the conditions for the emergence of language:
"When, after a thousand-year struggle, the hand finally differentiated against the legs and a straight gait was established, then the man separated from the monkey, and the foundation was laid for the development of articulate speech ..." ...
The revolution that man brings to nature consists, first of all, in the fact that human labor is different from that of animals - it is labor with the use of tools, and, moreover, made by those who must own them, and thereby progressive and social labor. ... No matter how skilful architects we may think of ants and bees, they do not know what they say: their work is instinctive, their art is not conscious, and they work with the whole organism, purely biologically, without using tools, and therefore there is no progress in their work. ...
The freed hand became the first human tool; other tools of labor developed as an addition to the hand (stick, hoe, rake); still later, man shifts the burden of labor onto the elephant. Camel, horse, and finally controls them. A technical engine appears and replaces animals.
In short, the emerging people came to the fact that they had a need to say something to each other. Need created its own organ: the undeveloped larynx of the monkey was slowly but steadily transformed by modulations for more and more developed modulation, and the organs of the mouth gradually learned to pronounce one articulate sound after another. "Thus, language could arise only as a collective property necessary for mutual understanding. But not as an individual property of this or that incarnate individual.
Engels writes: "At first labor, and then articulate speech with it, were the two most important stimuli, under the influence of which the human brain gradually turned into a human brain."

7. What was the person's original speech?

One may ask, what was the language, the speech of man, when this very man just stood out from the animal world? The original human language was primitive and poor, that only in the course of further evolution it turned into a delicate and rich instrument of communication, transmission and consolidation of messages. The original human speech consisted of diffuse (vague) sound sentences, fused with intonation and gesture. She sounded like monkey cries or those monosyllabic calls to animals that can be observed today. The main unit of the language has become a sound complex, which can be characterized as follows:
1. The original sound complex was monosyllabic. The sounds were not sufficiently differentiated, there were few of them, and mostly consonants.
2. The inventory of sound systems was small. Therefore, the oldest word was semantically vague, denoting different things in different situations.
3. Semantic and audible vagueness the oldest words, of which there were few, made repetition the main means of forming word forms. The differentiation of word forms was caused by the emergence of parts of speech, with their categories and constant syntactic purpose. The question of the origin of the language can be resolved. There may be many solutions, but they will all be hypothetical.

8. Problem of the proto-language

The problem of the proto-language received a scientific basis only during the period of the birth of comparative-historical linguistics. As a result of a comparative analysis of a number of languages, by the beginning of the 19th century, the existence of groups of languages, united by a sign of material kinship, was proved. This material relationship was explained by the common origin of these languages ​​from one source. This is how the idea of ​​a proto-language arose. The founder of the theory of the origin of Indo-European languages ​​from one common ancestor, or proto-language, should be considered Schleicher, who was the first to try to restore the Indo-European proto-language and trace its development in each of its branches.
Most linguists consider the proto-linguistic theory to be correct. Even special schemes were created that describe the signs of the proto-language. It is assumed that:
The vowels a e i o u were presented in the proto-language sound system,
varying in length, as well as a vowel of indefinite articulation, commonly referred to as suta or suta Indo-Germanicum. In the proto-language, diphthongs were also represented, which also differed in longitude and brevity.
In the Indo-European proto-language, there was already a division of nouns into genders: masculine, feminine and neuter.
There was an eight-reliable system in the proto-language. In the proto-language, three numbers were distinguished - singular, dual and plural.
Comparison of adjectives has not yet been sufficiently developed.
degree. In the proto-language, a system of numerals has already developed within the limits of a hundred.
In the proto-language, there was already an opposition between the present and the past, and there was also a specific difference. In addition to the indicative and imperative moods, an optative and a conjunctiva could be represented in the proto-language, which, apparently, arose on the basis of a rethinking of the original temporal meanings.
As noted, nouns of three genders were represented in the proto-language. However, the researchers of the language, analyzing the bases of nouns with different outcomes, which are presented in Indo-European languages, come to the conclusion that, apparently, the generic division was preceded by some other system of class division of nouns. But such a deeper reconstruction is always associated with even greater difficulties than the restoration of the proto-language.

