Sanga, The Domestication of Speech: Towards a Theory of Glottogony, «Europaea» III, 1 (1997), pp. 65-120

glauco sanga

There are over 6000 languages in the world, different dialects within communities, pigins and creole languages, clicks and whistles, guttural and sweet, but how did this all begin? Who, what, how did we learn to speak so many languages? There are many theories. One of those theories suggests that the origin of language is monogenesis, some argue that perhaps the first language began with one of the most unlikely ancestors: Neanderthals. Is this possible? The focus of this paper is whether or not Neanderthals may have had the same capabilities for speech as modern humans.

This project analyses a wide range of current literature concerning the origins and evolution of language. A major focus is on constraining the time in which language evolved, covering recent and gradual origins hypotheses. Included are models that interpret the foundations of language as a sudden emergent property, as well as models that propose an accretionary accrual of a modern suite of linguistic abilities. A ‘gesture-first’ model is presented in line with the gradual evolution of language, and tool-making is suggested as a reinforcement framework for language lateralization and even syntactical operations. Finally, the supportive biological evidence (including the Kebara 2 hyoid bone and FOXP2) is determined to reinforce the gradual and gestural models rather than emergent models of language evolution. What we are left with is a model that posits that language cannot have originated later than 100kya, could have gained prominence between then and 400,000 years ago and was already subject to a functional cultural-ecological development prior to this.

«Europaea» III, 1 (1997), pp. 65‐120. GLOTTOGONIA THE DOMESTICATION OF SPEECH: TOWARDS A THEORY OF GLOTTOGONY Glauco Sanga ∗ To the memory of André Leroi-Gourhan Nature added hands to our body mainly for language [Gregory of Nyssa, On Man's Shaping, 379 AD]. To seek a connection until the slightest trace can still be recognized is therefore to be considered a principle of scientific investigation [Wilhelm von Humboldt, The Study of Comparative Linguistics, 1820-21: 413]. But going back to origins, we see divergences dispel in unity [Graziadio Isaia Ascoli, On the AryanSemitic Connection, 1864b: 24]. The new in language always germinates on something old [Benvenuto Terracini, Life of Language and Language of Life, 1962-63: 119]. § 1. The State of the Art Throughout the nineteenth century, the interest of enlightened and romantic philosophers in the origins of language stimulated the reflections of naturalists (Charles Darwin), physicians (Paul Broca) and anthropologists (Lewis Morgan), but not of linguists, though they were the most directly affected specialists: over them hung the ban of the Société de Linguistique de Paris [MSL 1868: III]1 against research into glottogony, issued in 1868, at the very beginning of so-called 'scientific' (or, better, 'positivistic') linguistics.2 Research into the origin of language, essentially broken off in linguistics,3 saw remarkable growth in the natural sciences (biology, paleontology, genetics, zoology, ethology, medicine, anatomy) and in prehistoric, archaeological, anthropological, and psychological disciplines. Nevertheless, the limit of much of these studies consists essentially in linguistic imprecision, i.e. in the lack of a specific linguistic technical knowledge. Only in the last few years has linguistics tried to make up for lost time and join in this current of research, where it has a vital contribution to make. The present state of the problem is discussed in a very recent book of major importance, by the linguist Mario Alinei [1996]. Greater detail and fuller investigations can be found there. Here I can only summarize the authors and issues that seem most significant. Of primary importance is the contribution of the paleoanthropologist André Leroi-Gourhan [1964a], who posited a parallel between linguistic evolution and toolmaking techniques (see § 3)4 based on the close neurophysiological relationship between manual dexterity and linguistic skill.5 I am grateful to John Trumper, Pier Paolo Viazzo and Gabriele Iannàccaro for their useful suggestions. Later confirmed by Saussure [Rapallo 1994: 271-272]. 2 This ban led to the abandonment of lines of research once dealt with by the founders of the discipline. Just think of Franz Bopp's studies [1816] on the development of inflection through pronominal agglutination [see Tagliavini 1963: 55], or of Graziadio Isaia Ascoli's work linking Indo-European and Semitic [1864a, 1864b, 1865a, 1865b]. Bickerton remarks [1990: 105]: «Why linguists have tacitly accepted just such a self-denying ordinance should be a topic of some interest to sociologists of science». 3 With a few important but isolated exceptions: Alfredo Trombetti's studies on the monogenesis of language [1905, 1908], Holger Pedersen's [1903] and Herrmann Møller's [1906, 1911] works on Nostratic, Roman Jakobson's [1941] discussion of children's language and aphasia. 4 This approach is widely accepted, though some researchers point to the prominent role of cerebral growth [Holloway 1974, Tobias 1987], while others consider it a consequence of the upright position and of the freeing of hands and mouth [Leroi-Gourhan 1964a]. 5 The relation is also revealed in psychology by Piaget, in discussing the mental development of the child [1964]. ∗ 1 1 The linguist and naturalist Philip Lieberman [1975] posed the crucial question of the different types of language possible for hominids. These are determined by the different shape of the superlaryngeal vocal tract in anatomically modern man (Homo sapiens sapiens) compared to ancient forms of Homo (see § 19). This issue raised broad and heated debate, whether the birth of language should be posed early (i.e. with Homo habilis/erectus) or later, with Homo sapiens sapiens [see Alinei 1996]. Supporters of the two different positions appear more nearly in agreement than they may think for a generic usage of the terms 'language/speech' allows patent misunderstandings. What do upholders of the first thesis state? Phillip Tobias considers it likely «that articulated language, albeit rudimentary, was within the capacity of H. habilis» [1987: 756]. Richard Leakey, too, thinks that Homo erectus had rudimentary language skills and that Neanderthals could speak, though not as fluently as modern humans do [Leakey & Lewin 1992: 246, 255]. Philip Lieberman, regarded as the defender of the second thesis, actually affirms the same thing: Though Neanderthal hominids may not have had the speech-producing ability of modern humans they must have employed language. Even if we wanted to state that language is the defining characteristic of Homo sapiens we would have to admit the possibility of forms of language other than those characteristic of modern humans [1975: 174]. The initial stages of hominid language thus probably start with Homo erectus who created and used words and talked, though at reduced levels of intelligibility and speed [1991: 16].6 In addition, the geneticist Luca Cavalli-Sforza claims that the present level of language was reached only between 150,000 and 70,000 to 100,000 years ago, because of «the correspondence between linguistic phyla and genetic clusters shows that they have similar origins», going back genetically to Homo sapiens sapiens [Cavalli-Sforza, Menozzi & Piazza 1994; Cavalli-Sforza 1996]. Derek Bickerton, a specialist in pidgins and creoles, proposed [1990] a glottogonic theory grounded on syntax: on the basis of living linguistic fossils (the 'language' of apes; the 'language' of under-two children; the 'language' of 'wolf children'; the pidgin 'languages') a solely lexical archaic 'protolanguage', without any syntax (or rather, with extremely reduced syntax) is determined. The 'protolanguage' is assigned to Homo erectus in accordance with the level of development of his stone toolmaking. Our fully syntactic 'language' was to appear only with Homo sapiens sapiens. A notable contribution to glottogonic research came from studies of language universals and language typology, started by the linguist Joseph Greenberg [1963, 1974; Greenberg, Ferguson & Moravcsik 1978]. Following an illustrious tradition (that stretches from Port-Royal, Herder, and Wilhelm von Humboldt to Sapir, Trubeckoj, and Hjelmslev) in claiming that all of the world's languages are substantially homologous [see Ramat 1983], such scholars try to reach «the great underlying ground-plans» [Sapir 1921: 144].7 An example of a linguistic universal is the presence in human languages of a deictic system for referring to the speaker and hearer, i.e. the existence of first and second person pronouns (as opposed to third person noun phrases, including third person pronouns when these exist). One could easily construct an artificial language which did not have such a deictic system, and where people would be forced to refer to themselves and their interlocutors by proper names or other paraphrases. However, it is clear that such a language would be very different from any known human language, and it is therefore hardly accidental that the presence of a deictic system of person reference correlates so highly with the basic use of human language in face-to-face interaction [Comrie 1981: 26]. 6 Tobias [1987: 756] states: «H. habilis is the first species to show a degree of encephalization far beyond the australopithecine level. (...) Of the two main cerebral areas that in modern man are the seat of language, Broca's and Wernicke's areas, neither is displayed in apes, only a bulge in the vicinity of Broca's in Australopithecus endocasts, while H. habilis is the earliest hominid to show both prominently enlarged - an important autamorphy of Homo. Thus we have the revealing and provocative concurrence of three phenomena: the parts of the brain that govern spoken language become manifest at the stage when brain enlargement and marked encephalization first obtrude and soon after tools of hard materials first appear in the fossil record». On the other hand, the concentration of blood vessels in areas of the brain responsible for speech (Broca's and Wernicke's areas) is a characteristic of modern man alone [Saban 1993: 224]: «en fait, il est probable que le cerveau s'est réorganisé chez H. sapiens sapiens, dans la nécessité de ne pas dépasser les limites d'un certain volume, et d'un certain format». Moreover, «la 3e circonvolution frontale gauche des Néandertaliens ne paraît pas présenter de pied, extension caractéristique du centre moteur du langage (aire 44)» [Delmas 1981: 148-149]. A gradualist position is expressed by Laitman [1985: 285-286]: «It is among specimens of Homo erectus that we begin to find the first instances of basicranial flexion, away from the nonflexed pattern of the extant apes and australopithecines, and toward that of modern Homo sapiens. (...) While change may have begun at this time, the first instances of full basicranial flexion similar to that of modern humans does not appear until the arrival of Homo sapiens some 300,000 to 400,000 years ago. It may have been at this time that hominids with upper respiratory tracts similar to ours first appeared». 7 The study of universals and of typology are closely complementary [see Comrie 1981: 65; Ramat 1983: 8]. 2 The old macro-comparative theories, such as Graziadio Isaia Ascoli's hypothesis of an Aryan-Semitic connection [1864a, 1864b, 1865a, 1865b], the work of Holger Pedersen [1903] Hermann Møller [1906, 1911] and Antoine Cuny [1924, 1943, 1946] on 'Nostratic' (a broader linguistic family including IndoEuropean, Ural-Altaic and Hamito-Semitic), cast aside by official linguistics, have recently been relaunched by Soviet linguists (Vladislav Markovič Illyč-Svityč, Aron Dolgopolski). They have suggested a ProtoNostratic macro-phylum, including Indo-European, Hamito-Semitic, Uralic, Altaic, Dravidian, and Kartvelian [see Shevoroshkin 1990; Bomhard 1990; Rapallo 1994: 195-205; Sorrentino 1988].8 The linguist Merrit Ruhlen [1994] extended macro-comparative studies to include all the world's languages and reconstructed 'universal' roots, reviving the monogenetic theory of language, already put forth by Alfredo Trombetti at the beginning of the century. The most recent contribution is that of Mario Alinei [1996]. Within the framework of extensive research on the origins of European languages, he proposes a polygenetic glottogonic theory, tightly bound to Saussure's principle of the arbitrariness of the linguistic sign. Alinei takes up Leroi-Gourhan's hypothesis of a correlation between technical development and linguistic skill and establishes a direct link between stone tools and grammatical typology: choppers correspond to isolating languages, bifacial tools correspond to inflectional languages, and flints and blades correspond to agglutinative languages.9 § 2. Seven Postulates In the course of my ethnolinguistic studies on cant [Sanga 1989b, 1993] and anthropological research on the relation between marginal groups (vagabonds, pedlers, beggars, fairmen, gypsies) and hunters-gatherers, I have determined a number of outlines useful for defining a possible model of glottogony.10 The authors to whom I make constant reference in building my hypothesis are: the anthropologist Ernesto de Martino [1951-1952, 1977], who has worked out the concept of appaesamento;* the paleoanthropologist André Leroi-Gourhan [1964a], who has linked manual dexterity to language skills; the linguist Roman Jakobson [1941] who shed light on archaic phonetics with his studies of children's language and aphasia; the linguist Mario Alinei [1984], who showed us the mechanisms of archaic semantics by studying the link between animals' names and kinship terms; and, of course, Charles Darwin [1859, 1872]. Let us start by defining the terminology:11 I call 'mind' the faculty of elaborating mental representations; 'language' (in a broad sense)12 «l'aptitude à fixer la pensée dans des symboles matériels» [Leroi-Gourhan 8 Joseph Greenberg has also conducted important macro-comparative studies on African and native American languages [Greenberg 1987, Ruhlen 1991]. 9 My disagreement with Alinei's theories, which I develop in this article and in forthcoming issue of Rivista Italiana di Dialettologia, does not keep me from regarding his work as a contribution of outstanding value, necessary for the renewal of research into the origin of language on a solid foundation. 10 A first version of this article was presented on 15 January 1996 at the "Sodalizio Glottologico Milanese" [Sanga 1996]. A parallel hypothesis concerning the origin of writing appeared in the issue of La ricerca folklorica dedicated to the memory of Giorgio Raimondo Cardona [Sanga 1995]. I have been thinking about the origins of language for quite a long time: the first announcement of a study having as its title "Linguistic Appaesamento" is contained in the Acts of the International Congress of the "Società di Linguistica Italiana" (Linguistica e antropologia) held in Lecce in 1980 [Sanga 1983: 345, 349]. A paragraph labeled "Linguistic Appaesamento" is part of the text of a contribution to the Congress "La trasmissione del sapere: aspetti linguistici e antropologici", organized by Giorgio Raimondo Cardona in Rome in 1987 [Sanga 1990a: 237-238]. The ethnolinguistic etymological method, aimed at reconstructing original stages of language is proposed in Sanga [1989a]. The identification of prehistoric elements in cant is in Sanga [1989b, 1993]. * Translator's note: Appaesamento is a term coined by de Martino in order to denote the precise opposite of spaesamento, which derives in turn from spaesato, 'bewildered' or 'at sea'. In English it might be rendered as 'familiarization' or 'the exact contrary of bewilderment'. An extensive definition of the term and of its use throughout the article will be given at the beginning of § 7. 'Domestication' works as a weaker synonym, and it has been used in the title for the sake of clarity. 