The Genesis of Speech
BY
FRED NEWTON SCOTT

ARTES
LIBRARY
1837
SCIENTIA
VERITAS
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHICAN
•C.PLURIBUS UN04:
QUACRIS PENINSULAM AM CENAM
CIRCUMSPICE
JASAMA
THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS
DELIVERED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 26, IN COLUMBUS,
O., AT THE TWENTY-FIFTH ANNUAL
MEETING OF THE ASSOCIATION.
BY FRED NEWTON SCOTT.
THE GENESIS OF SPEECH.
If I have departed from tradition in using in my title
the word genesis for the word origin, the substitution is not
without reason.
There are many persons to whom the latter
word is fatally suggestive; they cannot hear it applied to
speech without thinking forthwith of an invention or dis-
covery; they tend under its influence to conceive of speech
as coming into existence under the conditions and through
the agencies which went to the making of Volapük and
Esperanto; it is almost as if they imagined some clever
Stroglodyte of primitive days saying to his fellows: “A
happy thought strikes me; let us invent a language."
}
X
"Genesis" will, I hope, suggest a different view; it
presents speech not as an invention, but as a process, not
as an abrupt, but as a slow and gradual coming-into-
existence,¹ like the evolution of man himself, proceeding
1
¹ I am not unmindful of the claims of the mutation theory, which Pro-
fessor A. H. Pierce has already applied tentatively to the explanation of
gesture and other modes of expression (Jnl. of Philos., Psych. and Sci.
Method, vol. 3, p. 573), and which Professor Manley has used analogically
(and perhaps a little prematurely, if ingeniously) for the interpretation of
literary history (Modern Philology, vol. 4, p. 1); but as the theory is still
in its inception, and liable to sweeping modifications, I have thought it
best to hold for the present purpose to the older view.
1
190841
800
S43
соруг
2
without a break from beginnings crude and humble and
scarcely recognizable, yet not contemptible, to the rich
and complex function of the present day.
Like every other complicated human phenomenon, speech
may be defined in a variety of ways, according as stress is
thrown upon the physical, the physiological, the psychical,
or other aspect of it. For my part, since I wish to
simplify the problem of its genesis as much as I can, I
shall reduce it to its lowest, most nearly physiological,
terms. I shall therefore assume for the present that what-
ever else it may be, it is for my purpose merely a peculiar
movement of certain organs of the body-a series of
muscular contractions of the thorax, the throat, the tongue,
the lips, etc. Disregarding other equally interesting ques-
tions, I shall ask how these movements are related to other
bodily movements and how, in the history of early man,
or his precursor, they arose, developed, and attained their
peculiar character and significance.
We may begin by considering the general categories of
bodily movement.
Bodily movements may be divided into two main
classes: 1) life-serving movements, or utility accommoda-
tions, as the biologist terms them, and 2) expressive-com-
municative movements. The first class comprises those
whose primary function is to maintain and promote the life
of the bodily organism. In the lowest orders of creation
all movements are thought to be of this class, for all con-
tribute in some way to the animal's well-being. If the
creature expands or contracts, if it reaches out or draws
back, if it attaches itself to objects or lets go of them, if it
undulates, or quivers, or moves from place to place,-in
every instance, the origin and meaning of the movement is
the preservation, furthering, or propagating of the little
life. The organism has no other desire, no other ambition,
3
no other destiny. That it may have physical life and may
have it more abundantly sums up the purpose of its being
-so far as nature, from the evolutionary point of view,
may be said to have any purpose at all.
As the organism becomes more complex and its inner and
outer structures are differentiated, two sub-classes of life-
serving functions may be distinguished, to which I shall
give the names covert and overt. Under covert processes
will fall physiological functions which, going on within the
cavities of the body, are ordinarily hidden from observation.
The secretion of bile, the beating of the heart, the move-
ments of the white and red corpuscles of the blood, will
serve as examples of these. On the other hand, we may
reckon as overt processes those obvious movements of the
head, limbs, trunk, or body as a whole, which are necessary
in obtaining food, escaping from harmful agencies, or secur-
ing a more favorable environment. Under this head we
may bring also the various strains in which muscles are set
to resist attack or prepare for flight, although these are more
properly denominated attitudes.
To this large category of life-serving movements, embrac-
ing both covert and overt movements, is often applied the
term useful.
If the first category includes movements which promote
individual life, the second includes those whose purpose is
primarily to manifest this life and convey an apprehension
of it to others, that is, to express and communicate.¹
¹ Although the two classes have been thus marked off from each other,
there is a sense in which all overt movements may be said to be at one and
the same time life-serving and expressive-communicative. The life-serving
function of eating, for example, when it is performed by persons
"Feeding like horses when you hear them feed,"
both expresses hunger and communicates the idea of hunger to others. The
provincial guest at a hotel who with his fork spears a slice of bread on the
4
Examples of such movements are gnashing of the teeth
and rolling of the eye-balls in rage, exposing of the canine
tooth in scorn, setting of the lips in decision, shaking of the
head in negation, shrugging of the shoulders in doubt,
elevation and depression of the corners of the mouth in joy
and grief respectively. Here belongs, generally speaking,
the whole round of gesture, pantomime and grimace. And
here, finally, belong the phenomena of speech.
Movements of this type, compared with life-serving func-
tions, are termed useless, and in one sense they are so:
they do not promote directly the life of the bodily organism.
They can be suspended, as the life-serving functions cannot,
without injury to the body. A man may sit quietly in a
chair, or lean against a lamp-post, or lie asleep in his bed,
not only without speaking or laughing or crying, but without
moving his head or his limbs, or (with one important exception
which will be noted later) in any other way giving sign of
his presence. He may in this passive condition preserve his
bodily integrity for an indefinite length of time. More
than this, he may, if he is alone, dispense altogether with
the class of movements which we term communicative. To
this extent movements of expression and communication
may with some degree of truth be said to be non-useful.