Education

Since ancient times, mankind has been looking for an answer to the question: how did language appear and why did it become necessary for people? Concepture publishes an article on popular theories of the origin of the language.

Unfortunately, today we cannot examine the language of primitive man in order to say something definite about its nature. However, this has never stopped scientists trying to at least slightly open the veil over the mystery of the origin of the natural human language. In science there are many glottogonic hypotheses, and from more or less scientifically substantiated to the most curious (for example, the sudden appearance of a language in ancient man). Today, not many people already believe in the divine origin of the language, although it lies at the basis of religious teachings such as Christianity, Hinduism, Confucianism. Plato adheres to the same point of view when he writes in the "Cratilus" dialogue that only the creator of names can establish names. However, scientific picture the world modern man casts doubt on any external source of speech at all. In addition to theories of extrahuman origin (God, alien intelligence), four main hypotheses of the origin of language "from man" can be distinguished.

Onomatopoeic theory

For the first time, the language was called the result of imitation of nature by the ancient Greek philosophers-Stoics. They believed that a person who did not yet possess a language spontaneously imitated the sounds that he heard in the world around him: the rustling of leaves, the murmur of water, the voices of animals, etc. Thus, the sound structure of the words retained the impressions that the ancient man received at the moment of their perception: the word "honey", for example, keeps in its sound appearance some sensation of ductility, but the word "knife" has a sharpness even in pronunciation. The correctness of this theory was usually proved by the fact that in the lexicon of any language there are words formed by imitating external sounds. In Russian, these are words such as "ku-ku" (cuckoo), oink-oink (pig), meow, bark, croak, growl, buzz, laugh, sneeze, etc.

However, in quantitative terms, there are very few such words, and it is rather difficult to imagine that a whole linguistic system has developed on the basis of these words. In addition, this theory is unable to explain how the words to denote "non-sounding" objects appeared. Although the 19th century, represented by J. Grimm and G. Steinthal, subsequently supplemented this hypothesis with the presence of conditional, symbolic imitation, that is, imitation of "non-sounds". As a result, some sounds were given a symbolic character, they called something "soft" (flax) or "hard" (oak). Some scholars, relying on linguistic research, argue that there are many more onomatopoeic words in modern developed languages ​​than in languages ​​at an earlier stage of development. This can be considered proof that the mechanism of onomatopoeia characterizes the new time, and not archaic. In any case, the role of onomatopoeia and sound-symbolism in the process of language birth should not be underestimated.

Interjection theory

The theory of the origin of language from interjection words also originates in ancient philosophy, more precisely in the teachings of the Epicureans. The essence of the theory is that the first natural sounds of a person were his still animal cries, expressing their reaction to what is happening, seen or heard. This is how special interjection words appeared, calling certain emotional states ancient man. Interjections formed the basis of the lexicon and became productive for all other words. This theory remained popular until the 18th century. J.-J. Rousseau wrote in his treatise “Experience on the Origin of Languages”: “So, we must assume that the first gestures were dictated by needs, and the first sounds of the voice were expelled by passions. And this is quite natural. In the beginning there was no reasoning, but a feeling. It is said that people invented words to express their needs, but this seems implausible to me. Since passions were the first motivation for speech, the first expressions were tropes. "

Indeed, interjections and words derived from them can be found in any language. For example, in Russian, these are words such as "ah" (ah), "oh" (oohat), "uh", "ah", "uf", "eh", "o", "u", etc. However, there are even fewer of these words in the language than imitative ones. The weakness of the theory is that it absolutizes only one of the many functions of language - expressive. Moreover, the rest of the functions (primarily communicative) seem to be more important. Language could have arisen more as a means of communication and transmission of information, rather than an expression of emotions. Emotional experiences are characteristic of animals, but they have no speech. Therefore, from the point of view of the interjection theory, it is rather difficult to answer the question why people came to language through the expression of emotions, but animals did not.

