We are profoundly ignorant about the origins of language and have to content ourselves wit
How did language arise in the first place? There are many theories about this, based on various types of indirect evidence, such as the language of children, the language of primitive societies, the kinds of changes
that have taken place in language in the course of recorded history, the behavior. of higher animals like chimpanzees, and the behavior. of people suffering from speech defects. These types of evidence may provide us with pointers, but they all suffer from limitations.
When we consider the language of children, we haw to remember that their situations are quite different from those of our earliest human ancestors because the child, growing up in an environment where there is al- ready a fully developed language, is surrounded by adults who use that language and are teaching it to him. For example, it has been shown that the earliest words used by children are mainly the names of things and people ("doll," "spoon," "Mummy"), but this fact does not prove that the earliest words of primitive man were also the names of things and people. When the child learns the name of an object, he may then use it to express his wishes or demands.
"Doll!" often means,. "Give me my doll!" or "I've dropped my doll. Pick it up for me!" The child is us- ing language to get things done, and it is almost an accident of adult teaching that the words used to formulate the child's demands are mainly nouns instead of words like "Bring!" "Pick Up!" and so on.
Theories of the origin of language include all of the following EXCEPT______.
A.communication among primitive men
B.the need to communicate
C.the language of children
D.the first man's extensive vocabulary