When we come to consider the two classes closely, how-
ever, we find that they are more intimately related than is
implied by this sheer distinction, both in origin and in
purpose. I will speak first of their origin. Since the time
far side of the table, not only performs a life-serving function, but also gives
publicity to his lack of manners. Just so the movement of running away
expresses fear, the movement of striking expresses anger, the movement of
carrying a hod of bricks up a ladder expresses toil. Even covert processes
may have this function, as when accelerated beating of the heart in excite-
ment appears in the temporal artery or defective secretion of bile gives a
yellow cast to the complexion.
5
LO
of Darwin, and especially since the publication, in 1873, of
Darwin's Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, it
has been almost an axiom with scientists that expressive and
communicative movements are life-serving functions worn to
the butt,-functions reduced, that is, to attitudes and
tendencies to action, to mere remnants of their former selves.¹
To give a few familiar examples: What was originally a
knock-down blow in anger has now been reduced to a futile
clenching of the fist; what was once an actual biting of a
foe, has become a gnashing with the teeth at a safe distance;
what was once a prostration of oneself at the feet of a
superior, has become an inclination of the head. Much
ingenuity has been expended in thus tracing the origin of
grimace and gesture. Henle explains the clapping of hands
for applause as a symbolic abridgment of an embrace. The
flaring of the nostrils in violent rage has been interpreted as
a remnant of that lively epoch in the life of primitive man
when two foes, their teeth buried in each other's flesh, drew
back the wings of their nostrils in order to take breath.
Without going to such length as this, we may at least trace
the shake of the head in negation to the avoidance of
unpleasant food, the sudden raising of the arm in fright to an
original shielding of oneself from a blow or the attack of a
wild beast, pointing with the finger and beckoning, to
clutching movements in seizing food or in drawing another
person toward oneself. And so on through a long list.
But not only are the expressive-communicative move-
ments derived, by a wearing-down process, from the life-
serving movements, they are also, like the latter, useful.
Their use, however, is different. The life-serving move-
ments are useful in preserving and promoting the life of the
¹This theory has been fully elaborated by Dewey, The Theory of Emotion,
Psychological Review, vol. 1, p. 553,
!
6
individual. The expressive-communicative movements, on
the other hand, since they are the means by which indi-
viduals are bound together in a social group, are useful in
preserving and promoting the life of society. I have said
that an isolated individual could apparently dispense with
them and yet preserve his bodily integrity. But it must be
remembered that as a rule individuals do not and cannot
live in isolation. They live and must live in families,
groups, and communities. Consequently in the higher forms
of life a condition of things frequently comes about such that
individuals must coöperate with one another in order to
preserve their existence and continue the species, the pre-
servation and progression of individual life depending
directly upon the organization of social life. In such case
intercommunication becomes an absolute necessity. If food,
for instance, in the form of an elephant cannot be obtained
without calling or beckoning to one's fellows, the ability to
call or beckon is as useful as the eating of the elephant-
meat. Similarly, if the repelling of an attack demands the
coöperation of the clan as a whole, the means of summoning
the clan and directing their mode of defense is no less
useful than skill with club or javelin.¹
It would appear, then, that expressive and communicative
movements are movements which have lost their primitive
life-serving functions only to be reinstated in a different
function of an equally useful character. They have ceased
to sustain the life of the isolated individual in order that
they may sustain community life.
If the relation between these two categories of move-
¹In like manner, to rise to a higher plane, if spiritual life and progress
be the end in view, if existence without it is intolerable, the means of
intercommunication which will conserve and propagate spiritual life—say,
for example, the maintenance of free speech-is as distinctively a life-
serving process as eating, sleeping or breathing.
7
ments is such as I have indicated, the question at once
arises: By what steps or stages have functions originally
life-serving passed over into society-serving functions?
How have muscular contractions whose original purpose.
was to secure food, to repel enemies, to escape dangers, to
secure a more favorable environment, been transformed into
muscular contractions whose sole purpose is to express
feelings and states of consciousness, and to communicate
these feelings and mental states to others?
Just
I will begin my answer to this question by pointing out
that in the evolution of bodily movement from the indi-
vidual-serving to the social-serving stage, we may distin-
guish certain grades. The lowest grade is that of the
recognition-sign, by which in any group the presence and
identity of one member are revealed to his fellows.
as among the fishes certain marks and contours and motions.
enable the male to distinguish the female of the same
species, just as among the social ants the sense of smell
enables the ants of one colony to distinguish those of a
friendly or a hostile colony, so in the lowest human societies
movements of various kinds have enabled members of a
given community to identify one another and to comport
themselves in such a way as to maintain and advance social
integrity.
All overt life-serving movements possess this lowest-
grade of expressive and communicative function. Even in
our present highly organized social relations, we depend to
a considerable degree upon these low-grade recognition-
signs for judgments of identity. We know our acquaint-
ances by their walk, by their pose, by the carriage of the
head or swing of the arms. "That thou art my son," says
Falstaff, "I have partly thy mother's word, partly my own
opinion, but chiefly a villainous trick of thine eye and a
foolish hanging of thy nether lip, that doth warrant me."
8
1
In how many cases do we not fail to recognize an old
acquaintance until a peculiar lift of the chin, or wrinkling
of the brow, recalls him suddenly to our remembrance? ¹
Such distinguishing marks must have been of great value
in the early history of mankind in sharpening the vague,
inchoate sense of personality,-in enabling the mother, for
example, to know her child, and the adult to recognize his
clansman.
But the movement which serves as a recognition-sign
may pass to a higher stage. It may become a voluntary
communication. The process by which this comes about is
so complicated and an explanation of it is so essential to my
thesis, that I may be pardoned for dwelling upon it at some
length. I will be as un-technical as I can.