The theory of "labor cries"

Founded in the 19th century, this theory is one of the versions of the materialist view of the collective nature of language, about which F. Engels wrote: "The emerging people have a need to say something to each other." But in connection with what such a need arose in general? Due to the fact that people began to work collectively, as Engels answered. To organize joint work, people had to communicate with each other. At the same time, there was still no language here, perhaps there were gestures, movements, shouts. Engels proposed to consider the origin of language in conjunction with the origin of man, since without "man" there is no "language" and vice versa.

The authors of the theory of "labor cries" (L. Noiret, K. Bücher) offer a somewhat simplified version of Engels's labor theory, proposing a hypothesis according to which the first words were shouted out during collective work for its rhythm and no more. That is, the functionality of the language was reduced only to maintaining the organized actions of the workers, words did not express any meaning and feeling. In fact, a language consisting of words that do not name, express or communicate anything cannot be called a language in the full sense. However, this theory can be viewed from the other side. If we assume that the first words could denote certain ways of activity in the form of a verb, and then they began to name the rest of the objects and phenomena associated with work, then this theory may well claim to correctly understand the problem of the origin of the language.

Social contract theory

The theory of social contract, which arose in the 18th century, was also based on some philosophical provisions of antiquity, since they corresponded to the spirit of the new European rationalism. Through the prism of this theory, the Scottish philosopher Adam Smith looked at the formation of language. Rousseau also contributed to the development of the theory of the social contract, who divided the history of mankind into two stages: natural (man was part of nature and spoke in the language of passions, in a figurative, not a conceptual language) and civilized (man came out of nature and spoke in a language, which was the result of a social arrangement).

That is, the language in this case is the result of an agreement between the members of a particular society on how to name objects and phenomena of the surrounding world, since the integrity of society can be preserved and it can be ensured only by having effective remedy communication. However, in fact, it is difficult to clarify the circumstances of the emergence of language from the standpoint of this theory, since the possibility of a contract already presupposes the presence of language. At the same time, the connection between language and thinking is violated here, since the imperfection of the language also speaks of the imperfection of consciousness, which cannot yet reach the idea of ​​a social contract. there can be no developed language. Despite the fact that this theory was subjected to harsh criticism, the theoretical studies of Rousseau and Smith take place because on the present stage the development of languages, clarification of the meaning of words, an agreement on the use of terms make it possible to understand another and successfully carry out social activities.

1. GI Gerder - "Treatise on the origin of language";

2. A. Smith - "Considerations about the origin and formation of languages";

3. AO Donskikh - "The origin of language as a philosophical problem."

§ 260. In the middle of the XIX century. a labor theory or hypothesis of the origin of language arises, which is sometimes also called a working theory, a hypothesis of the labor origin of human speech, a hypothesis of the social origin of human speech. The founders of this theory were the German philologists L. Noiret and L. Geiger. Great importance of this theory was attached by the English philologist of the second half of the XIX v. M. Muller. The labor theory of the origin of language has received recognition and further development in philosophy, in particular in the works of K. Marx and F. Engels. Over time, this theory is gaining more and more popularity. It is also supported and developed by many Soviet scientists, such as, for example, A.A. Leont'ev, O. A. Donskikh, and others.

Proponents of the labor theory associate the origin of the language directly with the labor activity of primitive people, with the implementation of collective labor. According to this theory, "language emerged in the process of joint labor activity primitive people as one of the means of optimizing and coordinating this activity. "According to A. A. Leontyev, in the primitive labor collective" it was necessary to develop such means of communication that are not easy would signal about something, but forced to a certain joint action or to its termination, in other words, would be a means of social regulation of behavior. "

The ideas of the labor theory of the origin of language continue to be developed by Marxist philosophy, which is reflected primarily in the works of K. Marx and F. Engels.

K. Marx especially emphasizes the idea that the real reason for the emergence of language is the development of labor production activities of primitive people. A fundamentally new moment in the philosophy of Karl Marx is "the realization of the communicative function of language as the most important." The latter idea is clearly expressed by him in "German Ideology": "Language arises only from a need, from an urgent need to communicate with other people."