11 The following conventions, usual in linguistics, will be used here: phonological transcriptions with IPA alphabet between slashes (ex. /pa/), phonetic transcriptions between square brackets (ex. [pa]). Of course the original transcription will be respected in quotations. "~" indicates opposition; "/" alternation; "<" from; ">" to; "*" a reconstructed form; SMALL CAPS indicates the typical reconstruction of archaic forms, from languages prior to historical evidence, in which case phonetic symbols may represent the whole class to which they belong instead of the sole sound they express, thus, in "PAT" P is the labial stop (voiced or voiceless), T the dental stop (here again voiced or voiceless) and A any vowel. 12 Most scholars normally use a narrower meaning of "language", limited to verbal production, therefore equivalent to "speech". 3 1964a: I, 261]; 'speech' and 'writing' the forms of language, vocal-auditory (verbal) and manual-visual (graphic and plastic) respectively.13 We can now set a number of postulates for our research. I. Monogenesis of language. The structural mechanism of known natural languages is always the same: double articulation, combination of a limited number of phonemes, and add to this the linguistic universals of typology.14 It means that the birth of language is a unique event, occurring only once, just as Homo sapiens sapiens arises biologically only once.15 Therefore, traces of the original state can be found in any of the world's languages. This allows the broadest comparison. II. Stratification of language. Language is a «stratified structure» [Jakobson 1941: 97] and archaic strata are not eliminated by subsequent developments, which are rather superimposed upon them. «Comme dans l'évolution du cerveau ou celle de l'outil, les structures s'additionnent sans s'exclure; la dernière développée se fonde sur la précédente» [Leroi-Gourhan 1964a, II, p. 154]. Linguistic stratification is part of a broader principle pointed out by Darwin: evolution reuses old components, which are modified to serve new functions.16 As a matter of fact, organs that originally evolved for respiration and swallowing food were adapted to language functions. The existence of a stratification allows us to attempt to reach archaic strata and maybe not just to reach the original stratum of our type of language (I believe that we can consider our language that of Homo sapiens sapiens) but even the previous strata, referring to different linguistic types which certainly had to exist, and it is likely that they were quite different. These strata remain, at least in traces, in those that follow (see §§ 19-21).17 III. Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, according to Ernst Haeckel's 'fundamental law of genetics'.18 Therefore, the origin of a language can be reconstructed on the basis of the development process of the speech capability in children,19 a mirror image of its loss in the aphasic.20 This process shows precise hierarchical successions: an element arising later in the child disappears earlier in the aphasic, and can be found in natural languages only if the previous elements already exist, according to an implicational scale. 13 Mind precedes languages and is initially independent: see Piaget [1964; 105]: «comme le langage n'est qu'une forme particulière de la fonction symbolique, et comme le symbole individuel est certainement plus simple que le signe collectif, il est permis de conclure que la pensée précède le langage, et que celui-ci se borne à la transformer profondément». See also A. Seppilli [1971] and Sanga [1995]. Benveniste's statement [1966] on the dependence of mind on language must therefore be rejected. 14 Comrie [1981: 23-24] absolutely refuses the monogenetic hypothesis in explaining universals, because it is impossible to prove and is contradictory, at least for implicational universals. For instance, where a given word order shows some peculiarities, it is implicit that other word orders exist: but an original language with conflicting word orders could not exist, or work. Such a universal, however, relates to subsequent linguistic differentiation; it is clear that there are either "total" universals (i.e. original, prior to dispersion or connected at any rate to the unitary mechanism of language), or "partial", that follow linguistic differentiation. We will encounter later (§ 11, on the distinction of colors) the case of an implicational universal that testifies to a surely monogenetic linguistic mechanism. 15 This does not rule out the likelihood that languages completely different from ours have existed (i.e. singing languages - or simply nasal languages - before the superlaryngeal vocal tract took on its present shape). In that case, our kind of language has been a powerful tool (or even a weapon): as evidence, just note that everyone today speaks it. «L'Homo loquens se situe plus loin que l'Homo faber dans la lignée de l'évolution (...) la parole étant l'outil le plus évolué qu'il ait en sa possession» [Delmas 1981: 147]. 16 An example of "hyperadaptation" is the evolution of the lung from the swimming bladder. Darwin remarks [1859: 190]: «The illustration of the swim bladder is a good one, because it shows us clearly the highly important fact that an organ originally constructed for one purpose, namely flotation, may be converted into one for a wholly different purpose, namely respiration». 17 About the controversy (§ 1) among upholders of a long chronology for the origin of language (Homo habilis in Early Paleolithic) or a short one (Homo sapiens sapiens in Middle Paleolithic) I consider language to have been originated with Homo habilis, by reason of the doubtless association between stone tools and language. Our kind of language, on the other hand, belongs to Homo sapiens sapiens. I take it as plausible that archaic Homo sapiens and his later relative, Homo Neanderthalensis, died out precisely because of the lack of this new and improved linguistic tool. 18 Such a theory, advanced in 1866, gave rise to a number of controversies, but has essentially been adopted in glottogonic research: see for instance Parker & Gibson [1982: 45-47]. Lieberman [1975: 4 n. 1] recalls that «Darwin took note of the same facts as Haeckel but he did nor formulate a 'law'. He simply noted that the foetal and infantile forms of various closely related species resembled each other more than was the case for the adult form». Saban [1993: 214] notices that «quoique l'embryogenèse ne soit pas en elle-même un processus de récapitulation totale, elle conserve cependant de nombreux vestiges du passé»; in fact, as early as 1828 Karl von Baer showed that «l'animal supérieur passe, pendant son développement, par des étapes qui ressemblent aux stades embryonnaires des groupes inférieurs». 19 St. Augustine had already noted a correlation between language development and the growth of the speaking skills in the child [see Rapallo 1994: 273]. 20 «Broca found that lesions in a small area of the brain situated near the motor cortex in the left, dominant hemisphere of the brain impaired speech production and writing» [Lieberman 1975: 9]. 4 «The universal and panchronic validity, as well as the inner logic, of the observed hierarchical sequence of phonological oppositions permits us to assume the same sequence for glottogony» [Jakobson 1941: 93].21 IV Exploitation of differences. Due to the «continuous process of making differences ideological» [Cardona 1981: 89], linguistic differences are also perceived as meaningful and take on ideological and social significance (§ 15).22 V. There are no casual resemblances when we go back to archaic stages: casual resemblances may be the chance outcomes of the linguistic evolution that follows, but the more we go back the less casualness is methodologically acceptable. Resemblances, like differences, also have their own value, and therefore express an ideological identity.23 VI. A hunting-gathering economy is at the basis of the development of language. This postulate is less trivial than one might think: if we trace language to the hunting economy (instead of to the previous mere gathering economy, typical of the apes and, probably, of Australopithecus - the most ancient hominid), then we are allowed not only to correctly direct our hypothesis or original lexicon. Furthermore, putting the rise of the language in this socio-temporal stage enables us to link language closely to a socially revolutionary activity, with a new lifestyle in the primate world - involving the manufacturing of tools and weapons and the social distribution of meat. This, in consequence, determines the constitution itself of the social group [Leroi-Gourhan 1964a: 95, 177-178; Lieberman 1975; 15-20; Leakey & Lewin 1992: 242]. VII. What we reconstruct are linguistic mechanisms, not real language. The language of Paleolithic hunters-gatherers could not have been standardized: it had to be highly variable, even more than today's hunters' speech. Therefore we cannot reconstruct a hunters' protolanguage: all we can reconstruct is the starting point for language formation in its essential mechanisms. These reoccur during evolution, but the particular solutions found differ increasingly in the course of the spread throughout the planet of Homo sapiens sapiens - and, prior to that, the spread of Homo erectus. Hunters do not form linguistic families: in fact their present languages pose insuperable classification problems. Linguistic families belong to producers (farmers and breeders), who are more inclined to concentration than to isolation in lifestyle, thus confirming Carlo Cattaneo's intuition that «languages had to diverge more the older they were» [1841: 201]. (See § 19). § 3. The Technical Tool-Language Correlation One of the church fathers was already aware of the mutual relationship among hand, face and language: Nature added hands to our body mainly for language. If man were devoid of hands, his facial components would be shaped like those of quadrupeds, to enable him to nourish himself. His face would be stretched, tapering towards the nostrils, with prominent, hardened lips, tough and thick, and suited to pulling up grass. Between his teeth, there would be a totally different tongue: fleshy, stout and coarse, in order to help the teeth work the food into a pulp. It would be moist, allowing food to slide past it, like the tongues of dogs and other carnivores, which make the food slide through the spaces between their teeth. If the body were lacking in hands, how could articulated voice be formed in it? The parts surrounding the mouth would not be suited to the needs of language. In that case, man would be limited to bleating, crying out, barking, neighing, mooing like oxen or braying like donkeys or uttering howls like wild beasts [Gregory of Nyssa On Man's Shaping, 379 AD].24 André Leroi-Gourhan has shown that there is a mutual relationship between language skill and manual dexterity, resting on an actual physiological basis:25 la technicité à deux pôles de nombreux Vertébrés aboutissait chez les Anthropiens à la formation de deux couples fonctionnels (main-outil et face-langage), faisant intervenir au premier rang la motricité de la main et de la face dans le modelage de la pensée en instruments d'action matérielle et en symboles sonores [LeroiGourhan 1964a: I, 262]. La physiologie du cortex cérébral dénote une étroite proximité entre les fibres de projection manuelles et les fibres faciales. On sait de plus que les aires 8 et 44 du cortex fronto-pariétal interviennent dans deux 21 «The rapid increase in brain weight (± 350%) during the period from birth to two years of age (...) carries the faint and suggestive memory of a far, though well-proved, encephalization» [Rapallo 1994: 273]. 22 See examples of exploitation (good ~ bad language, little ~ big opposition, etc.) in Cardona [1985: 85-87] and Sanga [1989b]. 23 «Any agreement is a non-accidental coincidence, either interpreted as an historical accident, or as an independent parallel development» [Rapallo 1994: 202]. 24 Quoted in Leroi-Gourhan [1964a: I, 55-56]. 25 Note that in Leroi-Gourhan the term langage often means langue (i.e. "verbal language"), thus corresponding to our "speech". 5 anomalie du langage liées pour l'une à l'impossibilité de former les symboles écrites du langage, pour l'autre à l'impossibilité de mettre en ordre les symboles vocaux (agraphie et aphasie). Il existe par conséquent en lien entre main et organes faciaux et les deux pôles du champ antérieur témoignent d'un égal engagement dans la construction des symboles de communication [Leroi-Gourhan 1964a: I, 161-162].26 In other words, l'homme fabrique des outils concrets et des symboles, les uns et les autres relevant du même processus ou plutôt recourant dans le cerveau au même équipement fondamental. Cela conduit à considérer non seulement que le langage est aussi caractéristique de l'homme que l'outil, mais qu'ils ne sont que l'expression de la même propriété de l'homme [Leroi-Gourhan 1964a: I, 162-163]. It is precisely this technical correlation that allows us to theorize on the origin of Language: il y a la possibilité de langage à partir du moment où la préhistoire livre des outils, puisque outil et langage sont liés neurologiquement et puisque l'un et l'autre sont indissociables dans la structure sociale de l'humanité [Leroi-Gourhan 1964a: I, 163]. Le lien organique paraît assez fort pour qu'on puisse prêter aux Australopithèques et aux Archanthropes [Homo habilis et H. erectus] un langage de niveau correspondant à celui de leurs outils. A ces stades où l'étude comparative des outils et des crânes paraît montrer que l'industrie se développe à un rythme correspondant à celui de l'évolution biologique, le niveau du langage n'a pu être que très bas, mais il dépassait certainement le niveau des signaux vocaux. En effet, ce qui caractérise chez les grandes singes le "langage" et la "technique", c'est leur apparition spontanée sous l'effet d'un stimulus extérieur et leur abandon non moins spontané ou leur défaut d'apparition si la situation matérielle qui les déclenche cesse ou ne se manifeste pas. La fabrication et l'usage du chopper ou du biface relèvent d'un mécanisme très différent, puisque les opérations de fabrication préexistent à l'occasion d'usage et puisque l'outil persiste en vue d'actions ultérieurs. La différence entre le signal et le mot n'est pas d'un autre caractère, la permanence du concept est de nature différente mais comparable à celle de l'outil [Leroi-Gourhan 1964a: I, 163-164].27 § 4. Rhythmical Signs The first graphic representations of Paleolithic are the 'rhythmical signs', series of regularly spaced engravings - notches, dots, strokes - on bones and stone plates. They appear occasionally in the Middle Paleolithic, constantly from the Chatelperronian on and lastly up to the end of the Upper Paleolithic. In parallel, starting from the Aurignacian, the first figurative representations appear; henceforth we find signs and figures combined on mobilary art as well as in cave painting [see Leroi-Gourhan 1964a: I, 267-269; 1964b: 105-106, 141; Marshack 1983: 111; Noble & Davidson 1991: 245-246]. This «universal form of preliterate symbolic usage» [Marshack 1983: 113], which can be found all around the world - Europe, Africa, Americas, Australia - shows certain constant characteristics, identified by Alexander Marshack [1969, 1970, 1972a, 1972b, 1983] by the microscopic analysis of engraved stones and bones of the European Upper Paleolithic. It is about the «tradition of accumulating marks with change in the engraving point, the style of stroke, and the angle and pressure of engraving, and with spatial separation of sets» [Marshack 1972b: 818] on objects that are saved and reused ('renewed') with additional carving [Marshack 1969: 272]. «These data had suggested that such sets were neither random nor decorative but had been intentionally accumulated over a period» [Marshack 1972: 818]. Signs can be combined with figures (mostly animals).28 Animal figures, too, are very often 'renewed' by accumulation, i.e. by repetition of the whole figure or its parts (§ 5).29 Marshack makes a very important remark: sometimes additions are nearly imperceptible, of a «nature presque invisible, et en apparence 'secrète'», and look like they are designed for private use and not to be perceived: 26 An injury to Broca's cortical area does not bring consequences to apes' vocalization. In man, on the other hand, it causes Broca's aphasia, which also damages thumb and index finger [see Alinei 1996: 401]. 