In the first place it must be remembered that, psychologi-
cally speaking, the motives to all voluntary acts are mental
images of involuntary acts previously performed. "When
a particular movement," says Professor James, "having
once occurred in a random, reflex, or involuntary way, has
left an image of itself in the memory, then the movement
can be desired again, proposed as an end, and deliberately
willed. But it is impossible to see how it could be willed
before." 2 An illustration may be taken from that most
fundamental of life-serving functions-the taking of food.
If I voluntarily reach out my hand for food, it is because
a previous involuntary act has traced in my mind an image
1 For a striking illustration of the psychical value of a seemingly trivial
gesture, see May Sinclair's story, The Fault. Compare also the following:
"Der Eunuch Euläus war der höchste Bewunderer dieser Füsse [i. e., of
Cleopatra, as she lay at the banquet], nicht, wie er vorgab, um ihrer
Schönheit willen, sondern weil das Spiel der Zehen der Königin ihm
gerade dann zeigte, was in ihr vorging, wenn aus ihrem in der Kunst der
Verstellung wohlgeübten Mund und Auge nichts, was ihre Seele erregte,
zu erkennen vermochte."-Georg Ebers, Die Schwestern, 8. Kap., S. 112.
2 Principles of Psychology, vol. I, p. 487.
9
of myself grasping the food and carrying it to the mouth.
The image serves as the motive to the act. I seize the
food because I wish to make this pleasing image a reality.
In the second place I must be allowed to assume that
the desire of primitive man to coöperate with those of his
own group, of the mother, for example, to help and
coöperate with her child,-is at least as fundamental as
the desire to fight and kill. Appeals for help or move-
ments which show that help is needed will, therefore, meet
with a response from other members of the community.
The mother who perceives from the actions of her child
that it desires food, will place the food within its reach.
A man who sees that his clansman is in danger will go
his aid. Generally speaking, each member of a community
is prompted by the social instinct to render to his fellows
the services which will promote the integrity of the
community.
to
How these individual and social motives operate in trans-
forming a life-serving act into a true communication, may
be illustrated most simply by tracing the genesis of a
familiar gesture. I will take for this purpose the gesture
or attitude of pointing. In its original form this gesture
is the act of seizing or clutching. Its primary purpose is
the acquisition of food.¹ Such a movement also serves as
a recognition-sign, disclosing to others the presence, and to
some extent the identity, of the individual making it, and
also revealing his hungry condition. If a supply of food
were always present, the act would never rise above its
primitive stage. As often as the individual felt the need
of food he would reach out his hand and take it. But the
source of food-supply, especially in the case of the very
1
¹ Or of whatever else is necessary. For simplicity's sake I use hunger
as a typical motive.
10
young, is not always within reach. The hand goes out
towards it in vain. The stomach remains empty, and the
futile clutching movement is merely a sign of increasing
hunger.
If, now, when such a movement is made by the child,
the mother places the food within its reach, the clutching
takes on a new aspect. The movement was at first com-
pleted by the act of the child; it is now completed
by the act of the mother, since a part of the movement
which was formerly made by the child alone, is supplied
by the mother's movement. This vicarious completion of
the child's act has important consequences. If the original
image in the child's mind which supplied the motive for
the act, was an image of itself grasping the food, that
image has now been supplanted by one which also includes
the image of the mother's coöperation. When the child
performs the act a second time, the motive to it will be not
an image of itself grasping the food with its own hand, but
an image of a coöperative grasping, in which the mother's act
supplements its own and coalesces with it. The effect of
this is to abort or abbreviate the movement, for since part
of it is to be performed by another, the whole movement
need not be made. All that is necessary is a reaching
toward the object; the mother will do the rest. Hence, in
course of time, the grasping part of the movement will be
abandoned. The clutch will be shortened into a mere thrust
of the hand accompanied by an expectant look at the
mother. The life-serving movement of clutching will have
passed over into the gesture of pointing.¹
It is important to notice how in this process the character
¹Cf. Wundt, Völkerpsychologie, I, S. 129: "Nach so oft wiederholten
vergeblichen Versuchen, die Gegenstände zu ergreifen, verselbständigt
sich dann erst die Deutebewegung als solche." Wundt fails to explain,
however, how the transition is effected.
11
and value of the movement has been affected.
In the first
place the movement has been socialized. What at first
related solely to one individual has now been connected
with another individual. From a selfish, self-centered
impulse to seize and appropriate, it has been transformed
into an appeal for help. It is now made in its modified
form with the expectation that another will coöperate to
secure the end in view.
But in the second place it has been made symbolic. The
abbreviated movement, through the intervention of another,
has come to stand in the child's mind for the whole move-
ment. It now means "Help me," or "Feed me," or
"Please pass me the bread." It is more than a muscular
contraction; it is an indication or sign of the child's desire,
voluntarily directed towards its kin.
To sum up: The individual life-serving movement of V
clutching has, through response and coöperation, passed over
into the socialized, symbolic attitude or gesture which is
called pointing.
Assuming that the process I have described is fairly
typical, I shall now attempt to apply this view of the
nature and origin of expressive-communicatíve movements.
to speech. If speech is, as I have said, a movement of the
vocal organs analogous to movements of the head, arms,
face, etc., the fundamental problems of its genesis appear to
be as follows:
1. Of what life-serving function is speech a survival or
development?
2. By what steps or stages has the original life-serving
function been transformed into an expressive and communica-
tive function ?
With regard to the first question, if we consider how
intimately the most elementary phenomena of speech are
related to the musculature of the thorax and diaphragm, we
12
shall see some reason for suspecting that the life-serving
movement from which speech has arisen is ordinary respira-
tion. Such, at any rate, is the hypothesis which I shall
adopt. Speech, in its inception, is significantly modified
breathing. Just as gesture arose from movements of the
hands in obtaining food or warding off enemies, so speech
arose from the movements of the muscles of the thorax
and diaphragm in obtaining a fresh supply of oxygen and
in rejecting the harmful products of physiological com-
bustion.