The main ideas of F. Engels concerning the labor theory of the origin of language are expressed in the work "Dialectics of Nature", where the author emphasizes the idea of ​​an inextricable internal connection between the development of labor activity of a primitive human collective, the development of consciousness of a forming person and the development of forms and methods of communication. According to F. Engels, it was labor that created man, and thus his language. In this case, a special role in the emergence of human speech is assigned to a straight gait, which in many ways contributed to the development of the human brain and organs of speech.

The development of the speech apparatus of primitive man and his brain on the basis of anthropological data is described in detail in his works by the Soviet researcher V.V.Bunak.

The main, most important provisions of the Marxist doctrine of the origin of language can be formulated as follows: 1) the original language appeared in the form of sound, verbal human speech; 2) the emergence of language is inextricably linked with the origin of man, without language a man could not be a man; 3) an indispensable condition for the emergence of language is the production activity of people, their collective, social labor; language could arise when the need for human communication appeared, "the need to say something to each other"; 4) the question of the origin of the language should be resolved by the joint efforts of different sciences - linguistics, anthropology, archeology, ethnography, social history, etc .; 5) modern science unable to explain the origin of the language, determine the true source of its origin, it is only possible to construct more or less probable hypotheses of its origin.

The fundamental difference between the Marxist concept of the origin of language and the labor theory of its founders Geiger and Noiret is as follows: 1) according to the theory of Geiger and Noiret, the original language accompanied the labor actions of a person, it arose (or could have arisen) before a person learned to use the tools of labor; according to Engels, the labor of primitive man, his use of tools of labor is a prerequisite for the emergence of language; 2) according to Noiret's theory, a person's self-consciousness and his language arise in relation to a person's attitude to the external world, to nature, to a tool of labor; according to the Marxist concept, they can arise only in relation to a person to another person, i.e. are of a purely public, social nature. In confirmation of the social conditioning of the appearance of human speech, the following fact is sometimes cited: "not a single child will speak until he is surrounded by speaking people"Naturally, an important role in the emergence of language, along with the social factor, is played by biological factors, such as the release of the forelimbs of the anthropoid for making tools and using them, straightening gait, the development of speech organs, the brain, etc., about which mentioned above.

The labor theory of the origin of language in its last version is usually called Marxist theory. Due to the fact that the main, crucial role in its development, the works of F. Engels played, some scientists call it the theory of Engels. Since F. Engels in developing his concept relied on the ideas of L. Noiret, many foreign authors call the labor theory of the origin of language the theory of Noiret - Engels.

LECTURE 7

ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE

The first ideas about the origin of the language

Theories of the origin of language (onomatopoeia, interjections, labor cries, social contract)

1. Ancient concepts. For centuries, mankind has worried and continues to worry about the question of how and why people began to speak. This eternal and interest Ask, however, did not and does not lend itself to a scientific solution.

Primitive language cannot be examined and tested empirically. Even in biblical legends, we find two contradictory solutions to the question of the origin of language, reflecting different historical epochs of views on this problem.

1) language is not from a person and 2) language is from a person.

In different periods of the historical development of mankind, this issue was resolved in different ways.

No one has ever watched the tongue appear. Even the language of the animals closest to man - the monkeys, which turned out to be much more complicated than it seemed until recently, differs from the human language in two important properties.

There is a qualitative gap between the "languages" of animals and the languages ​​of humans, and there is no data on how this gap could be bridged. Already now, linguists have come out in their reconstructions in the prehistoric era: the languages ​​spoken have been reconstructed, which were spoken much earlier than writing appeared on Earth. But all of them do not fundamentally differ from those actually known. No one has seen the Proto-Indo-Europeans and cannot claim that they spoke, and did not use something like the sign language of the deaf and dumb.

Therefore, all existing hypotheses about the origin of language are speculative. They are based on one of three postulates: either the language was received from higher powers, or the ancient people behaved the way our contemporaries would behave if they did not have a language, or the language arose in humanity in the same way as it appears in each individual person.

