Sort of a Half Baked Theory on the Origins of Language

I often tell my students that the 6 most important words in English are who, what, when, where, how and why.  Actually, I think that’s pretty close to true when learning any language.  With those words you can get all the information you need and keep a conversation going.

Our ancestor - one of the smarter ones

And, of course, keeping the conversation going is the key to seduction, which is the main reason for learning a foreign language.  Come to think of it, it’s the main reason for our existence on planet earth.

So, I was running down the list with a student this morning when I was struck by a thought.  Some of you may find this completely obvious, and I’m sure Chomsky or Pinker or some other linguist has probably covered it, but I’ve been teaching for over a decade and never quite thought of it in these terms before, so here goes:  All of them can be boiled down to one.  Who means “what person,” where means “what place,” when means “what time,” why means “for what reason” and how means “by what method.”  Of course, how many is really a different question than how and in many languages it’s a completely separate word but, nonetheless, it could be expressed as “what amount?”

I’ve heard it said that most dog’s barks are expressions of a single thought – who’s there?  What person or creature is on the other side of the fence making noise.  Friend or foe, big or small.  They need to know so they can know how to react.

Although human language is quite complex, and we can use it to describe the inner workings of the atom or our most complex emotions and desires, it had to begin somewhere.  There was a point on our evolutionary trail before we invented science, literature and music, when our communication needs where more primitive.

I suspect that the first human word was probably something like AIIYEEE! and it meant both “run like hell, the rhinoceros is charging” and “come quick and help me kill this damn snake.”  Tribes which learned to differentiate between the two had a distinct evolutionary advantage over those which didn’t.  And thus language began to evolve.

So, as a teacher, my job is to simplify, simplify, simplify until I can get the student to start speaking English, and then to add just as much complexity as they can handle.  As Frank Zappa said, “You’ve got to get into it, before you get out of it.”

I hope some of this made sense.