Starting with this postulate, I shall proceed to the second
question By what steps or stages has this life-serving
and indispensable process of breathing been transformed
into the expressive and communicative function which is
termed speech?
Five different kinds of breathing are distinguished by the
biologists, namely, intestinal-breathing, skin-breathing, gill-
breathing, bucco-pharyngeal breathing (as in frogs), and lung-
breathing. The last is the dominant method in man. It is
marked off from all the rest, except gill-breathing, by the
fact that the interchange of oxygen and carbon dioxid takes
place not uninterruptedly as in intestinal and skin-breathing,
nor at irregular intervals, as in frogs, but rhythmically.
Although it is to a certain extent under control of the
will, it cannot be suspended for more than a few seconds
without discomfort.
Breathing is the result of a demand of the system for a
certain kind of food, namely, oxygen. It is analogous to
the movement of a starving man in reaching for a loaf
of bread. It differs from the latter movement mainly in
the fact that the process of assimilation is much more rapid.
If the digestive system were of such a character that repletion
and starvation succeeded each other at intervals of a few
seconds, the analogy would be complete. The hand, in that
13
case, would go out rhythmically for the food at brief and
regular intervals.
The inhalatory movement of the air supplies oxygen to
the circulatory system, the exhalatory movement rejects the
waste products. In both cases the air passes through the
narrow channel of the throat and mouth or nasal passages.
If this channel is wide open and wholly unobstructed, the
rush of air in normal slow breathing makes, especially in
the nasal passages, a faint rasping sound such as is produced
by drawing a finger across the surface of smooth paper. I
shall call the sound produced in this way a respirate. Increase
in the rate or force or breathing under excitement increases
the loudness of this sound. After intense exertion, when the
system has great need of oxygen and also a great accumula-
tion of waste material to throw off, the respirate, even when
the mouth is open and the air-passages are relaxed, may
become so loud as to be audible at a considerable distance.¹
In the beginnings of human life the sound of normal
breathing served no doubt as a recognition-sign. It disclosed
the presence, and possibly in some cases the identity, of the
individual who made it. Nor is it necessary to think of the
sound as being loud. Philologists have written of the
beginnings of speech as if they consisted of hoarse, shrill cries
like the roaring of lions or the shrieking of gorillas, but I
see no reason for assuming these violent utterances in the
earliest stages of vocal expression. For one thing, the ears
of primitive man were much sharper than ours. Slight
sounds had greater significance when life was a struggle à
outrance. Even to us, with our dull senses, faint noises are,
in moments of great suspense, fraught with meaning. One
¹ At one of the Henley regattas the panting of an exhausted oarsman
could be distinctly heard, amid the confusion of other sounds, at a distance
of forty feet.
14
who wakes in the middle of the night in a lonely house,
may be thrown into a spasm of terror by the creaking of a
loose board or by the still fainter sound of some one
breathing at his bedside. The intelligibility and impressive-
ness of a sound depend in no way intrinsically upon its
loudness, but upon the conditions under which it is produced
and heard.
Again, silence is sometimes more powerful than sound,
especially if it takes the form of a sudden cessation of the
customary. Just as the stopping of an orchestra in a theatre
may throw the audience into a state of panic, so, in a circle
of primitive men, a sudden pause in the breathing of one of
them may very well have raised excitement to a high pitch.
There is another reason, also, why we need not imagine
that the earliest communicative sounds were loud sounds.
It is that the original contacts between individuals were
physical contacts. The psychologists tell us that all the
senses were originally senses of touch. The lowest organisms
know each other only in this way. To this sense were
added in course of time the senses of smell, of taste, of
sight, and of hearing; but all retained in some measure this
original function of touch. They were all means by which
one body came into physical contact with another body. It
follows that the earliest social consciousness was the con-
sciousness of a bodily contact by which the movement of
one individual was transmitted directly to the senses of
another.
"Even among the higher animals that can distinguish
their own and other species by sight and hearing," says
Professor Giddings, "and among mankind, touch survives.
as a fundamental test which is over and over resorted to
in obedience to an unconquerable instinct or habit. Horses,
1
¹ Principles of Sociology, p. 107.
15
cattle, sheep, and dogs perfect acquaintance by touching and
rubbing one another. The embrace, the hand-clasp, and the
kiss are survivals of the primitive way of making and
renewing acquaintance among men and women. They sur-
vive because, as Guyau profoundly observes: Le toucher
est le moyen le plus primitif et le plus sûr de mettre en
communication, d'harmoniser, de socialiser deux systèmes
nerveux, deux consciences, deux vies'; because it is 'par
excellence, le sens de la vie.""
We must, then, seek for the beginnings of communication,
and the beginnings of speech, in what a recent novelist has
called "the horrible intimacy" of domestic life—that is, in
the closest physical contacts. From a variety of such
contacts¹ we may select as a typical example the relations
of mother and child. When the infant is resting on its
mother's breast, the two bodies are in intimate physical
union. The child's body, is, as it were, a part of the
mother's body. Every movement of the child, every thrill,
every shudder, every breath, even every heart-beat, com-
municates itself instantly to the senses of the mother. On
the other hand, the mother's body, her movements, her
breathing, her starts of alarm, are part of the most intimate
experiences of the child. As far as physical contact can
go, each shares as fully in the consciousness of the other as
if they were parts of the same organism.
In such close contact the rise and fall of the child's
abdomen and chest in the process of respiration, as well as
the warmth or moisture of its breath upon the mother's
body, is, we may suppose, a constant indication to the
mother of the life and condition of the child.²
1 ¹I purposely omit, while recognizing its importance for the discussion,
the question of the relation of the sexes.