The oldest ideas about the origin of language are based on the idea of ​​people receiving language from higher powers. In the Egyptian text, compiled around the middle of the III millennium BC. e., it is said that the creator of speech and "the name of every thing" was the supreme god Ptah. Later in the history of Ancient Egypt, religions changed more than once, but the creation of the language and the gift of it to people was always attributed to the chief of the gods.

In the oldest Indian monument, the Rig Veda (about the 10th century BC), it is said about “creators - the institutes of names”.

Sometimes a person created the language himself, but again under the supervision of a higher being. The Bible says: “The Lord God formed out of the earth all the animals of the field and all the birds of the air, and brought them to man so that he could see what he would call them, and that, as a man called every living soul, so was its name. And the man named all the cattle and birds of the air and all the beasts of the field ... ". However, in the same Bible earlier the formula was repeatedly used: "And God said." This means that God already possessed language from the beginning. Thus, language turns out to be a joint creation of a higher power and man.

A similar view existed among the Arab scholars: they believed that Allah gave the basis for the language, but many words were then invented by people. Allah introduced this sacred gift to people not at once, but in parts. Only the last and greatest of the prophets, Muhammad, received the entire language from Allah (therefore, the sacred language of the Quran cannot be changed in any way). Many other peoples also had ideas about the divine origin of the language.

In the same way, it was explained that there are many languages ​​on Earth. In ancient Egypt, at the time of Pharaoh Amenhotep GU (Akhenaten; 1Zb8-1351 BC), it was believed that the god Aton puts speech into the mouth of every baby and also endows each people with its own language. And the Bible speaks of the Babylonian pandemonium: God "mixed the tongues" of the inhabitants of Babylon, who tried to compete with him, erecting a tower as high as heaven. This legend also reflected the appearance of ancient Babylon, the center of trade routes, where speech was heard in many languages.

In all religious concepts, the language is unchanged and appears immediately as it exists now. Later, people can only spoil and forget the divine gift or, at best, add something else. Religious concepts of the origin of language reflect, for all their naivety, one real fact: human language is a special gift, and there is nothing similar in nature. The "languages" of animals are too different from him.

The first doubts about the divine origin of language (as well as about the divine structure of the world in general) appeared in the ancient world. Ancient Greek and Roman thinkers (Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius, etc.) came to the conclusion that the language was created by people themselves without the participation of the gods. At the same time, many concepts of the origin of the language were expressed. The spread of Christianity again led to the victory of ideas about the divine origin of the language, but in the XVII-XVIII centuries. they began to be questioned, and ancient concepts began to revive. The appearance in European countries of a scientific picture of the world and a historical approach to the study of human society led to the fact that the thinkers of the 17th-18th centuries. began to look for new explanations for the appearance of language. It is curious that such ideas arose before Charles Darwin's theory of the origin of man from ape. Man was still considered God's creation, but the creation of the language was already considered as a human matter. By the XVIII century. it finally became clear that languages ​​are changing, that not all languages ​​of the world exist initially, that some languages ​​have evolved from others. It was natural to take one more step and assume that each language appeared for the first time at some point.

However, ideas about the past of mankind both in antiquity and in modern times were still too simplified. Thinkers put themselves in the place of a primitive man and thought what they would do if they did not know how to speak and wanted to create a language. concepts of this kind have become the subject of heated debate and debate. Over the past two centuries, their circle has hardly expanded.

2. Theories of the origin of language. Since antiquity, there have been many theories of the origin of the language.

Onomatopoeia theory comes from the Stoics and received support in the 19th and even the 20th centuries. The essence of this theory is that a "tongueless person", hearing the sounds of nature (the murmur of a stream, the singing of birds, etc.), tried to imitate these sounds. speech apparatus... In any language, of course, there are a number of onomatopoeic words like ku-ku, woof-woof, oink-oink, bang-bang, drip-drip, apchi, ha ha ha and so on. and their derivatives such as bark, cuckoo, bark, grunt, piggy, hahankies and so on. But, firstly, there are very few such words, and secondly, “onomatopoeia” can only be “sounding”, but what then should one call “voiceless”: stones, houses, triangles and squares and much more?

