The Ceremonial Origins of Language

Abstract

This chapter presents the hypothesis that verbal language originated in prehistoric ceremonials. The hypothesis is an application of cultural linguistics, a theory which synthesizes linguistic anthropology and cognitive linguistics (Palmer 1996; Sharifian 2011 and this volume). Duranti (2003, p. 342) has noted that the evolution of language is one of two topics, the other being the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, that are ‘a must’ in introductory books on language and culture. Hence a cultural linguistic hypothesis for the emergence of verbal language should come as no surprise. The hypothesis is relatively elaborate compared to most other such proposals as befits the complexity and uniqueness of human speech by comparison to the verbal communications of non-human primates. As we present our origin story, we write in the declarative mood and simple past tense, as though it were a known fact that verbal language emerged as we theorize it did. Just as historians have their ‘historical present’, we have our ‘hypothetical past’. The device will avoid a great many instances of ‘would have’, ‘could have’, ‘might have’, and similar hedges. The reader should remain aware that our story is a hypothesis, but one that takes into account current archaeology and linguistic science. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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