2 This view receives confirmation from the well-known fact that the sense
of hearing was originally a shake-organ, the sensations of noise having
16
The beginnings of speech are, then, to be sought in the
movements of breathing and the respirates, or relatively
faint sounds, produced by the passage of the breath through
the unobstructed throat. These movements and sounds may
have, as I have shown, a communicative value. Variations
in the rate of breathing and in the loudness of the sounds
may serve to express a physical condition or a social situa-
tion, and to convey the existence of such condition or situa-
tion to others, especially from the child to the mother and
vice versa.
We have now to consider how these movements
and sounds may be still further varied and especially how
the sounds may be enhanced.
Aside from the increase in rapidity and force of exhalation
and inhalation, the most important means by which the
current of breath becomes variously audible is partial or
complete closure of the vocal passages. If the sides of the
passages approach one another at any point, the air in its
inward and outward flow is compelled to move at a higher
rate of speed. The result of the increased friction is a
louder sound. Should the passage close completely, the
movement of the air ceases and there is silence; but the
necessity of inhaling and exhaling at fairly regular intervals
soon compels the obstruction to give way. The walls of the
air passages separate, and the air rushes in or out with some
violence, causing at the moment of separation an explosive
sound,—a cough, grunt, catch, etc., if the breath is exhaled,
a gasp, gulp, click, etc., if the breath is inhaled.
The causes of these constrictions are various, but are
chiefly of two kinds: (1) ordinary physiological processes,
(2) strains or tensions of the whole body. Let us consider
first the effect of certain physiological processes.
developed before the sensations of tone. "All sensations of hearing," says
Professor Titchener, "have been in some way developed from sensations of
jar or shake which were not heard at all." (Primer of Psychology, p. 43.)
17
Of the constrictions of the air-passages due to purely
physiological causes, those connected with the assimilation of
food, namely with mastication and swallowing, and with the
rejecting of food, are the most interesting, not only because
the digestive apparatus and the lungs are genetically the
same organ and still maintain an intimate connection, but
because to these processes may be traced some of the most
familiar uses of the vocal organs;-laughter, for example,
to the taking of food (or at least to movements which
promote digestion), crying to the rejection of food.¹ It is
obvious that both gorging and disgorging ² necessitate a
temporary closure of the respiratory channel, after which the
lungs, if full, relieve themselves, or if empty, refill them-
selves, by a violent effort. In either case the air rushes
with abnormal force through the reopened passages. Sounds
of laughter, I need hardly say, are mainly connected with
the expiratory movement, sounds of crying with the
inspiratory movement.
2
Other constrictions due to physiological causes are to be
found in sneezing, snoring, coughing, spitting, groaning, hic-
cuping, choking, grunting, and gulping.
The closures which accompany these various physiological
processes occur at different points in the vocal passages. In
some the constriction takes place at the glottis, in others at
the epiglottis, in still others the soft palate is involved.³
¹ See the interesting and suggestive article on Crying, by A. Borgquist,
American Journal of Psychology, vol. 17, p. 149.
2 According to Furness, Home-Life of the Borneo Head-Hunters, nothing
is more characteristic of savage life than the ravenous devouring of food.
The savage grace before meat in Borneo is 'Eat slowly.' An overplus of
food, or a modicum of poisonous food, is commonly rejected by the spon-
taneous recoil of the digestive system.
3 On the function of the epiglottis in modifying vocal sounds, see Czermak,
Sitzungsberichte d. K. Akademie d. Wiss., Wien, Math.-Nat. Klass., 1858,
xxix, S. 557 (reprinted in Ges. Schriften, 1, 555), and Scripture, Experi-
mental Phonetics, pp. 274, 279.
¿
18
Thus it may be seen that from purely physiological causes
may arise a considerable variety of closures and resultant
sounds, all indicative of corresponding bodily states.¹
A second class of constrictions result from the sympathetic
action of the throat-muscles, and other muscles, under the
influence of bodily strains of various kinds. That strains
arising from violent efforts of any sort tend to close the
vocal passage, is easily demonstrated.²
is easily demonstrated.2 If any one of those
who are sitting before me will, after taking a full breath,
pull violently at the arm or rung of his chair, he will find
that his glottis has closed involuntarily. The immediate
reason for this is that when the air-passages are open, the
thorax affords an insecure basis for the strain of the arm-
¹Such sounds as these are frequently said to be meaningless. Thus Jesper-
sen (Progress in Language, p. 361) speaking of the phonation with which
he conceives speech to have begun, says: "Originally a jingle of empty
sounds without meaning, it came to be an instrument of thought." Aston
also characterizes spitting, gulping, and coughing as "non-significant
human vocal sounds" (Japanese Onomatopes and the origin of Language, Jnl.
Anthropol. Inst., vol. 23, p. 332). Although significance is a relative term,
it seems to me unscientific to apply the word non-significant to any vocal
sound which reveals bodily states or affects social relations. In primitive
society the sound of sneezing, for example, may at times have been as
significant for human events then and there, as are the most solemn words
of our modern vocabulary. To take an extreme case, a sneeze which re-
vealed the presence of an individual to his enemy may have resulted in
death. The sentence of a judge could do no more.
2 Scripture, Experimental Phonetics, p. 380; "Experiments on the nervous
and mental reactions of the vasomotor system, of the heart, of the muscles,
of the sweat glands, bladder, anus, etc., make it probably safe to say that
the production of any vocal sound is accompanied by nerve impulses to and
from every organ of the body. Vocal sounds of a certain character, such as
clear, smooth, energetic phrase in song, become associated with the regula-
tion not only of the vocal muscles but also of those of the arms and hands,
and, in fact, of the entire body. The disturbance of any of these by re-
straint or unnatural posture interferes to a greater or less degree-depend-
ing on the individual and on circumstances-with the vocal action. To
produce the proper modulation the singer or speaker should put his entire
body into the appropriate condition."