27 The sea otter does not make choppers. Rather, it keeps them to use again: «Sea otters float on their backs and use stones as anvils against which they break the shells of crustaceans. They will hold on to stones that are suitable anvils, tucking one under a flipper as they swim between meals. A sea otter thus not only uses a stone tool but also preserve it for future anticipated situations» [Lieberman 1975: 33]. 28 «Au Magdalénien récent, l'association de figures réalistes et de signes ou symboles abstraits est courante dans les compositions gravées» [Marshack 1970: 343]. 29 A «large proportion of the engraved Upper Paleolithic material has revealed that intentional renewal of engraved animal images was common» [Marshack 1969: 226]. 6 Les figures miniaturisées et les détails à peine visibles (...) sont si petites que trois observateurs entraînés ne les ont pas reconnues à l'oeil nu ni à l'aide d'une loupe grossissante. Ces petites figures et détails n'ont vraisemblablement pas été gravés à des fins 'décoratives' évidentes. L'étude au microscope a révélé la présence très répandue et un emploi intentionnel spécialisé de telles additions secondaires, presque microscopiques [Marshack 1970: 341]. Leroi-Gourhan [1964a: II, 217] considers: La signification de ces raies parallèles qu'on trouve aussi gravées sur de plaques de pierre ou sur de gros os est inconnue. On y a vu un système de numération du gibier, un calendrier; il importe très peu dans l'état des connaissances. Pour le peu qu'il paraisse, elles figurent l'intention de la répétition et par conséquent le rythme. Rhythmical signs arise from technical gesture: la rythmicité des percussions de caractère technique est assuré chez les Australanthropes, c'est-à-dire dès les plus ancien témoin anthropien connu. Le premier outil fabriqué l'a été par une suite de chocs et il n'a luimême pu être utilisé que par des percussions répétées. La créations de rythmes sonores non pas figuratifs mais techniques est acquis à l'origine [Leroi-Gourhan 1964a: II, 210]. Technical rhythm is the cultural continuation of a natural, physiological rhythm: the muscular rhythm of breath and heartbeat, a gut sensitivity linked to the rhythmic alternation of day and night, sleeping and waking, digestion and hunger [Leroi-Gourhan 1964a: II, 98-100]. Les rythmes sont les créateurs de l'espace et du temps, du moins pour le sujet; espace et temps n'existent comme vécus que dans la mesure où ils sont matérialisés dans une enveloppe rythmique. Les rythmes sont aussi créateurs de formes. Ce qui a été dit plus haut de la rythmicité musculaire s'applique a priori aux opérations techniques qui entraînent la répétitions des gestes à intervalles réguliers. Un grand nombre d'entre ces gestes se rapportent au martèlement qu'on trouve aussi bien chez les oiseaux casseurs de mollusques ou de graines que chez ceux qui recherchent leur nourriture dans les écorces, mais qui est exceptionnel chez les mammifères, même chez les grandes singes. L'une des caractéristique opératoires de l'humanité, dès ses premiers stades, a été l'application de percussions rythmiques, longuement répétées. Cette opération est même la seule qui marque l'entrée dans l'humanité des Australanthropes puisqu'elle a laissé comme traces les choppers de galet éclaté et les boules polyédriques nées d'un long martèlement. Dès le départ, les techniques de fabrication se placent dans une ambiance rythmique, à la fois musculaire, auditive et visuelle, née de la répétition de geste de choc [Leroi-Gourhan 1964: II, 135]. § 5. Repetition Rhythmical signs and 'renewals' are repetitions. Indeed, repetition is not just a neutral procedure, but has specific cultural significance: (a) repetition establishes identity: a repeated act is never unrelated. It does not stand alone, but is identified with the previous act; there is no repetition without identification; (b) because that which has been identified can then be recognized, repetition settles us by creating appaesamento, the «non-problematic setting of the obvious» [de Martino 1977: 95], that familiarity of acts and objects which constitutes our world (see § 7); (c) consequently, repetition has the psychologically protective function of guaranteeing the sense of security of what has been 'done already' - it allows us to operate within the known and not the unknown [Sanga 1990a: 236]. Entre le Moustérien final et le Chatelperronien, de 50.000 à 30.000 avant nôtre ère, apparaissent simultanément les premières habitations et les premiers signes gravés, simples alignements de traits parallèles. Il est peu douteux que la construction d'abris remonte beaucoup plus loin, mais il est singulier que le premières maisons entretenues coïncident avec l'apparition des premières représentations rythmiques. L'intégration dans un espace et un temps concrets est commune à tout le vivant (...) chez les animaux, cette intégration se traduit de différentes manières, mais notamment dans la perception de sécurité par l'inclusion de l'individu dans l'espace et le rythme du troupeau (...) A la base du confort moral et physique repose chez l'homme la perception tout animale du périmètre de sécurité, du refuge clos, ou des rythmes socialisants (...) Cette "domestication" symbolique aboutit au passage de la rythmicité naturelle des saisons, des jours, des distances de marche à une rythmicité régulièrement conditionnée dans le réseau des symboles calendériques, horaires, métriques qui font du temps et de l'espace humanisés la scène sur laquelle le jeu de la nature est commandé par l'homme. Le rythme des cadences et des intervalles régularisés se substitue à la rythmicité chaotique du monde naturel et devient l'élément principal de la socialisation humaine [Leroi-Gourhan 1964a; II, 139-142]. 7 It is likely that regular repetition plays a role in the process of abstraction and symbol-making, strengthening mind precisely in the formation of languages. As already shown, there is a neurophysiological connection between hand and face, tool and language: La rythmicité figurative sonore et gesticulatoire est probablement sortie au fil du déroulement géologique, comme le langage, synchroniquement avec le développement des techniques (...) si les racines de la technique plongent jusqu'aux Australanthropes, il n'y a pas de motifs scientifiques pour ne pas y faire descendre aussi les racines du langage et des rythmes [Leroi-Gourhan 1964a: II, 211]. The first and major form of repetition - therefore of the formal solidity of the world - is given by language, the ideal activity for creating form and meaning which «produces and posits a world of its own» [Cassirer 1925: 8]. Language is based on a double process of abstraction and identification: first variform natural phenomena are reduced through the identification of an ideal type - a concept (classification). The concept is then permanently bonded to a material sign (symbolization). Only symbolic expression can yield the possibility of prospect and retrospect, because it is only by symbols that distinctions are not merely made, but fixed in consciousness. What the mind has once created, what has been culled from the total sphere of consciousness, does not fade away again when the spoken word has set its seal upon it and given it definite form. Here, too, the recognition of function precedes that of Being [Cassirer 1925, pp. 38-39]. Strictly speaking, the first procedure, that of arranging reality in discrete mental representations, is the realm of mind. The second procedure, on the other hand, the linking of a material 'signifier' to a mental 'signified', is language-specific. The process of differentiating mentally at first and later giving names is a process of unbroken repetition: it is the foundation of a linguistic tradition that binds together all humanity - and one could say 'naturally.' To call water 'water' in a "natural" and unmarked way ensures us the prospect of obviousness and the resulting psychological stability, but, even before that, it creates the obviousness and organizes the world according to a process of abstraction and identification which is not "natural" and "obvious" at all. There is nothing natural in identifying varied phenomena in a single idea of 'water,' and further identifying this idea with the word water; for one cannot grasp the true nature and function of linguistic concepts if one regards them as copies, as representations of a definite world of facts, whose components are given to the human mind ab initio in stark and separate outlines. Again, the limits of things must first be posited, the outlines drawn, by the agency of language; and this is accomplished as man's activity becomes internally organized, and his conception of Being acquires a correspondingly clear and definite pattern [Cassirer 1925: 37].30 Marshack [1969: 225] considers the 'renewal' of figures evidence of a classification that has taken place: microscopic analysis revealed that the engraved animal images were not final or 'constant' (...) but that each horse image had been reused or renewed by the addition of parts. Apparently it was the concept of 'HORSE', rather than the particular drawing of a particular horse. This is the framework within which the constant 'renewals' of figures and signs are to be interpreted. In addition, the rhythmical series of signs can be taken as 'renewals'.31 § 6. Esthetics Long before rhythmical signs and figures appeared (about 1.5 millions year ago) the first traces of a sense of esthetics can be discerned in the bifacial tools made by Homo erectus. Les formes du biface sont sensiblement symétriques et devant la régularité des contours on ne peut échapper à l'hypothèse d'une perception esthétique des formes [Leroi-Gourhan 1981: 131]. 30 See also Cassirer [1923-29; 1933]. Kien [1991: 164] supposes that the dramatic increase in encephalization (1,600,000 to 300,000 years ago) «resulted in new pressure for better data management which was relatively simply achieved through developments in the data reduction structures already used in flexible motor planning. These had also expanded, most probably by replication, and instead of the parallel coupling which is the simplest result of replicative expansion, I suggest that they became coupled reiteratively. This serial coupling of data reduction mechanisms led to an exponential improvement of data reduction and to the formation of neural symbols which may be the basis of our ability to symbolize». It is worth noting that the supposed "neural symbolization" takes place by the means of repetition of the mechanism that we assume to be at the basis of the creative process of symbolic thought and language. 31 8 Symmetry itself is not particularly important - it surely repeats natural symmetries, like human ones - but it reflects the strengthening and a sharpening of perception, with the ability to distinguish discrete forms from a natural magma (§ 11). Esthetics clearly indicates the development of intellectual identification and classification procedures that form the basis for the birth of language.32 From such point of view the finds of red and yellow ochre in the Paleolithic are of great interest: Because red ochre plays a prominent role in behavior, especially in symbolic activities of prehistoric hunters, we assume that valid information on the use of red ochre is apt to contribute to the discussion on symbolism and the development of language [Wreschner 1985: 388]. It is generally acknowledged that red ochre plays an important role in the iconism and symbolic (ritual, magic, aesthetic) activities of Homo sapiens sapiens. Some scholars hold that the use of ochre dates back to the Lower Paleolithic.33 Wreschner [1985: 393] states: the earliest use of ochre, according to up-to-date finds, cannot be linked with Homo erectus. In Neanderthaloid sites as well the finds are sporadic and inconclusive. Evidence for the symbolic use of red color pigments is found in Middle Paleolithic sites, associated with Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. Neanderthal Man did not limit himself simply to using ochre; he gathered odd objects in prehistoric museum-like places. L'homme de Neandertal a porté le témoignage d'un progrès dans la perception des formes, dans le domaine de l'insolite (coquilles fossiles, pierres curieuses...). Plus tard (vers 40.000), du Châtelperron au Magdalénien (vers 8.000 ou 10.000), les formes insolites se rencontreront dans de nombreux sites (fossiles, cristaux de quartz ou de calcite, coquillages, dents d'animaux préparées pour la suspension). (...) Les Néandertaliens ou leurs contemporains ont ramassé des objets insolites dans lesquelles il est difficile de dire ce qu'ils y voyaient. Les Sapiens qui les ont suivis ont pratiqué la même quête de l'insolite, mais ils y ont ajouté un plan, celui de la reproduction figurative. Si la perception de l'insolite par les Paléanthropiens est une étape essentielle, la figuration symbolique est le signe décisif de l'accession aux valeurs abstraites. On connaît mal les tous premiers développements des tracés: quelques os marqués de traits irréguliers, un peu d'ocre rouge, sont les seuls témoignages d'une acquisition aussi importante. Jusqu'à preuve du contraire le Châtelperronien (circa 35.000) ne contient pas de figures explicites, animales ou autres, mais à profusion de l'ocre et de paquets de traits parallèles ou en touffes [Leroi-Gourhan 1981: 132]. § 7. Appaesamento Our knowledge and world-construct, which expresses itself through linguistic means, takes place through a process of appaesamento [see de Martino 1951-1952; 1977: 95-96, 219-230, 641-650]. It means that we create our world little by little, gradually expanding our known territory, as we wring it from the unknown. Through mind and language we give shape to the unknown, and make it known. We make the unusual familiar by expecting it - i.e. by the repetition. This appaesamento is the «domestication of the world» [de Martino 1977: 96]. To know, and thus to denominate, we go forward from the known to the unknown. Any new meaning shall necessarily receive an already existing name: it is not possible - and historically has never happened in language - for a completely new name to be created. Only an older name can be adapted to a new idea.34 There are no absolute novelties, just relative ones: «toute innovation a pris appui sur le préexistent» [LeroiGourhan 1964a: I, 296]; even «the new in language always germinates on something old» [Terracini 196263: 119]. 32 As Delmas states [1981: 149], a mind without speech can exist - as in music and plastic arts. Therefore the existence of cultural or intellectual activities is not a proof of the possession of articulated speech. 33 Marshack [1981] holds up the case of Terra Amata (± 230,000 years ago); according to Wreschner [1985: 392-393], on the other hand, «although human collecting of the Terra Amata ochres cannot be ruled out», there are no proofs of such manufacture. Nevertheless even the mere collection of ochre seems to me very significant. 34 Biological evolution does not create new organs either. Instead it transforms and refits preexisting ones: «The phylogenetic acquisition of the motor aspects of speech by Homo is the culmination of evolutionary changes that follow the principle that evolution is basically conservative. In this respect, the human vocal organ evolved by modification of the anatomy of the preexisting respiratory and swallowing systems and the nasal and oral regions, while the neural control systems regulating the vocal organ also evolved by subtle changes and additions within the circuitry of the nervous system» [Noback 1982: 287]. 