It is impossible to deny onomatopoeic words in the language, but it would be completely wrong to think that language arose in such a mechanical and passive way. Language arises and develops in a person together with thinking, and with onomatopoeia, thinking is reduced to photography. Observation of languages ​​shows that there are more onomatopoeic words in new, developed languages ​​than in languages ​​of more primitive peoples. This is due to the fact that, in order to "imitate", one must be perfectly able to control the speech apparatus, which a primitive man with an undeveloped larynx could not master.

The theory of "labor cries" at first glance it seems like a real materialistic theory of the origin of language. This theory originated in the 19th century. in the works of the vulgar materialists (L. Noiret, K. Bücher) and boiled down to the fact that language arose from the outcries that accompanied collective work. But these "labor cries" are only a means of rhythmizing labor, they do not express anything, not even emotions, but are only an external technical means during work. Not a single function that characterizes language can be found in these "labor cries", since they are neither communicative, nor nominative, nor expressive.

The theory of "social contract". Ser. XVIII century The theory was based on some opinions of antiquity (Democritus, Plato) and responded to the rationalism of the 18th century.

But it is also quite clear that this theory does not give anything for the explanation of the primitive language, since, first of all, in order to "agree" on the language, one must already have a language in which they "agree".

In the XVIII century. similar ideas were put forward by the famous French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, to whom the very expression "social contract" belongs. Supported this concept in the same XVIII century. the founder of political economy, the Englishman Adam Smith. Rousseau and Smith believed that primitive people once agreed among themselves about how to use the language. The language was invented deliberately, and then people combined their efforts, and uniform rules for using it were developed.

Proceeding from a materialistic understanding of the history of society and man, F. Engels explains the conditions for the emergence of language: “When, after a thousand-year struggle, the hand finally differentiated from the leg and a straight gait was established, the man separated from the monkey, and the foundation was laid for the development of articulate speech. .. "

Interjection theory comes from the Epicureans, opponents of the Stoics. Primitive people turned instinctive animal screams into "natural sounds" - interjections accompanying emotions, from where all other words originated.

Interjections are included in the vocabulary of any language and can have derivative words (Russian: oh oh and gaspgroan etc.). But there are very few such words in languages ​​and even fewer than onomatopoeic ones. The reason for the emergence of language in this theory is reduced to the expressive function, but there is a lot in the language that is not related to expression. There is something more important, for the sake of which language arose, animals also have emotions, but there is no language.

This concept was developed by the English philosopher of the late 17th century. John Locke and the French scientist of the 18th century Etienne Bonneau de Condillac. In their opinion, people at first made only unconscious sounds, and then gradually learned to control their pronunciation. In parallel with control over language, control over mental operations also developed. Sign language played an important role. It was believed that primitive people only supplemented gestures with sounds, and then gradually switched to sound speech.

The ideas of J. Locke and E. de Condillac were an important step forward in comparison with the concept of "social contract": the formation of language was now associated with the development of human thinking. The formation of a language was viewed not as a one-time act, but as a historical process that took a long time and had stages. That. this concept was contrasted with the traditional biblical. However, the new point of view was not supported by any facts. Anyway, nothing concrete was known about the early stages of the formation of human language and thinking.

In the XVIII-XIX centuries. a new criterion was proposed: among human languages ​​there are more developed and more "primitive" ones that are closer to the primitive language. The degree of morphological complexity was put forward as a criterion for development: the morphologically simpler the language, the more primitive. These ideas were developed by Wilhelm von Humboldt. The ancient era, the complexity of the Greek and Latin morphology corresponded to this. But one of the most "primitive" languages ​​turned out to be Chinese, the language of a developed culture, while many languages ​​of "backward" peoples have a much more complex morphology.

From the second half of the XIX century. there was general disappointment in attempts to solve the problem of the origin of the language. It became clear that the degree of morphological complexity of the language does not allow us to say how close this language is to the "primitive" one. And there was no other evidence for any of the existing hypotheses. And then the French Academy announced that it no longer considers works on the origin of the language; this decision remains in force to this day. In the XX century. linguists have almost ceased to deal with this problem; somewhat more it attracts psychologists and historians of the primitive world.