19
muscles; it is like an unstoppered air-cushion which col-
lapses suddenly when one sits on it. Full and tightly-
stoppered lungs, on the other hand, expand and stiffen the
thorax and give points of attachment to the muscles of
the arms.¹
Of such strains the most important for the present inquiry
are those which are correlated with emotional seizures, such
as anger, fright, suspense, and the like. Whether the emotion
is caused by the strain, as some psychologists believe, or the
strain is the expression of the emotion, I shall not pause to
inquire. It is sufficient for my purpose to note that the two
are in some way connected, and that, in consequence, a con-
striction of the throat is an invariable accompaniment of
violent emotion.
As for the strains themselves, they no doubt can be traced
to original life-serving movements whose purpose was to
secure food, to resist attack, or to prepare for running away.
2
To show how strain and emotion operate in modifying
respiration and producing sound, I will take as an illustra-
tion one of the most elementary and typical of all emotions,
namely, fright. When one is startled, as by a brilliant flash
of lightning, the breath is first drawn in sharply, filling the
lungs with oxygen as if to nourish the system for a coming
struggle. The muscles stiffen throughout the whole body
just as they do when one braces oneself to resist attack or
prepare for flight, and as a result of this general muscular
contraction, the glottis closes abruptly, penning up the air
¹ And to the muscles of the legs as well. Thus the runner in a hundred-
yard dash, first taking a full inspiration, closes the glottis tightly, and if
closely pressed keeps it closed during the entire race. Cf. the interesting
article by Dr. R. Tait McKenzie on The Facial Expression of Violent Effort,
Breathlessness, and Fatigue, in the London Journal of Anatomy and Physiology,
October, 1905, p. 51.
2 Darwin, Expression of the Emotions, p. 284; Dewey, The Theory of
Emotion, Psychological Review, vol. 1, p. 553.
20
behind it. This strained attitude may be held for some little
time. The system, however, soon clamors for a fresh supply
of oxygen, the lungs discharge their contents, and the
imprisoned air, forcing its way with an explosive sound
through the constricted glottis, rushes violently through the
throat and mouth.
In this series of quickly drawn breath, tightly constricted
glottis, explosive opening and violent exhalation, we have
what I shall regard as the earliest form of voice proper. It
may be termed the vocal unit. For the sake of simplicity I
will treat the glottal constriction as the typical form,
assuming that closures at other points in the vocal passages
illustrate the same principles.
It now remains to show how this elementary form of
vocal utterance may pass over into a communicative sign.
This will be the less difficult because the process of trans-
formation is so closely analogous to that by which the
clutching movement of the hand and arm passes into a
gesture of pointing, that the terms used to describe one
phenomenon may be applied to the other almost without
change. Thus the clamor of the stomach for food is
analogous to the clamor of the circulatory system for
oxygen, the only difference being in the kind of nourish-
ment demanded. Again, the grasping movement of the
hand is paralleled by the movements of the diaphragm
and of the intercostal muscles which expand the chest."
To continue the analogy, since an important factor in the
development of the pointing gesture was the absence of food,
we must, in the case of breathing, look for a condition
which will check the supply of oxygen. This we can
readily discover in the closing of the glottis, or other parts
¹Nor is the comparison merely fanciful. The lungs hunger for their
proper food.
A diver rising to the surface after a long stay under water
"clutches" the air as fiercely as a starving cat clutches a piece of meat.
21
of the air-passages, under the strain of fright or suspense, or
through physiological disturbances. The feeling of suffoca-
tion caused by the failure in the supply of oxygen is
precisely parallel to the feeling of distress caused by the
failure of the hand to grasp the food.
The terms of the analogy being now complete, we are
ready to inquire how the transformation takes place which
converts the life-serving function into a communicative
function. For the sake of a concrete example let me at
this point recur to the case of the mother and child. When
the child is frightened, its glottis closes involuntarily, shutting
off the supply of oxygen and causing a feeling of suffocation.
If, now, the mother by her comforting caress or embrace,
relieves the tension, sets the breath free, and restores the
normal respiratory rhythm, the unstopping of the vocal
passages will henceforth be associated with her act. She
has coöperated with the child in the satisfaction of its
craving for oxygen. She has put the food within its reach.
And just as the act of clutching is trimmed down and
reduced to an appealing forward thrust of the hand or to an
attitude, so is the total series of muscular movements.
involving constriction of the glottis, long holding of the
breath, and explosive release, molded by the mother's
response into the characteristic form of communicative
speech.
That this form does not resemble the gesture of pointing
in all respects, is due to the fact already noted, namely,
that respiration, unlike movements of the arms, is an
incessantly rhythmical process only in part under the
control of the will. A baby may hold its breath until it is
black in the face, as babies of the present day frequently do
to the terror of their mothers, but sooner or later the
imprisoned air must be let out and a fresh supply taken in.
In other words, constriction of the air-passage cannot
22
become an attitude.
Nevertheless the effect of the mother's
response upon the child's series of breathing movements is
analogous to its effect upon the clutching movement in that
the series, when its communicative value is perceived, need
not be given in its fullness. It is completed by the mother's
response. Hence the duration of each part of the series is
reduced, and the violence of the latter part diminished.
The long continued constriction, followed by a hoarse rush
of breath or a scream, is softened into a glottal catch, followed
by a comparatively slower emission of the breath, diminish-
ing rapidly in intensity.
The earliest communicative vocal utterance was, then, I
conceive, a glottal stop,' or some sound resembling it, fol-
lowed by a voiced or voiceless sound, which increased in
pitch and intensity to a certain point, and then diminished
in the same qualities to the close.
