Speak to Me

I just saw an article pondering the beginning of speech in human beings. It caused me to research farther. I Googled the phrase “Origins of Language” and of course a plethora of choices appeared before my eyes. Selecting one site, I wanted to see what it had to offer. I was mildly surprised at the theories posed by noted theorists and linguists. Each one of their suggestions shared a common conjecture with a very limited scope.

Each one of their proposals held the same premise; initially man was unable to speak. Like an infant, mankind had to learn how to speak, forming words through mocking animals in trial and error. They proposed that mankind was a dumb beast and language evolved.

The first proposal was called the Bow-Wow theory which is mimicking of animal sounds. It is the suggestion of an onomatopoeic process, where humans heard animals and copied their voices. But that fails on several counts. Who gave the animals their vocalizations? Wouldn’t they have started out with a blank slate as well? Or how does echoing animal sounds equate into actual words with meaning, speech, and language?

The second proposal was called Ding-Dong theory. Theorists propose man’s speech was in response to the essential qualities of objects in the environment, but again, there is no connection between a sound and any real meaning.

The third was called the La-La theory. It introduces the idea that language developed from sounds associated from love, play, and song. It too fails without a bridge between emotional and rational parts of mankind’s ability to speak.

There was also the Pooh-Pooh theory. It holds that speech began with interjections; a spontaneous vocalization to pain, surprise, and other emotions. No language has enough interjections to cover clicks, intakes of breath, and other noises with speaking and those noises would again have little relevance to paring of vowels and consonants.

Yo-He-Ho theory says speech began from grunts, groans, and snorts emitted during heavy labor. It may account for the rhythmic quality of speech, but does little to explain where words came from.

A much better explanation comes from the Bible. Mankind had language from the beginning. In Genesis, God speaks with Adam and Eve in Eden. They replied to His call, so they had speech from their Creation. When God asked Adam about his sin Adam answered God.

Adam was also instructed by God to name to each anima and until God divided mankind’s speech pattern at the Tower of Babel, people spoke one language. They were able to communicate with one another. God’s Word answers exactly how human speech occurred, how it happened, and why different languages are used today.