Origin of language and origin of languages

Abstract

The question of monogenesis vs. polygenesis of human languages was essentially neglected by contemporary linguistics until the appearance of the research on the genetics of human populations by L. L. Cavalli-Sforza and his collaborators, which brought to light very exciting parallels between the distribution of human populations and that of language families. The present paper highlights some aspects of the history of the problem and some points of the contemporary discussion. We first outline the “Biblical paradigm”, which persisted until the 18th century even in scientific milieus. Then, we outline some aspects of the 19th century debate about monogenesis vs. polygenesis of languages and about the relationships between languages and human populations: in particular, we will discuss the views of Darwin on the one hand and of some linguists on the other (Schleicher, M. Müller, Whitney and Trombetti). It will be seen that their positions only partly coincide; at any rate, it will be shown that Darwin was partly inspired by the problems of the genealogy of languages and that the linguists, for their part, took account of Darwin’s views. Turning to today’s debate, we first present the positions of the linguists arguing for monogenesis, namely J. Greenberg and M. Ruhlen, as well as the criticisms raised against their methods by the majority of linguists. Other scholars, such as D. Bickerton or N. Chomsky, essentially argue, from different points of view, that the problem of monogenesis vs. polygenesis of languages is a “pseudo-problem”. We however think that, although the question cannot be reasonably solved by linguistic means, it cannot be discarded as meaningless: it is an anthropological rather than a linguistic problem. We present some reflections and suggestions, in the light of which the monogenetic hypothesis appears as more tenable than the polygenetic one.

Language: Its Origin and Ongoing Evolution

“…An important philosophical distinction collects two separate topics under the label "origin of language": the origin of language faculty and the origin of languages (Formigari 2013). The latter leads to a further question, namely, whether all world languages derive from one single "protolanguage"-i.e., monogenesis-or do several language families (e.g., Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic, Altaic) each derive from a different protolanguage-i.e., polygenesis (Graffi 2019).…”

Acehnese Loanwords and Contact with Other World's Languages

“…Genetic classification is a clarification of language based on the lineage or genealogical relationship of the language in the same family (Aulia, 2017), or simply called language family (Rowe & Levine, 2015). A language originates from an older language (Graffi, 2019). Classification of this type in linguistics is included in Comparative Historical Linguistics (Hock, 2021;Kalyan & François, 2017).…”

La Storia Delle Voci “Lingue” E “Linguistica” Di Carlo Tagliavini

“…Su Trombetti si rimanda poi aTagliavini, (1929Tagliavini, ( e 1937,Ballini (1938), De Mauro (2009,Schirru (2020). Per una panoramica sulla questione dello Sprachursprung (fino ad oggi) si vedaGraffi (2019).© Italiano LinguaDue 1. 2022.…”