Closures at other points in the air-passages would result
in other sounds,' but as all would involve the same prin-
ciple, a description of them would contribute nothing to the
solution of the fundamental problem. At any rate I shall
not consider them here.
That sounds produced and modified in the way I have
indicated, would in the process be socialized and made
symbolic like the pointing-gesture, may be taken for
granted.
I need hardly say that such an utterance as I have
described was not a word. Neither was it a sentence, in
any proper sense of that term, though it more nearly
resembled the latter than the former. Precursor of both
¹I use this term, it must be remembered, to indicate any constriction of
the lower part of the air passage. 'Tracheal stop' would be more precise.
2 For example, as others have surmised, the nasal stop involved in
suckling may have given rise to the sound nga, na, or ma, which in 80 per
cent. of all languages is the word for mother.
23
word and sentence, it was a protoplasmic speech-form in
which an entire situation was inchoately expressed and
communicated. Within it were embraced emotional seizure,
instinctive appeal to its kind for help, discharge of feeling,
consciousness of self, and consciousness of coöperation. If
there was to the child any differentiation in the utterance,
it consisted in this, that the first part of the series of
movements pertained more closely to itself, the latter part
pertained more closely to its mother.
I have now tried to show how, in the early history of
mankind, even prior to the full development of the vocal
chords, the passage of air through the respiratory channel
may have produced a variety of sounds. I have tried also
to show how these sounds, together with the muscular
movements which occasioned them, may, under the condi-
tion of close physical contact, as in the case of mother and
child, first have served as recognition-signs, then, through
the response of the mother to the child's implicit appeals
for help, have developed into true communications. Still
further, I have attempted to show that the successive
stopping and unstopping of the breath, owing to the neces-
sarily rhythmical character of the respiratory act, may
have caused a succession of consonantal and aspirate, or
consonantal and sonant, sounds which would form the
basis of articulation.
It remains to consider by what stages the symbolic
representatives of bodily states or social situations may
have come to stand for particular ideas.
Since all speculations of this kind are imaginative recon-
structions of the past, I will, for variety's sake, venture
to recount the process of evolution as it may actually have
occurred.
If we could, by the aid of Mr. Wells's time-machine,
transport ourselves back to the period when speech was
24
beginning, and could then, by leaps of a century or a
millennium, approach our own era, we should probably
witness such conditions and changes as the following.¹ At
the beginning we should find the creatures who are to
become men, perhaps the only voice-producing mammals in
creation. Their voices, however, owing to the rudimentary
condition of the vocal apparatus, are little more than
buzzings, hoarse whispers, or faint cries, following abrupt
closures of the air-passages at the glottis, the epiglottis, the
root of the tongue, the palate, and the lips. These sounds
increase in volume and rise in pitch in moments of excite-
ment or of physiological disturbance. At this early period,
they serve among adults only as recognition-signs by which
one detects the presence of his kind in the dark or through
intervening obstacles. But if we observe the relations of
mother and child and note the development of their
intelligence, we shall perceive the dawning of a higher use.
Imagine, if you please, a primitive mother and her sleeping
child. The mother clasps the child to her breast.
As long
as she feels and hears its regular breathing, she is content,
for to her dim intelligence this rhythm of respiration is a
sign of life and health. If at intervals the child stirs
restlessly, she perceives, through her physical contact with
it, not only the movement of its body, but also the irregu-
larity of its breathing. Now, we may suppose, it wakes in
fright, drawing its breath in sharply and stiffening all its
muscles. The passage of the throat closes, the breathing
stops. The cessation of the customary movement alarms
the mother and excites her sympathy. She fondles the child,
and at her comforting touch the glottis opens with an
explosion, and the breath rushes out in a whisper or faint
1 For the sake of simplicity I will confine myself to a single phenome-
non.
25
cry, which diminishes in intensity as the fear passes away.
The breathing again becomes regular. Trivial as this little
series of events may seem, it has traced in the simple brains
of both these beings a record of momentous importance.
On the part of the child, the emotional seizure, the desire
for protection, and the instinctive muscular contraction with
its resulting constriction of the throat, are combined with
the image of the caress and with consciousness of a
pleasureable relaxation of tension. The spasmodic movement
to resist attack or escape from imagined danger has been
completed by the mother's act. A consciousness of the
social value of stopped and unstopped breathing has been
awakened.
On the mother's part also, the sudden tension of the
child's body within her arms, which conveyed to her its
emotion of fear, has been connected with its vocal sounds,
just as her instinctive caress has been connected with the
cessation of the sound and the restoration of the child's
normal condition. She realizes vaguely the value of its
interrupted breathing as an appeal to her for aid.¹
We set our machine in motion and pass down a score
of generations. The voices have grown louder as the
vocal chords have developed with use. But the multiplied
records of tension, sound, response, and achievement of
desire, transmitted from one generation to another in a
more highly developed brain-structure, have produced a
remarkable change in the relations of mother and child.
The value of the vocal unit as a means of intercommunica-
tion has been enhanced. The connection in the child's con-
sciousness between the muscular sensations of the thorax,
1 Fanciful though this description may be, it was suggested in all its
outward details by the behavior of a mother and baby Macacus in the
London Zoological Gardens.
26
vocal organs, etc., and the mother's response to the resulting
sounds, is so firmly established that the cry is uttered with
the expectation that it will be responded to. The child
cries at the mother. The mother, on her side, imitates the
cry, partly through the instinct of imitation, but also because
the sound of her voice is a part of her feeling for the child.
The movement of her hand and the constriction of her
throat are, in fact, a single complex innervation. She
recognizes also the value of the cry as a response to the
child's appeal, since together with the caress it restores the
normal respiratory rhythm.