9 The psychological mechanism of language appaesamento consists precisely in taking linguistic possession of a new concept through the application of an old name. In this way the unknown is transported into the known and put into the progressively larger sphere of the domestic, of the familiar, of plain concepts. I have stated elsewhere [Sanga 1990] that tradition, which is based on the repetition of what has already been done, is the place of change. Furthermore, tradition is a specific, sheltered state of change, of progress, and of the widening of the world. Tradition is a technique of appaesamento, a way of appropriating of the new. It allows us to elaborate the new without shock, because everything that happens is recognized as having already happened in illo tempore - the unknown is brought back into the known through the mechanism of "dehistorification".35 La vie des animaux est tendue sur le fil de l'espèce génétique, la vie des groupes humains ne peut affronter la substitution de l'ordre ethnique à l'ordre génétique que sous le couvert d'un temps, d'un espace et d'une société entièrement symboliques, interposés comme le rivage d'une île entre la stabilité nécessaire et le mouvement anarchique du monde naturel [Leroi-Gourhan 1964a: II, 138]. Culture, by means of the fundamental institution of magic [de Martino 1948, 1959, 1977], founds a stable and traditionalized horizon of representation (...) thanks to the institution of a metahistorical level that (...) serves as the site for 'dehistorification' of what is to come, i.e. as the place where, through the repetition of identical operational models, the historical proliferation of events can be reabsorbed and thus severed from its current potential negative [de Martino 1977: 72]. The unknown, potentially destabilizing, is brought back into known categories: thus it is possible «to be in history as if not being in history» [de Martino 1977: 222]. Language is the first and most important form of tradition. And, we know, the strong traditional character of language (with repetition and imitation inherent in the very mechanisms that make it up) does not prevent the transmission of new content. Rather, it is traditional form, already set and well-known, that allows for the transmission of new messages - always new yet always intelligible, because it is always possible to assimilate them to something known. The need to be understood compels us to seek what is already there and intelligible [W. von Humboldt 182021: 413]. No component of a language can enter another and survive, unless there is in the receiving language a corresponding element, to which it can be assimilated [Terracini 1935: 29]. In a wider sense, such correspondence affects comprehension among speakers: a property of language is «that it can be analyzed by another speaker: therefore can be imitated and reproduced» [Terracini 1935: 28]. Through language, thought expression is appaesata: from unknown it is transformed into known. Any new message can be expressed in language only within the confines of language, where all possible expression is already potentially present. The very constitution of language determines phonological order out of phonetic chaos. The number of phonemes in a given language is fixed, and remarkably small compared to the natural possibilities. The speaker is subject to formal phonological limitations, even before the grammatical, lexical, stylistic considerations come into play. Phonology constrains expression to a given, limited number of sounds. Thus the new is again virtually known already, because it is expressed by the combination of given elements following strict rules. In fact, it is possible to express only what is provided by linguistic form, but this is the condition itself for the expression to be possible. The alternative is magmatic chaos, which - without identification - could never meet nor satisfy either the speaker or the listener. It means that the world can be lived in only through the itinera established by the social project of utilization. In fact, the world consists of such itinera: steady or subject to change and renewal, depending on type of society or culture. Therefore we will never know the 'thing itself,' unless it passes through a domestication process. Every different 'world,' then, as long as it is conditioned by such a project, reflects the limit of the project itself [de Martino 1977: 648]. § 8. Arbitrariness 35 The concept of "dehistorification" was set forth by de Martino [1953-1954, 1959, 1977]; a similar concept was already expressed by Marx [1857: 198-199], quoted by Lanternari [1976: 12-13]. 10 If language develops through appaesamento, then there is no linguistic arbitrariness.36 Language is then neither arbitrary nor conventional: it is simply necessary. Therefore the monogenesis of language is not optional, but compulsory. In language everything has its own reason, as etymology shows. The linguistic sign is not arbitrary: it is simply not transparent, and one has to wonder why the sign appears as constitutionally opaque. In fact, we interpret as arbitrariness the protective psychological function that has put ready-made, ready-to-use linguistic objects at our disposal. The reason is because the removal of motivation prevents us from recognizing the genesis of the meanings each time we use them: it allows us to avoid recreating the meaning from scratch. Thus, the removal of motivation is a sort of dehistorification that guarantees self-evidence, familiarity, appaesamento, and non-problematic usage. Motivated meaning, on the other hand, is always problematic, as is etymology. Language is not arbitrary: it becomes arbitrary, and the 'arbitrariness' of the sign is a precondition for an everyday, mechanical use of language. Thus language takes part in the pratiques élémentaires, dont les chaînes se constituent dès la naissance, qui marquent le plus fortement l'individu de son empreinte ethnique. (...) Les pratiques élémentaires constituent les programmes vitaux de l'individu, tout ce qui dans les gestes quotidiens intéresse sa survie comme élément social: habitus corporel, pratiques d'alimentation ou d'hygiène, gestes professionnels, comportement de relation avec les proches. Ces programmes, dont le fonds est immuable, s'organisent en chaînes de gestes stéréotypées dont la répétition assure l'équilibre normal du sujet dans le milieu social et son propre confort psychique à l'intérieur du groupe [Leroi-Gourhan 1964a: II, 30, 28-29].37 On the need for 'automatized' (i.e. 'mechanical') use of language, Liebermann [1975: 15] claims that: no conscious thought is expended in the process of speech production, speech perception, or any of the syntactic stages that may intervene between the semantic content of the message and the acoustic signal. (...) The bases for the automatized behavior that is a necessary condition for human language may reside in cross-modal transfers from other systems of hominid and primate behavior? Tool use, for example, requires a high degree of automatization. You can't stop to think how to use a hammer every time you drive a nail in. Hunting is perhaps a still stronger case. A successful hunter must be able to thrust a spear or throw a stone without pausing to think about the mechanics of spear thrusting or stone throwing. Natural selection would quickly favor the retention of superior automatization. Automatized behavior pervades all aspects of culture. Indeed a cultural response is, to a degree, a special case of automatized behavior. § 9. Lexicon As a first step, identification takes place segmenting and classifying the chaotic continuum of external reality, and this makes it possible to establish signified and signifiers. These are then linked in the sign, through the basic intellectual operation of establishing abstract connections. This leads to the formation of a network that confines reality, giving it meaning and shape by means of a lexicon, an open-ended catalogue of mental images. These, through language, then become material images. The exchange of material images that constitutes linguistic intercourse transforms the individual's mental image into a collective, social picture. The establishment of a lexicon, both material and mental, is evident in the modeling of tools and rhythmical signs, i.e. in their standardization, which makes them recognizable as ideally identical, and in the project that underlies any deliberate use of signs. In the Upper Paleolithic a leap in the quality of the lexicon can actually be seen: it now appears completely settled and available to ideological contents: La constance extraordinaire du dispositif symbolique est la preuve qu'il existait une mythologie, constituée très tôt puisqu'à l'Aurignacien déjà, le couplage des animaux et des signes est attesté [Leroi-Gourhan 1964b: 151]. We can see a linguistic rhetoric at work that establishes lexical widening and specification by means of chains of ideological identifications: L'équivalence signe féminin-blessure ouvre un réseau de correspondances extrêmement intéressant. Qu'un bison puisse indifféremment porter sur le flanc une vulve ou une blessure donne, de manière inexplicite mais sensible, l'accès vers une véritable métaphysique de la mort [Leroi-Gourhan 1964b: 150-151]. 36 The notion of linguistic arbitrariness is, however, employed in glottogonic studies by Noble and Davidson [1991] and Alinei [1996]. 37 On the importance of "mechanical" behavior see Leroi-Gourhan [1964a: 271-274]. 11 It is possible that ideological contents were present in the Middle and Lower Paleolithic, too, and even expressed: the problem is that we are not able to interpret them. It seems to me that the Upper Paleolithic Revolution consists precisely in this: we can make out Crô-Magnon Man's lexicon, while Neanderthal's is obscure. I do not believe that we are necessarily cut off from the ability to understand Australopithecus, Archanthropus, and Paleoanthropus; instead I believe we can suppose a language for Homo sapiens sapiens and even a speech of our type, organized like historically known human languages (§ 19): «La figuration graphique naît avec le premier développement de l'homo sapiens [sapiens], ce qui constitue une indication précieuse» [Leroi-Gourhan 1964a: II, 209]. § 10. Semantics Mario Alinei's penetrating research [1984] on the use of kinship names for animals poses a problem: Why, in the world's languages, are animals called with kinship names? For example, compare: Latin amma 'owl = mother'; avis 'bird = grandmother' (cf. avia = grandmother); Greek delphís 'dolphin = brother' (cf. adelphós = brother); Finnish ukko 'bear = grandfather'; Hungarian komám 'wolf = my godfather';38 Latvian snots 'wolf = son-in-law'; Czech babka 'stag beetle = grandmother'; Russian babo cka 'butterfly = granny'; Ukrainian djadko 'wolf = little uncle'; Danish brud 'weasel = young bride'; dialectal German gevatterle 'weasel = little godfather', herr gevatter 'fox = Master', müemelein 'toad = auntie, granny', broder martin 'hare = brother Martin'; Spanish comadreja 'weasel = little Mistress'; Portuguese norinha 'weasel = little daughter-in-law'; dialectal French mon cusin 'fox = my cousin', parent 'cuckoo = relative', grand'mère 'spider = grandmother', ma comère Margot 'magpie = my godmother Margot'; dialectal Italian barbagianni 'barn owl = uncle John', compare Piero 'golden oriole = godfather Peter', zia Maria 'ladybug = aunt Mary', mamma Maria 'snail = mother Mary'; dialectal Turkish aba 'bear = father'; Arabic sirsa 'weasel = bride'; and so on. Alinei [1984] considers the kinship animal names a relict of totemism. Now, aside from the use of a controversial category such as totemism,39 the hypothesis itself is inadequate, if one considers other archaic naming categories, which were also studied by Alinei. Why are plants, atmospheric phenomena, diseases called with animal names? We can see a few examples, taken from Italian dialects unless otherwise noted [Alinei 1984; Sanga 1987, 1989b]: (a) plants: volpe 'mullein = fox', lupo 'Anthirrinum maius = wolf', capra 'Bellis perennis = goat', serpe 'Linaria vulgaris = snake'; Provençal sap 'fir-tree = toad' (cf. Spanish sapo 'toad'), etc.; (b) atmospheric phenomena: volpe 'rain with sunshine = fox', capra 'quivering of air = goat', delfino 'lightning = dolphin', baleno 'lightning = whale', drago 'rainbow = dragon'; Belorussian smok 'rainbow = snake'; Slovenian mavrica 'rainbow = black cow'; dialectal German regenwurm 'rainbow = rain worm'; etc.; (c) diseases and disorders: golpe 'smut = fox', ruga 'wart = caterpillar', vermi 'worms (children's desease) = worms', scimmia 'drunkenness = monkey', biligornia 'gloom = blindworm'; Latin scrofula 'scrofula = sow', and so on. Which comes first? The animal name or the kinship name? The animal name or that of the plant or disease? I think that answer can be found in a linguistic appaesamento process. Kinship names are the first created by humans; as their elementary and universal forms show, as in Italian: papà, 'daddy'; mama, 'mummy'; bebè, 'baby'; nanna, 'beddy-bye'; tata, 'nanny' (§§ 11, 14). They were the first terms available to man to name anything different from himself and his relatives. Therefore, from the very start, names of relatives were used to indicate animals, because these were of the greatest interest to Paleolithic hunters. Then, in ever wider circles, these animal names were applied to plants, diseases, and atmospheric phenomena. And this archaic nomenclature, the sole possibility at the time, in the end comes down to us. § 11. The Making and Unmaking of Speech Roman Jakobson [1941] pointed out the following phonological stages of language acquisition in children: 1. Syntagmatic opposition: consonant (labial stop) ~ vowel (open): /pa/. 2. Paradigmatic opposition: oral consonant (labial) ~ nasal consonant (labial): /papa/ ~ /mama/. 3. Consonant place opposition: labial ~ dental: /papa/ ~ /tata/, /mama/ ~ /nana/. 38 39 Marinella Lőrinczi informs that this form is a vocative used only in folk-tales. For a convincing critical opinion of totemism see Lévi-Strauss [1962]. 12 This is the minimal consonant system shared by all of the world's languages (labials can be replaced by labiovelars /kw/). 4. Vowel opening opposition: open ~ close: /papa/ ~ /pipi/. Very often /a/ has a higher variant, both free (/papa/ ~ /pMpM/) and combinatory - i.e. [a] after labial, [M] after dental (/papa/ ~ /tMtM/). 5. The high vowel splits according to palatal ~ velar opposition (/pipi/ ~ /pupu/), establishing a three-vowel system (/a/ ~ /i/ ~ /u/) which is the minimum system for every language in the world.40 This can be either triangular, that is governed by localization (central [a]; front [i]/[e]; back [u]/[o]) or linear, governed by height (low [a], middle [e]/[o], high [i]/[u]), depending on prosodic phonology and on the adjacent consonants [see also Trubeckoj 1939: 116]. In short: the baby's first, prephonological stage is characterized by the 'coo', which consists in uttering non-vowel and non-consonantal sounds. Later, the consonants appear, with simple vocalic support ([p] realized as [p ] or similar). Here the first phonological opposition arises: consonants (closed) ~ vowels (open): /pa/. Sonority is an additional feature in a vowel: therefore, with the first opposition the voiceless characteristic of the consonant appears. The syntagmatic relationship precedes the paradigmatic one. First we have consonant + vowel; only later is a distinction made between oral consonants ~ nasal consonants. Back sounds are acquired after front ones, fricatives after plosives. Affricates come even later. The open ~ close opposition appears first among high vowels, and particularly the front ones. Rounded front vowels are acquired after non-rounded ones. It should be noted in particular that: when k finally appears, mistakes in the use of both phonemes (k, t) arise at first, especially those caused by a hypercorrect repression of the expected t in favor of k, which is sometimes inaccurately interpreted as a sound change of t > k (...) In the development of child language, k therefore merges with t, and only later does k emerge as a separate phoneme [Jakobson 1941: 54]. In aphasics, k and g disappear: the back oral stops, as is well known, become t and d, or else the difference between k, g and t, d is preserved, but k, g had changed to a glottal stop, which, from the point of view of the phonemic system, subsumes only the distinctive feature of closure (or explosion) and consequently functions as an "indeterminate stop phoneme" [Jakobson 1941: 61]. In a number of languages there is just one liquid: the distinction /r/ ~ /l/ is late.41 In aphasics the voiced sounds become voiceless and we find the process of speech acquisition turned upside-down in general. Phonemes acquired late are lost first, and the first sounds to appear are the last to vanish. Certain phonological processes, more than specific phonemes, such as plosion (/fino/ → /pino/), fronting (/kasa/ → /tasa/), the lenition of a consonant to a glide (/meSo/ → /mejo/), reduplication, the reduction (/asparago/ → /aparago/) or assimilation (/fosko/ → /fos:o/) of consonant clusters, the loss of final consonant (/gratis/ → /grati/), devoicing (/abete/ → /apete/), denasalizing (/mimo/ → /mipo/), and other processes constitute normative, regular deviations both in child's speech and in speech pathologies [Rapallo 1994: 276]. Fundamentally, the infant's process of acquiring phonological distinctions is very close to the original phonetic system supposed on the basis of comparative work by Alfredo Trombetti [1908: 355]: The primitive phonetic system was, of course, very simple, and made up of the most easily articulated sounds: the five vowels, the plosives k, t, p and the nasals n, m. The i could often shift to é or ái, éi and the u to ó or áu, éu. The voiced plosives g, d, b are found in particular environments as equivalents of voiceless k, t, and p. The s is of a secondary origin, as is likely for r - l. The whole subsequent wealth of sounds was the consequence of two major factors: stress and the influence of one sound over an other. I do not believe that further studies will lead to further reductions. Rather, a curious fact worth noting is the likelihood that the aspiration h, at least in the initial position, is primordial. 