“Ouch!”, “Mama?” The origins of language
Some of the oldest languages known include Sanskrit, Sumerian, Hebrew and Basque.
A study of macaque monkeys suggests that languages may have evolved to replace grooming as a better way of forging social ties amongst our ancestors.
Another theory is that our ancient predecessors imitated natural sounds: e.g. the bird that made a “caw caw” sound became a ‘cuckoo’in a similar way to today’s children calling things by the sound that they make: “Look, there’s a moo, baa, choo-choo!”.
Human communication might have been sparked by involuntary sounds such as “ouch” or “eek” or by communal activities such as heaving or carrying heavy objects, coordinated by shouts of “yo-he-ho”, etc.
Another theory proposes that language evolved from the communication between mother and baby, with the mother repeating the baby’s babbling and giving it a meaning. Indeed, in most languages “mama” or similar “ma”-sounds actually mean ‘mother’.