Theories of the origin of language

1. Introduction

The question of the origin of the language is one of the most difficult and not fully resolved in linguistics, because it is closely related to the origin of man himself. The languages ​​that exist today on earth (even the most primitive peoples) are already at a sufficient high level development. Whereas the origin of the language belongs to the era with archaic relationships between people. All theories of the origin of language (both philosophical and philological) are hypothetical to a certain extent, since the emergence of the first language from the most "deep" linguistic reconstruction is separated by tens of millennia (today linguistic methods allow you to penetrate into the depths of centuries no more than 10 thousand years).

In the existing theories of the origin of language, two approaches can be conditionally distinguished: 1) the language appeared naturally; 2) the language was created artificially by some active creative force. Second point of view for a long time was predominant. Discrepancies were observed only on the question of whether who created language and from what material. In ancient linguistics, this question was formulated as follows: was the language created "by establishment" (the theory of "Thesei") or "by the nature of things" (the theory of "fusi")? If a language is created by institution, then who established it (God, man, or society)? If the language was created by nature, then how do the words and properties of things correspond to each other, including the properties of the person himself.

The largest number of hypotheses was generated by the first question - who created the language, what is the nature of those forces and causes that gave rise to the language? The question of the material from which the language was built did not cause much disagreement: these are sounds generated by nature or people. The transition from them to articulate speech involved gestures and facial expressions.

2. Language theories

1) Logos theory (from Lat. logos - word, language) existed in the early stages of the development of civilization. In accordance with this theory, the origin of the world was based on the spiritual principle, which was designated in different words- "God", "Logos", "Spirit", "Word". Spirit, acting on matter in a chaotic state, created the world. The final act of this creation was man. Thus, the spiritual principle (or "Logos") existed before man, governing inert matter. This divine theory of the origin of language was shared by such prominent thinkers as Plato (IV century BC), German enlighteners of the 18th century. I. Herder, G. Lessing and others. However, the word, according to this theory, had not only divine, but also human origin, since man, created in the image and likeness of God, received from God the gift of the word. But there was still no trust in a person and his mind. The word he created was imperfect, so it had to go through the "judgment of the elders." Moreover, the word of a person dominated him, undermined the strength of his spirit and reason.

The development of science (and above all astronomy, physics, biology) contributed to the establishment of new knowledge about the earth, its biological, physical and social laws. The "creative function" of the divine word - Logos - did not correspond to the new views. From the point of view of the ethics of the new philosophy, man as a thinking being himself created and transformed the world. Language in this context was considered as a product of his activity. These views were most clearly expressed in the doctrine social contract... This doctrine combined various theories that in their own way explain the origin of language - the onomatopoeic, interjection, theory of labor teams.

2) Onomatopoeic theory ... It was defended, in particular, by the ancient Greek materialist philosopher Democritus, the German philosopher G. Leibniz, the American linguist W. Whitney, and others. In accordance with this theory, the first words were imitations of the sounds of nature and the cries of animals. Of course, in any language there are a number of onomatopoeic words (e.g., cuckoo, woof, woof), but these words are very few, and with their help it is impossible to explain the appearance of "mute" names of objects ( river, distance, shore).

3) Interjection theory (which was developed by the German scientist J. Grimm, G. Steinthal, the French philosopher and educator J.-J. Rousseau and others) explained the appearance of the first words from involuntary cries (interjections) provoked by the sensory perception of the world. The primary source of words was feelings, inner sensations that prompted a person to use his linguistic abilities, i.e. supporters of this theory saw the main reason for the emergence of words in the sensory perception of the world, the same for all people, which in itself is debatable. Interjection theory does not answer the question of what to do with emotionally uncolored words. In addition, in order to speak, the child must be in the midst of speaking people.

4) The theory of labor commands and labor shouts - a variant of the interjection theory. It was put forward by the German scientists L. Noiret and K. Bücher. According to this theory, the interjection cry was stimulated not by feelings, but by the muscular efforts of a person and joint work activities.