40 John Trumper informs that the minimum split with maximal use of acustic space is in terms of a two-vowel system (high ∼ low opposition: /ï/ or / / ∼ /a/); see Ladefoged & Maddieson [1990]. 41 See the fundamental study of Trubeckoj [1939] on phonological universals. 13 § 12. Distinctiveness Language development appears as a process of gradually increasing distinctions, the specification and separation of discrete features from a chaotic whole. Les marques rythmiques sont antérieures aux figures explicites, mais celles-ci s'intègrent, par addition, comme s'il s'agissait d'un seul contexte progressivement explicité par des symboles visuels [Leroi-Gourhan 1964a: II, 220]. Leroi-Gourhan's remark is, as usual, very keen, and again allows us to link the evolution of manual language (graphism) to that of the vocal language (speech). In the development of language, the material sign (a notch, a syllable) at first appears alone and undifferentiated. Step by step, it acquires articulations and distinctions, due to an «adaptation progressive du dispositif moteur d'expression à des sollicitations cérébrales de plus en plus nuancées» [Leroi-Gourhan 1964a: I, 266]. This hypothesis can be corroborated by 'etymological' analysis of the evolution of Paleolithic signs. As in linguistic etymology, the form and meaning of the sign can deviate a great deal from their original stages, through subsequent extension and specification [see Sanga 1995]. Trombetti [1905: 355] refers to «movement from indistinct to distinct, that reoccurs throughout human language history, while the opposite movement is uncommon, and a sign of regression». Jakobson [1941: 65] states that in the gradual development from childhood of the phonological system, as well as in the development of the different sections of the mind studied by psychologists, «development proceeds "from an undifferentiated original condition to a greater and greater differentiation and separation" (E. Jaensch)». The gradual linguistic differentiation of sounds and meanings is appaesamento, acquisition of the 'linguistic world', and corresponds to our progressive increase in sensorial stimuli. We achieve the first syllable, /pa/, when we can distinguish, and consequently oppose, consonant and vowel. There we need the greatest distinction, because our sensorial abilities are still approximate; thus we take the most closed consonant /p/ and the most open vowel /a/. Step by step we become able to grasp further distinctions: oral ~ nasal, /pa/ ~ /ma/; voiceless ~ voiced, /pa/ ~ /ba/; and so on. Let us take the example of 'foot' and 'feather' in Indo-European languages: an archaic signifier *PET (labial + vowel + dental), that surely meant 'foot,'42 further specified itself, by achieving the feature [+ voice] in the pair: 1) *ped / *pod, 'foot, leg, track',43 whence Latin p s < *ped- 'foot', Greek póus < *p od- 'foot', Sanskrit pada h 'foot', Gothic fotu < * p od- 'foot', Hittite pada- 'foot'; 2) *pet 'wing', whence Latin penna < pesna < *petsn a 'wing, feather', Greek pterón 'swing, down', Sanskrit pát ami 'I fly', Hittite pattar 'wing', Old High German fedara < *pet- 'wing, down'. With the acquisition of plosive ~ fricative distinction a further specification was available: 3) *pes 'penis, tail', whence Latin *pesnis > p enis 'penis, tail', Greek péos 'penis' Sanskrit pása h 'penis', Old High German fasal 'penis' and fazel 'foetus' [see Ernout-Meillet 1959]. It is of some interest to see an Australian case, where semantic differentiation creates a somewhat similar set of meanings, entailing 'penis', 'tail' and 'baby'. From the reconstructed Proto-Pama-Nyungan form *pIlyi come Wallal Nyangumarta pilyi 'penis', Pintupi pilyi 'vagina', pilyirr 'baby', Nyungar pily 'umbilicus, navel', Wadjuk BIL-YI 'navel', Proto-Kanyara *pilhi 'buttocks', *pilyarr 'baby', Gugu-Yalanji piji 'tail' [O'Grady 1990: 470].44 In terms of phonology, Trubeckoj [1939: 152-157] described the split of a basic series into two kindred series, sharing a bilateral opposition: for instance, apicals split into dentals and alveolars, retroflex and laminals, dentals and pre-palatals; labials into bilabials and labiodentals. A classical example of distinction comes from Berlin and Kay's research on colors, where: 42 It does not have to be reconstructed with the use of algebraic additions like 'locomotive limb'. On ablaut (vowel alternation), typical of the Indo-European languages, see below (§ 12). 44 It is probably interesting to note that Native Australians, who are thought not to know biological paternity, employ the same linguistic root for 'penis', 'vagina' and 'baby'. In fact, biological paternity is by no means unknown among Native Australians: it is just concealed for ideological reasons, as Arioti [1980] has shown. 43 14 A hierarchy, or series of implicational universals, emerges: all languages have foci for 'black' and 'white;' if a language has three basic color terms, then the third has the focus of 'red'; if a language has five basic color terms, then the foci of 'green' and 'yellow' are those added to this list (but if there are four terms, the fourth may be either 'green' or 'yellow', with no hierarchical preference among these two); six-term color systems add 'blue'; seven-term systems add 'brown'. This is diagrammed below: white green > red black > > blue > brown yellow The above statement of a hierarchy is readily turned into a series of implicational universals, with the following form: if a language has a color term with the focus 'blue', then necessarily it has color terms with the foci 'white', 'black', 'red', 'green', and 'yellow' [Comrie 1981: 34]. As can be clearly see, these implicational universals bring evidence to bear in favor of the theory of monogenesis, since they show the mechanisms of linguistic appaesamento - namely broadening by distinction, which leads all languages forward from indistinct origins towards increasingly refined distinctions. Following Comrie [1981: 35], «the hierarchy of foci given above can be correlated with colour perception, thus providing one example of a psychological explanation of a linguistic universal». But this is a mere tautology: sensorial perception sharpens itself little by little, like language; perceptive and linguistic distinctions are parallel, as well as interwoven. They are the two sides of the same coin. The process of distinction runs parallel to the specification of prehistoric drawing, going from abstract to concrete, starting from a single sign, the stroke, which corresponds to the basic tool, the stick, on the technological level, and to the penis, on the ideological plane. See the analysis of prehistoric 'sexual' signs in Leroi-Gourhan [1964a, 1964b] and below, § 16.1. § 13. Alternations The process of progressive distinction is thus clear if we consider the number of phonetic alternations, i.e. the coexistence in etymologically related words of sounds that share a phonological opposition. That allows the reconstruction of a kind of archiphoneme. Of course, alternations tend to specialize, by assuming a semantic or grammatical meaning (see §§ 2; IV, 16). Phonetic alternations are prominent in commonly defined archaic languages: Substratum languages (Basque, Libyan-Berber, Sardinian, Ligurian, Etruscan, non-Indo-European Anatolian languages, Caucasian languages) show peculiarities ('indicators') at different levels, for instance, on a phonological plane, the a vocalism, s-, -nt- (Greek -ινϑος [-inthos]), p/ph, k/g, e/i, o/u, r/l, labiovelar/ velar alternations [Rapallo 1994: 213]. Such alternations can be widely proven even for Indo-European languages, and their number will increase with further etymological research. This will avoid merely considering 'similar' terms that are actually identical, whose sole characteristic is an archaic phonetic appearance. Now we can consider a few examples of attempts to reconstruct an 'archiphoneme' on the basis of alternation: - from the split of N > n/r (see § 14) the rolled r/nasal n alternation must derive. It was studied by Benveniste [1935] and it appears as a relic in Indo-European languages, but it is still operative in Hittite [see Martinet 1986: 173-175]. Consider for example the following nominative ~ genitive pairs: Latin iter ~ itineris (from a former *itinis) 'travel'; Greek ýdor ~ ýdatos (< *yd n-) 'water'; Sanskrit ás rk/ás rt ~ asná h 'blood'; Hittite es har ~ es hanas 'blood'45 [see Pokorny 1994: 343]; - from the split of a labial (B or M) the bh/m alternation must derive. This is attested in the dative, ablative and instrumental plural. In the majority of Indo-European languages, these cases end with *bh, while in Germanic, Baltic and Slavonic languages the ending is m - see Latin n o-bis, matching with the Russian na-m [Martinet 1986: 175-177]; - from the split of E > e/o the qualitative gradation of Indo-European languages must derive, that is, the e/o alternation with morphological value: for example, Latin teg o 'I cover' / toga 'toga, blanket'; Greek phér- o 45 For a "Nostratic" comparison of terms for 'blood' see Rapallo [1994: 195-200]. 15 'I bring' / phor-á 'transport', léip- o 'I leave' / lé-loip-a 'I have left' [see. Brugmann 1904, §§ 210-216; Pisani 1961, §§ 11-14; Szemerényi 1985: 109-122]. Very similar alternations can be found in other language families. A couple of examples may be considered: - in Austronesian languages we find ablaut that can assume a partial distinctive function: *k b / *kub 'cover' ~ *kab 'open, uncover' ~ *kib 'open a little', *k s / *kus 'wrap' ~ *kas 'loosen, untie' [Zorc 1990: 183]; - in Australian Languages there is a liquid ~ nasal alternation: Some patrilects have an intervocalic r in certain words where others have an n, for example Uwanh, Ugbanh, Muminh iiru 'this', aara 'that' versus Mu'inh, Iyanh, Yi'anh inu and ana (...) Alternation between n and r without any difference in vowel length is also found in the pronouns. This alternation would appear to go back to the proto-language (...), but it is interesting that it has been retained as a marker of patrilectal difference [Johnson 1990: 426].46 § 14. Reduplication The oldest known graphic language, rhythmical signs (§ 4), made by regular striking, is based on repetition, i.e. reduplication. It finds its precise correspondent in an infant's earliest language production, which are all syllabic reduplications. Indeed, the terms of baby talk, those used by the infant to indicate parents and selfconcerning reality, are made up of syllabic reduplication with mostly labial (/m/, /p/, /b/) consonants and later dental (/n/, /t/, /d/) consonants, the first two series achieved by a baby. Compare Italian mamma 'mummy', papà 'daddy', pappa 'pap', pipì 'wee-wee', pupù/popò 'poop', babbo 'daddy', bibi/bubu 'ouch, boohoo', nanna 'beddy-bye', nonna 'granny', tata 'nanny, she-baby'. The same forms, or forms structurally the same, can be found in any language, old or modern: - for 'mummy' we have Greek mámm e, Latin amma, Rumanian îmă, Albanian ëmë, Basque ama, Berber imma, Hebrew em, Arabic umm, Tuareg m ama, Sumerian ama, Accadian ummu, Sanskrit nan a, Hittite anna, Lydian ena, etc.; - for 'daddy' we have Tibetan pa-pha, Serbo-Croatian babo, Russian tata, Albanian at, Gothic atta, Latin tata, Greek átta, Hittite atta, Lycian tedi, Sanskrit att a, Elamite atta, Turkish atta, etc. [Sanga 1979: 294295]. It is likely that unreduplicated syllabic structures (i.e. differentiated ones) develop only from the Upper Paleolithic, in parallel to figures drawn by Homo sapiens sapiens. Reduplication is still at work in our languages, but always in archaic or fringe areas. It is confined to ideologically negative parts of language, such as rudimentary forms of speech: children's language, or defective speech, such as stammering (Latin balbutt ire, Sanskrit balbal akar oti, Italian balbettare 'to stammer'), foreigner's talk, unintelligible speech (Greek bárbaros 'foreigner'), animal noises (Latin tutub are 'to utter the owl's cry', pipi are 'to utter the pigeon's cry'), names given to stupid people or those who do not speak properly (Latin babulus, Italian babbeo 'silly person'). Reduplications appear in linguistic fossils too, such as personal pronouns [see Trombetti 1908: 8] or the perfect, aorist and present tenses of a number of verbs: compare Latin bi-bit, Sanskrit pi-bati 'drinks',47 Greek dí-d omi 'I give'; Latin ce-cin i perfect of can o 'I sing'; Greek pe-pithêin, aorist of péith o 'I convince' [Brugmann 1904; Pisani 1961; Szemerényi 1985]. In general these venerable terms tend towards simplification: nevertheless, comparison with parallel reduplicated forms shows that they are ancient. Consider, for instance, a basic term for the Paleolithic hunters' nomadism, the root KWEL meaning 'to turn, to go round, to wander': Lat. col o 'I dwell (< I move through a region; I am a nomad)'; Greek pélomai 'I move', Sanskrit cárati 'he wanders'; and also 'neck (< that which turns)': Latin collus, Gothic hals, with reduplication Lithuanian k klas. The same root is later reemployed to mean 'wheel': Old Church Slavonic kolo, Old Prussian kelan; with reduplication Greek kýklos 'circle', Sanskrit cakrá- 'wagon wheel, circle', Avestan caxra- 'wheel', Anglo-Saxon hw eol > English 46 47 'Patrilects' are the tongues of 'patriclans', the exogamous patrilineal clans [Johnson 1990: 421]. Here Martinet [1986: 143] considers reduplication a «widespread procedure to mark continuity of action». 