Coxboro’ Cottage SL6 9HR UK

abstract

Early hominids would no doubt use deception to benefit themselves. But used in the earliest speech, deception would tend to cause this very first speech to self-destruct. In the psychological or social sphere, there is a further problem: there are inherent difficulties in checking the truth or accuracy of psychological/social ‘words’ used to represent, say, attitudes or beliefs in the mind of the speaker. Between them, these difficulties would make it unlikely that the very earliest use of ‘words’ was in this area: there is no ready way to check the truth or the accuracy of a psychological/social statement. True today, it was no doubt even more true in the earliest days of speech.

But there is an area where ‘words’ can be easily checked: the area of the material world. The reasons are that, firstly, we generally want to know only the surface apparent qualities ... not, for instance, an inner, mental life. Secondly, this information is usually readily apparent and easily checked.

What has turned us away from such a plain and straightforward view is, I believe, the idea of increasing social intelligence (a well-established fact in the primate line) culminating in speech. But for the very first ‘words’, the difficulty of checking the truth or accuracy of any ‘words’ used for psychological/social meanings … this presents a real hurdle.

Two consequences follow from the ready checkability of material things. The first is that any ‘social use’ origin for the very first ‘words’ is not really possible … if there is this easier alternative route. Secondly, because vision would be the preferred sense for immediate checking, nocturnal animals – however social – would not have developed speech; and the move by early hominids from woodland to savannah would have made immediate checkability of material objects and their names easier … while bringing no obvious improvements to checkability in the psychological/social area.

A significant natural background exists in that feedback checking is a biological universal for all muscle use: in every activity, there is simultaneous feedback to provide corrections to achieve a goal. Speech is a muscle activity, involving the mouth, throat and so forth. It is suggested that speech checking could not have been avoided: it would have been automatically applied, not only to the production of the correct sound heard, but also to the appropriateness of the ‘word’ used.

If the first use of ‘words’ was to describe the material world, there was a ready bridge to the psychological, because hominids were made (like us) of material: arms and legs, hands and fingers, a face…eyes and ears, nose and mouth, material objects which existed and moved. These and their activity would have psychological meaning: for example, a contorted or relaxed face, glaring or smiling eyes, clenched fists or open hands, and so forth.

The final argument is to point out that speech is fiendishly flexible. Like computers, it can be used in SO many ways. And like computers, present use … and most speech today is used to convey psychological/social meaning … is no certain guide to very first use.

The conclusion is that the very first use of ‘words’ was to label objects and their movement in the material world, and not to label psychological/social meanings. Speech had to learn to walk … before it could run, in the essentially ambivalent world of the psychological/social.

 Conference site: http://www.infres.enst.fr/confs/evolang/