Thus, the last three theories proceeded from the concept of the unity of the human psyche, reason and rational knowledge, which entailed the assumption of the emergence of the same initial sound form in all members of society in the same situation. Therefore, onomatopoeic words, interjections and labor cries were the first, the simplest from the point of view of information content. Later, by social contract these first sounds-words were assigned to objects and phenomena that were not perceived by the ear.

The progressive role of the doctrine of the social contract was that it proclaimed the material, human source of the origin of the language, destroying the constructions of the logical theory. However, in general, this theory did not explain the origin of language, since in order to imitate onomatopoeia, it is necessary to perfectly control the speech apparatus, and in primitive man the larynx was practically undeveloped. In addition, the interjection theory could not explain the appearance of words devoid of expressiveness, which were neutral designations of objects and phenomena of the external world. Finally, this theory did not explain the fact of the agreement on the language in the absence of the language itself. It assumed the presence of consciousness in primitive man before the formation of this consciousness, which develops along with language.

A critical attitude towards the doctrine of man gave rise to new theories:

5) Evolutionary theory. Representatives of this theory (German scientists W. Humboldt, A. Schleicher, W. Wundt) associated the origin of language with the development of thinking of primitive man, with the need to concretize the expression of his thought: thanks to thinking, a person began to speak, thanks to language, he learned to think. The emergence of language, therefore, occurred as a result of the development of the senses and mind of a person. This point of view was most vividly expressed in the works of W. Humboldt. According to his theory, the birth of language was due to the inner need of a person. Language is not only a means of communication between people, it is embedded in their very nature and is necessary for spiritual development person. The origin and development of language, according to Humboldt, is predetermined by the need for the development of social relations and the spiritual potential of a person. However, this theory did not answer the question about the internal mechanisms of the transition from the pre-language to the linguistic state of people.

6) Social theory was described by F. Engels in his work "Dialectics of Nature" in the chapter "The Role of Labor in the Process of Transformation of the Monkey into Man". Engels associated the emergence of language with the development of society. Language is part of the social experience of humanity. It arises and develops only in human society and is assimilated by each individual person through his communication with other people. The main idea of ​​his theory is inseparable internal communication between the development of the labor activity of the primitive human collective, the development of the consciousness of a forming person and the development of forms and methods of communication. He developed the following theoretical model of the relationship between language and society: 1) social production based on the division of labor; 2) reproduction of an ethnos as the basis of social production; 3) becoming articulate from inarticulate signals; 4) the emergence of social consciousness on the basis of individual thinking; 5) the formation of culture as a selection and transmission from generation to generation of skills, skills, material objects important for the life of society. Engels writes: “... like consciousness, language arises only from a need, from an urgent need to communicate with other people.<…>Need created its own organ: the undeveloped larynx of the monkey was slowly but steadily transformed by modulations, and the organs of the mouth gradually learned to pronounce one articulate sound after another ”[K. Marx, F. Engels Works. T. 20., p. 498]. The emergence of language, therefore, was preceded by a stage of long evolution, first biological, and then biological-social. The main biological prerequisites were the following: the release of the forelimbs for labor, the straightening of the gait, the appearance of the first sound signals. Biological evolution affected primarily the lungs and larynx. She demanded straightening the body, walking on two limbs, freeing hands to perform labor functions. In the process of labor activity, further development of the human brain and organs of articulation took place: the direct image of the object was replaced by its sound symbol (word). “First, labor,” writes Engels, “and then, along with it, articulate speech were the two most important stimuli, under the influence of which the monkey's brain gradually turned into a human brain. The development of the brain and the senses subordinate to it of more and more clarifying consciousness, the ability to abstraction and inference had a reverse effect on labor and language, giving both more and more impetus to further development". The emergence of language, according to Engels, was thus associated with the process of cognition of the external world, and with the process of development of consciousness under the influence of human labor activity. The need for intelligent communication (in which the communicative and cognitive functions of language were carried out, without which language cannot be a language) and caused its appearance.