16 wheel, Tocharian A kukäl 'wagon'. Reduplicated forms have parallels outside Indo-European. For the meaning 'wagon' we find: Sumerian gigir, Semitic *galgal, Kartvelian *grgar [see Alinei, 1996: 266-267]. Many kinds of syllabic reduplications are possible:48 - full, with open syllable (the internal consonant may be double by prosodic phonology): MA-MA > MAMMA 'mummy'; KU-KU 'cuckoo', Latin cu-c u-lus; - full, with closed syllable: Hittite mar-mar(r)-a- 'marsh'; Greek bár-bar-os 'foreigner'; - broken (only the first consonant is repeated in the second syllable), both with open syllables: Latin ba-b-ulus 'silly'; and with closed syllable: Latin bal-b-us 'stammering'; - with chiasmus: Hittite at-ta 'daddy'. Outside the Indo-European languages, reduplication is well-known. To limit ourselves to archaic language groups, it is of greatest importance in Austronesian languages: Reduplication has been an ongoing process in the history of the Austronesian languages, subsuming many functions in both nouns and verbs. However, the many reduplicated monosyllables that must be posited for Proto-Austronesian and the majority of its descendants appear to have been lexicalized at the earliest inferable period. As noted already, all securely reconstructed monosyllables in Austronesian are either grammatical particles or onomatopoeia. Reduplicated monosyllables such as *butbut 'pluck, uproot' or *ka ka 'spread apart (legs, fishhook)' thus cannot be attributed to morphological processes which operated after the dispersal of Proto-Austronesian. Reduplicated monosyllables often exhibit sound changes which set them apart from other word-forms [Blust 1990: 238]. In Australian languages [O'Grady 1990] reduplications are normal, both within the root (e.g. pu-pu 'flower, blossom') and of the whole word (e.g. luntu-luntu 'dense pall of smoke as from bushfire'). Stopa [1983] reconstructs original redoubled forms for Bushman's languages. § 15. Prosodic Phonology Reduplicated forms allow us to advance a hypothesis about the mechanisms of phonetic differentiation. This would be problematic in an isolated syllable, but it is much simpler in a series of syllables. These tend to differentiate as a «consequence of two main factors, stress and the influence of one sound over an other» [Trombetti 1908: 355]. Following Trombetti, «only the voiceless, or strong, consonants, k-, t-, and p-, [are] primitive, while the voiced, or lenis, derive from the strong consonant in intervocalic position, or in unstressed syllables». As a matter of fact, initial voiced consonants are very uncommon. «The stressed, or oxytone, syllables show strong consonants because of their greater strength; while the unstressed, or baritone, syllables present lenis consonants, which are weaker (...). The sounds s, z, r, l are of secondary origin». Liquids, as well as s, «derive, at least in a number of instances, from dental plosives» [Trombetti 1908: 350-351].49 Here are a few mechanisms of prosodic phonology that could cause differentiation: phonetic at first, then phonological, because, according to the principle of exploitation (§ 2. IV) any difference may become distinctive. 1) Stress creates different syllabic patterns. For instance, in Italian, children's language baritone forms have the internal consonant doubled (màm-ma, nàn-na, pàp-pa, àt-ta, but tà-ta), while oxytone forms have it single (pa-pà, pi-pì, pu-pù). 2) Vowels produce allophones if adjacent to consonants: /a/, for instance, may have a rounded variant [A] after labials, and a back variant [æ] after dentals: PAPA > [pApA], TATA > [tætæ] (see § 10.4). In archaic Australian languages assimilation of vowel to consonant is common; shift of *u to i following an apical; shift of *i to u following a labial; shift of a back vowel to i adjacent to a laminal [O'Grady 1990: 466]. 48 Here, we should quote consonant reduplications as well, usually regarded as 'expressive' or 'popular': in Latin we have both compensatory lengthening (c apo / cappo 'capon', b aca / bacca 'berry', st upa / stuppa 'tow', c upa / cuppa 'goblet', m ucus / muccus 'mucus') and non-compensatory lengthening, with a greater semantic meaning (baculum / bacculum 'stick', br utus / br uttus 'stupid', p utus / p uttus 'child') [cf. Sanga 1979: 234]. 49 Martinet [1986: 136 ff.] claims that it is also due to prosodic phonology and stress that /a/ splits into two allophones, palatal [æ] and velar [A] (whence /e/ e /o/ respectively). 17 3) Consonants produce allophones if adjacent to vowels: /k/ may have a velar variant [k] before a central vowel /a/, a palatalized variant [kj] before a front vowel /i/, a labiovelar variant [kw] before a back rounded vowel /u/: KAKA > [kaka], KIKI > [kjikji], KUKU > [kwukwu].50 4) Voicing of voiceless intervocalic consonants, by assimilation of the sonority feature of vowels, and further lenition to fricatives may occur: PIPI > [pibi] > [piβi], TATA > [tada] > [taδa]. Australian languages, for example, have no phonological distinction between voiceless and voiced consonants: Historically, the voicing contrast arose via secondary split. A single series of stops has voiced allophones following long vowels and voiceless allophones following short vowels. The vowel length contrast was lost, while the voicing distinction was retained (...) The voicing contrast in Nganhcara is found in all positions except word initially and following a long vowel. However, in the Muminh patrilect, intervocalic voiced velars are always preceded by a long vowel, and are (nondistinctively) fricative [Johnson 1990: 426].51 5) Doubled plosives in homorganic nasal + stop may split: PAPPA > [pampa], ATTA > [anta], with a corresponding shift of doubled nasals to nasal + homorganic stop: MAMMA > [mamba], ANNA > [anda]. Such phenomena are widespread. See, for example, Italian rendere 'to give back, to restore' < Latin reddere, Brescian dialect ambià 'to start' < *abbiare < Latin advi are, Italian cant lóffio / lónfio 'bad' [cf. Sanga 1979: 235].52 6) The split of dental stops generates the liquids, alternating with nasals: ATTA > [anta] / [arta]. See for instance the Indo-European root for 'stammerer', with a number of reduplicated forms and nasal/liquid alternations: *bal-bal-, ba-bal-, bam-bal-, bam-b-, bal-b- [Pokorny 1994: 91]. Liquid sounds find specialization as the word-final allophone, because they could not stand word-initially at first.53 The nasal, on the other hand, is employed as an internal allophone, though it could also be initial. This is the situation typified by n/r alternations, such as Latin iter/itineris 'travel' (see § 13). 7) The split of the dental stop also generates the /s/ [see Trombetti 1908: 351, quoted above). A very archaic state is testified by Proto-Austronesian, where «*R probably was an alveolar or uvular trill. Its most common reflexes are /g/, /l/, /r/, and zero, with /h/, /s/ and /y/ also occurring» [Blust 1990: 257]. However in Latin we know of d > r and s > r shifts (rhotacism): i.e. mer idi es 'noon' < *medio-di es, ped es / peres 'feet', hon os / hon oris 'honor' [see Pisani 1961 § 71]. Palatal (/r/ > /j/) and velar/uvular (/r/ > /R/) evolution of the trill is found in Italian dialects. For instance, /mo'RiRe/ 'to die' < Latin mor ire, /sεja/ 'evening' < Latin s era [see Rohlfs 1966-69, § 224]. Most Australian languages have two rhotic phonemes (although some show three, and a few just one). Phonetic realization varies a good deal, but there is normally one 'front rhotic' which has as central allophone an apico-alveolar trill, and one 'back rhotic' which has as a central allophone an apico-postalveolar continuant [Dixon 1990: 394]. If we relate other differently widespread phenomena, like the r- > w- shift in aphasics,54 or the shift from Latin final -s to Romance -j [see Lausberg 1976 § 536], we ought to suppose a unique origin for all resonants (nasals, liquids, sibilants, glides) that have a vocalic allophone (m/ m, n/ n, r/ r, l/ l, s/ s, j/i, w/u). § 16. Language Awareness We have seen that, even if language becomes arbitrary (§ 8), at the very beginning every form is produced by a watchful linguistic consciousness, which assigns value to any difference (§ 2. IV). Now we can consider three grammatical examples of ideological exploitation, namely gender, negation and personal pronouns. 50 This is presumably the starting point for the three guttural series of Indo-European (velars, labiovelars and palatals). Martinet [1986, 161-168], following Gamkrelidze, reconstructs three original series of Indo-European stops, on the basis of the state of the glottis: neutral glottis T, closed glottis (glottalized) T?, open glottis (aspirates) TH. Plosive consonants would be then all voiceless, while only resonants (vowels, nasals and liquids) would be voiced. Such a series might have evolved in different ways: either by voicing of neutral stop T > D; or by voicing the glottal T? > D. 52 Such a mechanism seems to be still at work in cant, and that strengthens the argument put forward in § 20. 53 There are a number of languages where liquids cannot be found word-initially: e.g. in Proto-Altaic «neither the liquids nor the velar nasal were used word-initially» [Bomhard 1990: 343]. A confirmation is given from aphasics, where r- disappears, shifting to w- [see Rapallo 1994: 278]. 54 See previous note. 51 18 1. Gender. The most widespread and unchanging Paleolithic signs have been interpreted by Leroi-Gourhan as 'sexual' signs, that is «symboles de caractère sexuel masculin et féminin» [Leroi-Gourhan 1964b: 93]. The male sign has the shape of a little stick, the female one is essentially circular. In the beginning: ils n'avaient même probablement pas en vue la représentation de la copulation (car on ne possède aucun témoin figuré humain ou animal), mais un fait plus général, lié à la conception d'un univers dans lequel les phénomènes se complètent dans l'opposition puisqu'en définitive tout système de référence est fondé sur l'alternance des contraires, jour-nuit, chaud-froid, feu-eau, homme-femme, etc. [Leroi-Gourhan 1964a: II, 250-251]. In the Paleolithic, as well as among present hunting communities, there was an «image sexualisée de la chasse» [Leroi-Gourhan 1964b: 151; see Arioti 1980] with a clear equivalence between 'throwing weapon' and 'penis' (they receive the same 'stick' sign) and between 'wound' and 'vagina' (indicated by an open or circular sign). Now, since the basic signs of writing are expressed ideologically, I wonder if the same has not occurred, in parallel, to vocal speech. Expression of grammatical gender seems to be evidence of this. Trombetti [1908: 356] states that if a is not indifferent to gender, then it is feminine, and that in the couple i ~ u, u is normally masculine and i feminine. Considering the evidence from children language (see § 11), this means that the oldest vocalic phoneme is normally held to be feminine, namely a or i as against u. Where gender distinction is a matter of consonantism, feminine is expressed by the oldest consonant (i.e. dental/coronal compared to velar): Velar and coronal elements seem to be associated with masculine and feminine genders respectively in Afrasian: in fact, *kw/ti seems to be a reasonable reconstruction of the markers incorporating both consonants and vowels [Bender 1990: 674]. In the terms for 'mummy' found in the world's languages (e.g. mamma, anna) we find the older sounds, the nasals, already in possession of Neanderthal Man (see § 19), while in the words indicating 'daddy' (e.g. papà, atta) oral consonants are present (see § 14). The original syllable of Homo sapiens sapiens, /pa/ (see §§ 17-19), is physically the uniting of two separate but complementary sounds to form a word. Ideologically it could be the fusion of a closed male element (the stop) and an open female one (the vowel). 2. Negation. Negation is expressed normally with a nasal stop: more often with the dental n, otherwise with the labial m [Bartoli 1938: 179]: - with n: Latin n e, and such in Hittite, the Germanic, Baltic, Slavonic, Altaic, Australian, and Finno-Ugric languages, including Samoyed; - with m: Greek m e, and the same in Tibetan; - with m / n: both exist in Greek; Tocharian, Albanian, Armenian, in Celtic, Indo-Aryan, Caucasian, and Hamito-Semitic languages. Through 'area norms' Bartoli holds that the n negation is older than the m negation. But the coexistence of both kinds in many languages leads to a different conclusion: the older is the m kind, which is a sort of fossil. For negation must already have existed at the original stage, prior to Homo sapiens sapiens (§ 19), when labials were not yet distinguished from dentals. Differentiation from the positive syllable /ma/ (of mamma 'mummy'), then, had to be guaranteed by a different vocalization, maybe by a light melodic, emphatic uprising of the negation /me/ (and here we possibly have the first trace of a functional vocalic distinction).55 Later, with the first distinction among places of consonantal articulation (labials ~ dentals), the difference was exploited. The old labial specialized itself in positive and affective meanings, indicating near and familiar things (mamma, me 'me'), while the new dental receives negative meanings, and indicates far and unknown things (no 'no'). 3. Personal Pronouns. The form of personal pronouns56 shows impressive similarities among the world's languages [Alinei 1966, pp. 511-518]: - 1. person 'I': Indo-European *me, Afroasiatic *m , Uralic *mV, Altaic *bi; - 2. person 'thou': Indo-European *tu, Afroasiatic *t ; 55 Given the articulatory mechanisms of Neanderthal (§ 19), actual pronunciations had to be something like [m ] for the low vowel and [mU] for the high one. 56 Studied by Trombetti [1908], Bartoli [1938] and by present macro-comparativists. 19 - 3. person 'he, that':57 Indo-European *kwe, Afroasiatic *kwA, Ugro-Finnic *ke, Altaic *ke. Then we have the following pattern: - 1. person 'I': nasal labial consonant: M-; - 2. person 'thou': oral dental consonant: T-; - 3. person 'he, that': oral velar or labiovelar consonant: K-, KW-. This system (only possible in Homo sapiens sapiens language, as Neanderthal did not posses velars: see § 19) shows that phonetic distinctions align with pragmatics. The first phonetic series (labial), and furthermore in its archaic and affective form of nasal, is employed for the subject 'I'. The second series (dental) is devoted to the partner 'thou' - the receiver -, while the foreign, the outsider, 'that' receives the third phonetic series, the velar. This velar series often presents the more complex labiovelar, which can be interpreted as the velar + a possessive (i.e. a labial extension of appropriation), denoting the interest of subject: KW < KW < K+M 'that for me'. § 17. Affectivity Original linguistic mechanisms are to be found in affectivity rather then in functionality, because archaism lies in affectivity, and functionality is the reign of innovation. Leroi-Gourhan has shown that tools are a zoological constituent of mankind, capable even of modifying human anatomy. When the incisor is replaced by the ax, a dental function separates from the body and is transferred from the mouth to the hand: Au stade plus reculé, dès les Austalanthropes, la refonte s'est opérée. La marche verticale est ici encore décisive. Chez les singes, les deux champs opératoires travaillent simultanément en station assise (percussion dentaire + manipulation) et séparément en station de marche, l'appareil dentaire des quadrupèdes restant l'organe de relation principal, le point avancé du dispositif corporel. La station verticale acquise, la main devient l'organe de relation, les opérations assises restent liées à la simultanéité d'action de la face et de la main (consommation alimentaire et opérations techniques où les dents interviennent) mais le contact labio-dentaire n'est plus dominant comme chez les quadrupèdes, ni même équivalent comme chez de nombreux singes; il ne garde chez l'homme son importance que dans les contacts affectifs [Leroi-Gourhan 1964a: II, 44-45]. For this reason, a kiss is more archaic (and affective) than a handshake. It is likely that the domestication of animals comes out of an appaesamento process, of an affective familiarization, that took place through the care of orphan whelps - those brought home by hunters, and kept as pets by women and children. Only later did this affective practice have a functional outcome with breeding [Zeuner 1966; Forni 1990: 27-92]. Likewise, the domestication of speech takes shape in the emotive sphere. It would be a mistake to think that at the beginning words were descriptive, or functional: they were simply affective, expressing an emotional attitude towards the outer world, the first identifications and the first connections. Only later would speech be intellectualized and become a tool for describing, classifying, and stabilizing. Yet the affective origin was to remain, registered in the pattern of the first words, the one that we still find in baby's speech. The first word uttered by a baby, mamma 'mummy, mama' (§ 19) is absolutely the most affective term, and is likely the first word ever uttered by a man (or a hominid). The first 'no' is affective: me, with emotional vowel uprising (§ 16.2). The first names with a labial, too, are affective. They refer to close people: papa 'daddy' (§ 14), or to close objects and activities: bastone 'stick', pietra 'stone' [see Sanga, forthcoming], balbettare 'to stammer = to speak' (§ 19). These namings are not originally descriptive; rather, they express an emotional acceptance: in a way, they all mean 'good, useful to me'. The negative affective pole, the negation, the emotional distance is always put on the following distinction, on the new: therefore it progressively shifts forward. In a language with a sole labial consonant, an emotional vowel change becomes distinctive, marking negativity (§ 16.2). To the positive original vowels (the low ones, or rather the neutral ones) the negative high vowels are opposed - showing an emphatic, emotive uprising: mamma 'mummy', papà 'daddy', pappa 'pap' versus me 'no', pipì 'wee-wee', pupù 'poop'. When the second series appears (dentals, § 11), then negativity is transferred to this new series: no 'no'. Labials are now completely available for positive purposes. At this stage we can assume that the type me 'I, me' arises, having overtaken the earlier type me 'no'. It is to be supposed that me 'I, me' follows me 'no', because the separation of the subject and the rise of 57 The third person is commonly expressed by a demonstrative, which is cognate with 'who' and 'wh- questions'. 