I think what people miss in the discussion of the origin of language is the origin of the first word. "In the beginning was the word" This is not just a narcisitic projection of human superiority but a profound statement about what actually separates man from animal. The word, one simple word, the first word, whatever it is, when any creature achieves the first word, he is on his way to civilization. Here is why. An animal cannot separate from the melnage of instinct, physical sensation, feeling response and imagery. For an animal, all these things are inseperably joined, and ananimal must spend itslifetime responding to that overwhelming cacaphony of input. However, through whatever physiologic transitions evolution put in place (teeth, vocal cords etc), the fact is, that it is not until an individual can utter, independently of the melange of instinct physical sensation, feeling response and imagery that one can be truly said to have awakened to the world as have homo sapiens sapiens and perhaps others before him. The crucial thing is not merely to cry when unfed or bark when frightented or coo when pleased. The crucial thing is to separate oneself from the melange of experience and isolate one thing and say, "that" or "that's it" When the species first was able to say "ma" and have that recognized by the mother, that was the first step out of the animal world and into civilization. Whether it occurred in an infant or an adult is immaterial. The crucial thing is that the creature (now a human not an animal) took that "first word" step toward civilazation: rather than constantaly mewing and cowing before the overwhelming melange of instinct, sensation, feeling and imagery, he distanced himself from all of that pointed to one thing and said "that". It may have meant "mother", it may have meant "rock" or it may have meant anything else, but the fact of the matter is, the first step was the first word, the first abstraction. In the beginning was the word merely means that the first step toward a conscious relationship to the world is the ability to separate from the melange of instinct, sensation, feeling and imagery and to produce a sign that represents any one of those. Grunts, bird cries, gestures, bees buzzing, the wind blowing, the sun rising and setting -- all of these are mere inspiration, but at the moment when the creature uses one sound, sight, gesture, or smell to represent something else he has achieved the first step in civilization -- in the beginning was the word -- in the beginning man stopped sniffing, snorting, dreaming and flailing and used one sound or one gesture to represent one part of this existence. Ig pointed out at a lion to Ug and Ug and Ig ran. Very close. Ig tended to go ugh when he felt the food was bad and Ug tended to laugh. Ug tended to go "whoo" when Ig approached and everyone laughed. When gestures and sounds even immitations of animal sounds became sufficiently interesting on their own to represent something else, abstraction, the first word was born. Og could hoo hoo when an owl hooted and everyone laughed. Ig could patchi patchi when the fire crackled and eveyone laughed. Everybody wanted Og to go "hoo, hoo, hoo" when an owl passed and everyone wanted Ig to go "patchi, patchi patchi" when a fire crackled. From this the first "word," abstraction evolved. It could have been "ma" it could have been "patchi, patchi" or it could have been "hoo" or it could have been a very wide variety of such things, but the fact remains that the origin of language, the separation between man and beast and the origin of civilization have to do with one thing: the remarkable capablity to somehow separate from the overwhelming melange of instinct, sensation, feeling, and imagery and to abstract: to say That and have others understand. Ig's "hoo, hoo hoo" Ug's "patchi, patchi" are not understood by animals. What is crucial to this is of course a moment's peace. Bellies sated, preditor's at bay, sleep not coming, a crowd of neandrathals sit at a fire -- Nothing to do: "hoo, hoo, hoo" "patchi, patchi patchi". Who gets the biggest laugh? Who gets the girl? Who pacifies the bully? In the beginning was the word. In the beginning was abstraction from the melange. There is a story of a lost tribe in New Guinea who could not speak but were known among those who could. They said that they could understand language but had none of their own. However, they would gesture and make similar sounding words in methodical or musical way. This strikes me as the next step in language. From the "hoo, hoo, hoo" and "patchi, patchi, patchi" of Ig and Ug we move to the next step, recognizing some value in abstraction. Ig and Ug were industrious and driven to eat and feed their offspring. Others were stupid and slow. However, the stupid and slow liked to here and repeat "hoo, hoo, hoo" and "patchi, patchi patchi" so they would join in when those moments occurred. Little by little Ig and Ug wanted to hunt so they would go "deer, deer, deer" and the slower, lazier members of thier crowd would go "deer, deer, deer" Much to eveyone's surprise, when Ig and Ug said "deer, deer, deer" eveyone could stay focuse one task and they motivated the whole tribe to stay on task and get some deer by chanting "deer, deer, deer". Strangely, you would think the word would have to be fixed, but I suspect at the early levels "deer, deer, deer" could have been "blug, blug, blug" or whatever, and it could have changed over several hunts. The important thing at first was that Ig and Ug wanted to keep the others focused on the deer hunt and away from berries and naps and girls. That is, they wanted to bring them to a higher level of abstraction away from instinct and toward abstraction -- and toward discipline. The lost tribe in New Guinea seems to illustrate this mid form of the origin of abstration -- a common hooting around a group cause to maintain focus and to keep the weaker members from drifting away from the common purpose. The reports state that neighboring tribes could speak to them, but they could not speak back. In any case, in any discussion of the evolution of human language, we have to look at the first word(s) which could not have been "ma" or "pa" or anything else, but must have been a variety of "hoo, hoo, hoo's" and "patchi, patchi, patchi's" that little by little gave strength to the ability to abstract from the melange of instinct, sensation, feeling and imagery and left us with nouns (sensation), verbs (feeling), adjectives (imagery) and adverbs (instinct). The above paragraph also explains much about language variation and language deviation. From the first attempt to abstract from instinct, sensation, feelings and imagery, there were multiudinous sounds, images, and feeling to relate to, so from the outset no one word could have been possible or derived, only "hoo, hoo, hoo," "patchi, patchi, patchi" and anything else that would have gotten a laugh or a hearting party. Phil Bralich Fan and Student of Derek Bickerton