As we go on down the centuries we see these vocal sounds
growing in value and importance as the sound frees itself
to some extent from the movements which originally gave
rise to it. When the recollection of a painful experience
innervates the muscles of the child's throat and produces
the cry of fright, the mother, if she sees no real occasion for
fear, gives only the comforting vocal response. Thus the
sound is, in a measure, detached from its original cause,
while remaining significant of it. In other words, it
becomes a symbol of the relations between the two.
At a still later stage we shall find this sound attaching
itself to some particular element in the situation which,
with their growing intelligence, both are now able to
distinguish. Because this element is most prominent, or
because it occurs most frequently, the sound becomes more
closely associated with it than with the rest of the complex.
When the sound is uttered on either side, it calls into
consciousness, as before, the entire situation; but since the
stress of attention now falls upon the particular element
which in both minds is most typical or most characteristic,
the sound which before expressed for each, and communi-
cated from one to the other, an emotional seizure, now
denotes a particular element in the exciting cause. The
27
unimportant details of the situation retreat into the back-
ground, leaving the typical feature in isolation; out of the
emotion emerges that sharpened state of consciousness which
we call an idea. What this typical feature is will depend
upon the experience of the individuals. In the case of the
emotion we have been considering, it may be a flash of light-
ning, thunder, the cry of a tiger, the crackling of a twig
under the foot of a prowling enemy, the dividing of the
grass marking the approach of a poisonous snake, or a
pain in the stomach. In any case, the vocal sound has been
so often interchanged to convey the state of fear which this
object of terror arouses, that the utterance of it calls up
infallibly in the mind of each the image of this particular
element in the dangerous situation.
As we flit by the succeeding generations, we note that the
number of these significant respirates increases. Different
situations cause different kinds of strains, and these again,
resulting in different sorts of constrictions of the throat and
varying shapes of the resonance chambers, produce in their
turn a variety of vocal sounds, symbolizing the most ele-
mentary relations of mother and child. At first unstable
and sporadic and confined to single families, these little
vocabularies die out of use as rapidly as they are born, and a
new set springs up in each succeeding generation. But in
course of time, as the mind becomes more retentive, the
growing child holds fast to his infantile vocabulary. A
bridge is thus made from one generation to the next. The
vocal creations of the past are conserved and added to. A
tendency is established, which out of the manifold creations
of each new generation selects for survival those which are
analogous to the old, and rejects the remainder. These
usages spread from one family to another. The latest
arrival in the community finds himself in the midst of a
group who will attend to his needs only when he uses the
28
sounds which others use, and only when he uses them with
the meanings which others attach to them.
We shall see hundreds and thousands of these little
systems of speech springing up, competing one with another
and passing away. In the struggle for existence we may
conceive either that the fittest group survives, together with
its mode of speech, or, what is more probable, that (other
things being equal) the group with the best language-system,
since it is able to give more explicit instructions for the or-
ganization of defense and attack, gets the start of the rest,
and perpetuates both itself and its system of communication.
Thus a particular vocabulary, at first confined to a single
group, may come to dominate a wide area.
But we need pursue our imaginary flight no farther,
for we have left the period of genesis behind; we have
entered upon the period of transmission in which we find
ourselves to-day.¹
¹It will be observed that among the factors of speech-genesis I have
given but a modest rôle to imitation. Considering the great importance
which philologists have assigned to the imitative instinct, this view may
excite surprise and at least deserves a word of explanation.
It must be apparent to persons who are familiar with the recent literature
of psychology, that the imitation-theory, not only with respect to speech,
but with respect to origins of mental aptitudes of all kinds, especially in
infants, has been sadly overworked. Imitation has been treated as a purely
reflex and mechanical act, as an inscrutable instinct prompting men and
animals to repeat exactly the movements of others or to reproduce in one
way or another certain natural phenomena. The truth is, however, as
Professor C. H. Cooley has well said, that much of what we call imitation
is a difficult and complicated exercise of attention, will, and even judgment.
It is more characteristic of adults than of the very young. Referring to
the speech of young children, Professor Cooley says: "The imitativeness
of children is stimulated by the imitativeness of parents. A baby cannot
hit upon any sort of a noise, but the admiring family, eager for communi-
cation, will imitate it again and again, hoping to get a repetition. They
are usually disappointed, but the exercise probably causes the child to
notice the likeness of the sounds and so prepares the way for imitation. It
29
Let me say in conclusion that I am far from thinking that
the processes involved in the genesis of speech are so simple
as I have made them, for purposes of brevity and clearness.
My sketch is, as the physiologists say, diagrammatic. I have
left out of it the details which, however necessary to a finished
picture, seem to me nevertheless to confuse the main outlines.
If the picture is true as far as it goes, the details can be
readily filled in. If, on the other hand, it is false, its very
bareness and simplicity will make the errors more easy of
detection. In either case I shall be content if my paper, by
stimulating other minds, leads to a reconsideration of this
ever-abandoned, ever-renewed, baffling yet perennially fas-
cinating problem.
is perhaps safe to say that up to the end of the first year the parents are
more imitative than the child." (Human Nature and the Social Order, p. 25.)
Applying this principle to the genesis of speech, we may say that the
primitive mother's imitation of the child's irregularities of respiration are
a more potent factor in the development of speech than the child's imitation
of the mother, or of anything else. The so-called imitation words pop,
crack, bang, sizzle, and the like are probably late creations. Primitive man
must have attained to a relatively advanced stage of intelligence and dis-
criminative power before he detected the similarity of the sounds he was
making with his breath to the sounds made by the forces and objects of
nature-to the rippling of streams, the murmuring of the winds in the
trees, or the rolling of thunder in the clouds. (Cf. Wundt, Schallnach-
ahmungen und Lautmetaphern in der Sprache. Beilage zur Münchener Allg.
Zeit., 16. Feb., 1907.) I say nothing about the sounds made by other animals,
because, as I have said before, I assume that man or his precursor was the
earliest of his kind to develop voice.

PATENTED
MAN. 21, 1988

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