20 an individual self-awareness is by no means an original condition, but a process that requires the gradual development of consciousness. When, later, a third consonant series, the velars (§ 11), appears, negativity shifts to this last series: Italian cacca 'shit', Greek kakós 'bad'. Now the dental series is available for positive attribution: anna 'mummy', nanna 'beddy-bye', nonna 'granny', atta 'daddy', tata 'nanny'. § 18. Reconstruction In drafting his speech for awarding the Royal Prize for Philology and Linguistics (1902) to Alfredo Trombetti,58 Ascoli approaches the problem of linguistic reconstruction with his usual wisdom, blending prudence and broad-mindedness: Looking carefully, linguistic fossils or forgotten remains can still be perceived in a number of languages, or linguistic constructions; and these are the same elements - or parallel ones - that can be observed elsewhere, showing stronger or weaker functional vitality. One finds everywhere a number of petrified forms hinting at previous developments that might have taken place, conflicting with what we now consider the main course of the organism. These are traces of features that may seem distinctive, or even unique, properties of a certain group of languages, because they were fully developed there. Now we ask if, and how much, such coincidences can be regarded as proof of historical analogies going back to a period when the main linguistic mechanisms (hence the language laws of today, as we now distinguish them) were not yet established. And at the same time we ask if, aside from such coincidences, it would not be proper to add the direct and still living similarities among these groups, both in grammar and in lexicon; because these too attest to a general relationship among different language families [Ascoli 1904: LV]. Original language forms can be discerned by means of comparison and internal reconstruction: «precisely because we humans speak the way we speak, our speech of today has to be related to the original protolanguages» [Alinei 1996: 725]. Comparison makes use of: a) the archaic forms of languages, principally of the lexicon, which is the «longest and richest succession of fossils of our prehistory» [Alinei 1996: 732]; b) of archaic languages, those spoken by populations close to prehistoric technology, or by genetically isolated (therefore culturally archaic) ones - Native Australians, Bushmen, Ainu, Lapps, Eskimos [see LeroiGourhan 1964a: I, 107, 169, 174-177]. But specifically linguistic reconstruction has to be formal: language gives shape to meanings, and it is precisely this form that should be reconstructed; if we limit ourselves to meanings we make a cultural, not a linguistic reconstruction.59 Formal reconstruction of language must be consistent with the data offered by cultural reconstruction, as Wilhelm von Humboldt and Carlo Cattaneo warned (§ 2. VII): It is unlikely that the final refining of a language should come immediately after its first appearance. The refining involves a number of stages that nations cross through vast spaces of time. In the meanwhile, the one interferes with the other. Such a gathering of several dialects is an absolutely basic stage of language evolution (...). Generally speaking, the possibility that a number of idioms were born without any relation cannot be totally denied. On the other hand, there are no reasons to reject the possibility of a general connection of all languages. No corner of the Earth is inaccessible to the point of avoiding any linguistic and social contact with some other part of the world. Furthermore, the shape of the seas and earth was once different from what it is at present. And the nature of language itself, as well as the condition of the human race when it is not completely civilized encourage such a connection. The need to be understood compels us to seek what is already there and intelligible. And before civilization further combines nations, languages long remain in possession of small ethnic identities (...). Even supposing that today's languages do not have a common origin, it is nevertheless easy to hold that no linguistic stock remained pure, on its own. To seek a connection until the slightest trace can still be recognized is therefore to be considered a principle of scientific investigation [von Humboldt 1820-21: 412-413]. 58 Practically forgotten since, Trombetti received recognition in his lifetime on several occasions, particularly this prize awarded by an outstanding jury made up of Domenico Comparetti, Francesco D'Ovidio, Ernesto Monaci, Hugo Schuchardt and Graziadio Isaia Ascoli, reporter. 59 Alinei [1996: 726], on the contrary, believes that the origins of language can better be reached through meanings. 21 The technical correlation (§ 3) allows us to suppose analogies between the development of language and the four stages of stone toolmaking, namely Australopithecus' choppers, Archanthropus' bifacials, Paleoanthropus' Levallois flints, and Neanthropus' microliths: Les trois premiers stades procèdent suivant un ordre unique, par cumul de nouvelles formes dérivées des anciennes, mais sans un abandon total de celles-ci; c'est un seul courant qui traverse les industries, depuis la pebble-culture jusqu'au Moustérien, affirmant ce qui ressort de l'évolution biologique cohérente des Australanthropes aux Néanderthaliens. (...) Au quatrième stade, le contraste est totale. Par une transition qui se déroule rapidement entre 35.000 et 30.000, en Europe occidentale, on se trouve en présence non seulement d'un outillage triple en variété, mais d'outils et d'objets qui éveillent des échos directs dans les cultures primitives actuelles. (...) C'est donc un autre monde technique qui s'ouvre, le nôtre. L'industrie lithique du quatrième stade (Paléolithique supérieur) a des solides racines dans les stades précédents et l'on assiste à un enchaînement rapide mais progressif des formes nouvelles dans les anciennes [Leroi-Gourhan 1964a, I: 197-199]. Only in the Upper Paleolithic does a cultural division arise: Les documents qu'on possède sur le premier stade, c'est à dire sur la pebble-culture, ne montrent sur toute l'étendue du continent africain d'autres différences que celles qui sont liée à la nature même de la roche employée. (...) Au seconde stade la situation, malgré d'énormes lacunes, montre l'existence de plusieurs grandes nappes industrielles (...) On peut penser, au Paléolithique ancienne, à l'existence de très grandes aires culturelles homogènes. Étant donné que tout semble indiquer qu'à l'intérieur de ces aires culturelles l'existence de variantes autres que celles dues à la matière première n'apparaît pas, on peut penser qu'à ce niveau encore la différenciation n'est pas d'une autre ordre que celle qui transparaît dans des sous-groupes zoologiques. (...) Le troisième stade, qui embrasse l'ensemble levalloiso-moustérien, ne montre pas une situation très différente: le nombre de formes reste peu élevé et les variantes sont rares. (...) Au quatrième stade, la situation devient toute différente (...) pour l'ensemble de l'outillage, on perçoit déjà avec netteté le reflet de divisions régionales. (...) Si l'outillage, nous l'avons établi, est le plus mauvais critère que l'on puisse choisir, l'art par contre, dont on dispose à partir du Paléolithique supérieur, montre indiscutablement que des unités régionales distinctes ont vécu côte à côte, baignant dans la même culture matérielle, mais séparées les unes des autres par les mille détails de leur personnalité de groupe [Leroi-Gourhan 1964a, I: 202-204]. Personally, I have no exact opinions on australopithecine language at the moment, although LeroiGourhan [1964a: I, 127] thinks that Australopithecus could have had a form of language: «je crois qu'il faut considérer que la possibilité physique d'organiser les sons et les gestes existe dès le premier anthropien connu» [see also Leroi-Gourhan 1964a: I, 163, II, 211]. Lieberman, too [1975: 159], holds that «the initial language of the australopithecines thus may have had a phonetic level that relied on both gestural and vocal components». There are two main factors that make me doubtful. The first is that Australopithecus was mainly herbivorous. Therefore he was fundamentally outside the hunting culture, which I consider basic for the form of socialization that produces the human language. The second reason is the uncertainty that Australopithecus ever manufactured any tool. If not, the other basic condition, the hand (tool)-language correlation, would be lacking. Australopithecus still seems to be more similar to chimpanzee than to man, both in the anatomical shape of the vocal tract60 and in herbivorous feeding habits. But mainly in behavior, which can be inferred from the bigger teeth and the smaller brain compared to the genus Homo [see Klein 1989: 316]. It is normally acknowledged that the manufacturing of tools starts with the H. habilis, who made majority, if not the totality, of the stone products found in Eastern Africa, starting from about 2.5-2.4 million years ago (ibidem). It is possible, of course, that A. rubustus already made stone or bone tools: he probably had hands enabling a precise grip. Nevertheless, there are also cases of repeated, albeit rudimentary, use and manufacturing of tools among chimpanzees: this suggests that such a propensity could already exist among the common ancestors of both chimpanzee and hominids, hence for all the subsequent hominids [Klein 1989: 131]. The above considerations enable us to formulate the following evolutionary hypotheses: (a) monogenesis of the oldest human language type, probably that of H. habilis; (b) selective development61 of the possible intermediate language types (H. erectus, archaic H. sapiens), if different from the original type, and their implementation and differentiation; (c) selective development of our language type, that of H. sapiens sapiens; 60 Compare the reconstruction of Australopithecus africanus (Sterkfontein 5) in Lieberman [1975: 142-144]. By "selective development" I mean the evolution and the improvement (also anatomic) of the previous language type, obtained through mechanisms of natural and social selection. 61 22 (d) maximal differentiation, through diffusion, of our language type; (e) in the end, with the appearance of productive economies (farming, breeding), reduced differences and the birth of language families. Which form must the protolanguages have taken? If language developed by means of distinction (§§ 912) we should reconstruct indistinct forms, as we have to proceed from complex to simple. To be avoided, therefore, is that typical mistake in reconstruction, consisting of projecting back to the origins the subsequent complexity, and even increasing it to account for all the differentiation of historically attested languages.62 Rather, the right path is that indicated by Trombetti [1908: 355]: because «human speech developed laboriously from a few elements, increased amazingly by infinite multiplication», we must always reconstruct poorer, simpler, less differentiated systems. It means, for H. sapiens sapiens, consonant systems of only stops and nasals and vowel systems of two or three vowels, bearing clearly in mind that the language of earlier man may have had only consonants (§§ 11, 19). An example of reconstruction, showing the chronological depth that can be reached within a single language, is given by the analysis of the occurrences of the KAD root in Latin; there we have [see ErnoutMeillet 1959]: 1) can o 'to sing', whence: 1a) cant o 'to sing', frequentative (can + dental extension t to indicate repetition of action); 1b) carmen < *canmen 'song', resultative (can + labial extension m to indicate the result of action);63 2) car o 'to card', whence: 2a) card o 'to card', frequentative (car + dental extension d to indicate repetition of action); 2b) carmen 'carding tool', resultative (car + labial extension m to indicate the result of action). Both forms are absolutely parallel, and seem to bear witness to the liquid ~ nasal (r/n) alternation (§ 13). We can add a homophone: 3) car o 'meat', originally 'share': this term refers to a basic institution of hunters [see Arioti 1980]: the social distribution of meat, which is precisely called 'the share, the parcelled'. What kind of relation binds car o 'meat', car o 'to card', and can o 'to sing'? All of the terms refer to partition, to breaking up, to rhythmicity. Meat is broken up into equal parts, one cards with a rhythmical gesture (the movement is divided into equal parts), one sings following a rhythm (time is divided into equal parts). We have seen that liquid and nasal consonants may derive from the split of a dental (§ 15); now we can add other forms: 4) cad o 'to fall', whence; 4a) caed o 'to cut (a tree)', causative ('make something fall'); 4b) c ed o 'to go, to step'.64 It is possible then, on the basis of the above comparisons, to go back to a root KAD denoting the 'cadence', that is the rhythm of regular percussion, with subsequent distinction D > n/r (dental > liquid/nasal). § 19. Neanderthal Language On the basis of the postulate of the stratification of language (§ 2. II), we have to admit the actual possibility that in our language type (defined as Homo sapiens sapiens speech) there could, or rather should, remain traces of previous language types. We have already (§ 14) spoken about the negative attitude of modern languages towards reduplication, identified as peculiar to rudimentary or animal languages. The same echolalic structure, found at the very start of a baby's speech, can be observed in serious pathological 62 See for instance Bomhard [1990: 345]: «Proto-Nostratic had a rich system of stops and affricates», or the luxurious consonant system reconstructed by Martinet [1986: 178] for Proto-Indo-European. 63 On this resultative labial extension see Sanga [1995: 125]. 64 The relationship with 'to fall' is guaranteed by the comparison with the parallel root *ped, whence both p es 'foot' and pessum ire 'to fall' derive. 