Is the root of language something that can be discovered?

[Klaufi_Wodensson]

So today in my Sociology class, I was (off task ) reading about feral children. There was a semi-related article concerning one of the Pharaohs, who was trying to discover the first language. He took two newborns and gave them to a shepherd. The shepherd was not to speak to them or near them, but was to raise them normally otherwise. The Pharaoh concluded that the first words they spoke would be the root of the first language. The first word they spoke was "becos" which is the Phrygian word for bread, so the Pharaoh concluded that the Phrygians were older people than Egyptians, and that the Phrygian language was the first.


Do you think there could be any truth to this? Or if that would be a way to find out the first language? It did say that the first word they spoke sounded somewhat like the bleating of sheep, and they were raised by a shepherd, so the children may have been imitating the sheep as well. Thoughts?

 

[Sunstone]

According to my linguistic anthropology professors, none of the known languages is anywhere close to being the first human language. All known languages are quite sophisticated and not one of them is primitive. That might be because our species has probably had language since our origins 260,000 years ago, and the first primitive languages are long gone now.

One of the oldest "known" languages is reconstructed Indo-European. That language, such as we know anything about it, is about 6,000 years old. Somewhere around the house I have a dictionary of Indo-European roots. One of the roots is "stud". It refers to an upright post in the walls of mud and wattle structures. But a very similar word today refers to an upright post in the framed walls of contemporary buildings. Maybe that word is 6,000 years old then.

 

[Lavender]

Not long ago I read a book called The Horse, The Wheel, and Language by David Anthony. It's not about the first language, but was somewhat interesting to read about Indo-European languages and how they came to be across Europe.