History of glottogonic theories
pp. 3-20
in: Jan Wind, Brunetto Chiarelli, Bernard Bichakjian, Alberto Nocentini, Abraham Jonker (eds), Language origin, Berlin, Springer, 1992Abstract
Early speculation on the origin of language usually regarded it as a gift of the gods, though some argued that it was a purely natural human attribute, in Greece, Rome, and India. Traditional Jewish, Christian, and Islamic thought generally accepted the Biblical account of Adam's first use of language in Eden and the later dispersion of tongues. Hebrew (or for Muslims, Arabic) was usually held to be the first language. Medieval and Renaissance ideas exhibited little new thought on this topic. There were attempts to replicate the ancient Psammetichus experiment with infants reared in isolation, and new proposals for the primordial tongue. Speculation on language origins greatly expanded in the 17th and 18th centuries, with debates on conventional versus naturalistic explanations, universal grammar, the capacity of feral children to reinvent language, and whether apes might be taught to speak. In the 19th century two new approaches appeared: comparative linguistics and Darwinism applied to language evolution. Brain research emerged, emphasizing cerebral localization. On the other hand, some specialists in linguistics explicitly banned glottogonic speculation as a hopeless exercise. After a decline in interest early in the 20th century, the question was vigorously revived stimulated by new fossil hominid finds, child language studies, more work on neurolinguistics, and language experiments with apes.