23 regressions,65 and it is parallel to echoic repetition in rhythmical signs (§ 4). This may be a trace of the previous language type, that of archaic Homo sapiens: in short, of Neanderthal language. On the other hand, only the appearance of manual language (graphism) assures us the parallel existence of a vocal language (speech); or rather - as I believe - of an evolved form of speech. Dans l'espace géologique très court qui sépare l'homme de Néanderthal de l'homme de Cro-Magnon, le Moustérien de l'Aurignacien proprement dit, de 60000 à 30000 avant notre ère, un pas a été franchi, celui du symbolisme graphique. On peut supposer un langage abstrait aux Paléantropiens, mais de manière gratuite car rien n'en apporte de preuve, tandis qu'à partir du moment où la pensée verbale se double de l'expression graphique, des témoins restent [Leroi-Gourhan 1964b: 144]. La figuration graphique ou plastique apparaît comme moyen d'expression d'une pensée symbolisante de type mythique, caractérisé par un support graphique conjoint au langage verbal mais indépendant de la notation phonétique. Si les langues du Paléolithique récent n'ont pas laissé des fossiles, la main de ceux qui les parlaient a laissé des témoins évoquant sans ambiguïté un état correspondant des activités symboliques, inconcevable sans langage, et des activités techniques impensables sans une fixation intellectuelle verbalisée [Leroi-Gourhan 1964a: I, 298]. What sort of speech was physically possible for Neanderthals? The answer, according to Liebermann [1975],66 lies in studying the shape of the superlaryngeal vocal tract, which is different in adult Homo sapiens sapiens from those of human newborns, of other hominids and of other primates. The human upper respiratory system comprises the structures of the larynx, pharynx, nasal and oral cavities. The region is the crossroads of our respiratory and alimentary tracts, as well as the site for the production of articulate speech. (...) the basicranium of fossil hominids can serve as a guide to reconstruct their upper respiratory tracts. (...). In most mammals the larynx is positioned extremely high in the neck (...) two separate pathways are created: a respiratory tract from the nose to the lungs, and a digestive tract from the oral cavity to the esophagus. [While this high position] enables an individual to breathe and swallow simultaneously, it severely limits the array of sounds an animal can produce. (...). The upper respiratory tract of the human newborn is remarkably similar to the condition found in most other primates (...) the newborns and young infants indeed breathe, swallow and vocalize in much the same fashion as monkeys and apes. The infant larynx remains high in the neck until approximately one and onehalf or two years of age. Sometime around the second year (...) the larynx begins to descend in the neck. (...). The descent of the larynx produce a feature of enormous positive value: a greatly expanded supralaryngeal portion of the pharynx. The ability of the pharynx to modify laryngeal sounds is thus much greater than that possible for newborns or any nonhuman mammal. In essence, it is this expanded pharynx which gives us the unique ability to produce a full range of speech sounds [Laitman 1985: 281-283]. [The early hominids were] most probably obligate nose breathers. Their respiratory patterns would be similar to those (...) observed in living nonhuman primates. Thus, they could have maintained a patent airway from the nasopharynx to the larynx during both normal quiet respiration and the ingestion of liquids. (...) As in living apes, the relatively high position of the larynx would have greatly (...) reduced the area available for the modification of sounds produced at the vocal folds [Laitman & Heimbuch 1982: 335]. The questions that remain to be answered are how, why, and when did this basic nonhuman primate respiratory pattern begin to change en route to the condition found in modern H. sapiens. As our previous work has suggested, late Pleistocene groups such as the Classic Neanderthals, may have had upper respiratory systems different from modern H. sapiens. What changes were occurred before this period, in the Middle Pleistocene, is still unclear. Our preliminary observations on fossil material from the Middle Pleistocene suggest than the first instances of basicranial change, and by extension upper respiratory modifications, may have begun at this time [Laitman & Heimbuch 1982: 342; Laitman, Heimbuch & Crelin 1979]. Lieberman [1975] conducted a thorough comparative analysis of the phonetic possibilities of Neanderthal fossil superlaryngeal vocal tracts, comparing them with primates and modern newborns. His conclusion is that only the modern tract allows separate, stable, clearly understandable sounds [Liebermann 1975: 157162]. The premodern vocal tract would not allow the distinction among the basic vowels [a], [i], [u], but only between a medium-low vowel [ ] / [ε] and a medium-high vowel [U] [ibidem: 141]. As to the consonants: 65 Broca's aphasia is characterized by poor language, limited to the repetition of words or sentences [see Alinei 1996: 402]; «Echolalic diseases (syllable repetition) are sometimes, even if not always, combined with echo diseases in writing and movement» [Rapallo 1994: 280]. 66 The question is still debated: Wind [1981: 155], Tobias [1987] and others disagree (see § 1). 24 Neanderthal vocal tract would not be able to produce velar consonants like the English stops [g] and [k]. However, bilabials like [b], [d] e [t], as well as continuants like [s] and [z] would be possible. Nasals versus nonnasal distinctions might be doubtful because of the effects of the parallel pharyngeal cavity from oral cavity and the gradual, shallow angle of the nasopharynx, which might make it difficult to seal the nasal cavity from the oral cavity. All Neanderthal vocalizations thus might have a continual nasal quality, and it would not be possible to produce unnasalized sounds [ibidem: 142]. If nasalization is the basic characteristic of Neanderthal speech, we have to consider a nasal form like mamma 'mummy' a fossil of the language stage prior to Homo sapiens sapiens. For we know from our experience that such a word is pronounced by the baby even before he/she can achieve the first syntagmatic opposition /pa/, peculiar to our language type (§ 11). Likewise, archaic nasal forms like me 'me' or no 'no' are to be regarded as venerable fossils (§§ 16, 17). Neanderthal consonants had to be pre-nasalized, like those of a number of modern African [Canepari 1983 § 6.13], Australian [O'Grady 1990] and Austronesian [Blust 1990: 236] languages.67 Fossil remains of a dental/velar non-distinction (see § 11) can be found in Indo-European languages, particularly in a few surely archaic terms that show sounds grosso modo reconstructed as *kt and *gd chains [Martinet 1986: 168-170].68 Instead, these might represent a palatal stop prior to the distinction of velars: - KT (> ks) in 'bear': Sanskrit rk sa-, Greek árktos, Latin ursus < *urcsos, Welsh arth < *arkto-, Hittite hartagga-; in 'ax': Latin ascia < *acsi a, Greek axín e; in 'kite': Greek iktînos, Armenian çin 'hawk' [Ernout-Meillet 1959: 50; Pokorny 1994: 9, 416, 875]; - GD (> *ghdh) in 'earth': Sanskrit k sam-, Greek chth on, Tocharian A tka m, Hittite tegan; and in 'fish': Greek ichth ys, Lithuanian zuvìs [Pokorny 1994: 414-417]. In Austronesian languages we can find an unconditioned shift *t > k in Malay-Polynesian; the conditioned shift *t > k in Melanesia (New Caledonia, Manus); in Polynesia the free variants t / k in Hawaiian dialects; «in Samoan the change is in progress, and is correlated with speech registers: /t/-forms are used in formal, /k/-forms in informal speech». Furthermore, «the irregular change *u > /i/ seems especially common. In some case, doublets result (POC [Proto-Oceanic] *qumun > Hawaiian imu, umu 'earth oven')» [Blust 1990: 246, 258]. In Australian languages we find the alternation i / u, conditioned by phonetic context, and the alternation t / k [O'Grady 1990: 466]. One practically Neanderthal fossil must be reduplication (§ 14). Therefore, Neanderthal speech had to have been 'stammered,'69 witness the word mamma 'mama, mummy', the most archaic form in present language, the first word uttered by the baby, a fossil come to us because of its emotional strength (§ 17). Thus I wonder if the primary meaning of Greek bárbaros is 'stammerer' or rather 'foreigner, barbarian'. Is it not likely that the word originally indicated the stranger, the other, the Neanderthal, who still had an unimproved speech and still spoke with reduplications? In fact, the meaning of Sanskrit barbara h is 'stammerer' in the singular, but 'foreigner' in the plural. Similarly, Sumerian bar-bar, and Babylonian barbaru mean 'foreigner, stranger' [see Chantraine 1968: 165; Pokorny 1994: 92]. It is a fact that very often the names for the others, strangers, point up a drastic language difference. For instance, in Old Church Slavonic n em is i 'foreigner' < n em u 'dumb'. For Greeks, the foreigner was not only a stammerer but ágl ossos 'tongueless', or he speaks the bird's language [Rapallo 1994: 70]. We will consider later the real meaning of such a definition (§ 21). Now, with the Upper Paleolithic a kind of cultural revolution comes to an end: figures appear, as well as a regional differentiation. «On peut situer à ce point le passage d'une évolution culturelle encore dominée par les rythmes biologiques à une évolution culturelle dominée par les phénomènes sociaux» [Leroi-Gourhan 1964a: I, 200]. In a perfectly parallel way, alongside the technical and cognitive revolution of the Upper Paleolithic, anatomical evolution leading to the present type of language must have taken place: 67 To explain alternations like Latin samb ucus / sab ucus 'elder', Martinet [1986: 173] reconstructs for Indo-European a prenasalized /mb/. 68 69 Martinet suggests reconstruction of the coarticulated African stop [ kt]. If not actually 'sung' (§ 21). 25 The gradual development of hominid culture and technology would have placed a greater and greater selective advantage on enhanced linguistic ability. The effect of being able to talk ten times faster, a consequence of fully encoded human speech, would be more apparent when there was more to talk about and when fires and access to many cutting tools (a consequence of improved tool-making technology) placed less value on chewing. The human-like supralaryngeal vocal tract is also less efficient for respiration. The right-angle bend in the adult human supralaryngeal airway increases its flow resistance, making it less efficient than the newborn infant's airway. The nonhuman supralaryngeal anatomy allows the oral cavity to be sealed from the rest of the airway during inspiration, which aids the sense of smell and allows an animal to breathe while its mouth contains a liquid (e.g. when a dog laps water). The adult human supralaryngeal airways also increase the possibility of asphyxiation; food lodged in the pharynx can block the entrance to the larynx. This is not possible in the nonhuman supralaryngeal airways, because the supralaryngeal pharynx serves as a common pathway for both food and air only in adult Homo sapiens. The selective advantages of communication would be overwhelming only when the value of communication in the total hominid culture outweighed these disadvantages [Liebermann 1975: 177]. § 20. Cant Cant is a good candidate to represent Paleolithic hunters' language, and ideologically Neanderthal speech. In a number of works [Sanga 1989b, 1990b, 1992, 1993] I have focused on the fact that cant seems to be voluntarily designed as a language of foreigners, of stammerers, of children, of animals, in open contrast to the society of settled farmers. I have claimed that this opposition could go back to the culture of hunters who got out of agricultural domestication. The characteristics of cant that I judge more archaic are of some interest for the matter of the origin of language. In the European cants, mostly homogeneous, we find: 1. words compounded by reduplication, both full and broken: Furbesco (Italian cant) fàrfaro 'tramp', babbo 'I, me; trick', birba 'tramp', furfa 'cleverness', calca 'road'; 2. vowel alternation i / u, that is indifference to high vowels: Argot (French cant) rif/ruf 'fire', trique / truc 'stick > trick', Furbesco bisca / busca 'little stick', with further semantic specialization as 'gambling / begging'; 3. vowel alternation a / i, that is indifference to vowels: Furbesco spago / spiga 'fear', barbone / birbone 'tramp'; 4. vowel alternation a / u, that is indifference to vowels: Furbesco arto / urto 'bread', calma / chiulma 'head'; 5. voiced/voiceless alternation: Furbesco pisto / bisto 'priest', guitto / guido 'beggar'; 6. velar/dental alternation (k / t): Furbesco crusca / trusca 'alms', Argot paquelin / patelin 'place'; 7. labial/velar alternation (b / g): Furbesco baia / gaia 'sweetheart', gerbo / gergo 'cant, slang'. These characteristics refer to the most archaic stage of human language - the initial one. In particular I think that an 'imitation' of Neanderthal speech can be assumed here. As we have already seen (§§ 11, 19), it is likely: (a) that Neanderthal 'stammered', i.e. spoke in reduplicating syllables (feature 1); (b) that they could not make a distinction between high vowels (feature 2); (c) that in general they could not clearly distinguish among the vowel qualities (feature 3 and 4); (d) that they could not utter velar consonants (feature 6). Moreover, we have supposed an original non-distinction between voiced and voiceless consonants (feature 5, see § 12) and a confusion between labials and (labio)velars (feature 7, see § 11). Actually, it looks like the phonetics of cant reproduce a very archaic phonetics, prior to Homo sapiens sapiens. In addition, some grammatical characteristics of cant [see Sanga 1989b, 1993], as well as of pidgins [see Bickerton 1990], are reminiscent of a very serious type of aphasia, posterior-temporal sensory aphasia, which is characterized by similarity and decodification diseases, troubles in employing the distinctive features and frequent loss of the 'marked' feature, lexical impoverishment and generalization, pronominalization and suffixation (to replace lexical entries), loss of grammatical concordances and of the metalinguistic ability of intra- and interlinguistic translation [Rapallo 1994: 283-284]. If we remember that a number of linguistic pathologies are regressions to archaic stages, we can infer some grammatical features of our predecessors. «Down's syndrome (...) results in the retention of all, or some, of the morphological characteristics of the newborn» [Lieberman 1975: 179]. There are also striking resemblances between the echolalic repetition of Down-syndrome patients ('mongoloids') and the performance of healthy children of about 24-30 months. This confirms that 26 intellectual damage does not cause anomalous linguistic behavior; rather, it halts development at primitive stages [Rapallo 1994: 275-276]. The obsessive repetition that appears in a number of psychiatric pathologies is not a breakdown, but an attempt to halt breakdown by holding fast to the primordial human pattern of repetition (see § 5). The echolalia of the not-yet-speaking infant bears striking resemblance to the playful use of language by schizophrenics (glossolalia and glossomania), which is often considered a particular aspect of reversion to a childlike stage of personality. The similarity may not be accidental and it is often insisted upon. Schizophrenic speech is defined as an archaic, primitive form, as a regression to primitive, 'paleological,' models of thought [Rapallo 1994: 276]. I do not really think that cant-users are reborn Neanderthals, and I refer to 'imitation' of Neanderthal speech after due consideration. But why on Earth should Homo sapiens sapiens - let us say Crô-Magnon Man - have imitated Neanderthal speech? Because maybe Paleolithic hunters behaved like the present ones. They show this peculiarity: throughout a hunting party, either they do not speak at all, or they use sign language,70 or they speak a different language, either 'slang' or a foreign tongue. Siberian hunters speak Russian [Lot-Falck 1953: 113-119]. For Crô-Magnon Man what could be 'foreign' language if not that of coexistent Neanderthal? § 21. Singing Speech? An aphasic cannot talk, but sometimes he can sing [Lieberman 1975: 15]. Melodic intonation therapy: is based on the evidence that the right cerebral hemisphere is dominant for music, and that the intonational contours help the aphasic speech. During such a therapy the patient, although bearer of serious articulatory diseases, is able to sing, even if not to speak [Rapallo 1994: 292]. Is it therefore possible to think that Neanderthal speech - linked to rhythm (§ 4) and based on repetitions was sung? In fact the most widespread cant terms for 'to speak' and 'cant, slang, jargon' mean 'to sing', and particularly 'to sing like birds, to twitter': - Argot jargonner 'to twitter = to speak the jargon' > jargon 'twittering' = 'cant' > Furbesco gergo 'cant'; - English cant < Latin cantus 'song'; - Furbesco cantare 'to sing = to speak'. Speaking of bird songs reminds us that hunters knew 'animal language', and recalls us the ideological community of men and animals particular to hunters' culture. 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