Gesture, Interjection and Onomatopoeia in Edward Burnett Tylor’s Theory of the Origin and Development of Language
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12775/ths.2016.005Keywords
origin of language, gesture-language, interjection, onomatopoeia, emotional tone, natural language, Darwinian debateAbstract
In this paper, I shall focus on E. B. Tylor’s theory on the origin and development of language, as it is expounded in his Researches into the Early History of Mankind (1865), in Primitive Culture (1871) and in Anthropology (1881). In his first work, influenced by Charles Darwin and Max Müller, he tried to explain the emergence of human language from what he called “Gesture-Language”. This line of inquiry prompted him to discuss the relation between objects and names, which in turn led him to the conclusion that primitive minds cannot separate “objects” from “ideas”. This idea stands at the core of his most famous theory, that is, “Primitive Animism”. Tylor’s theory of “Gesture-Language” was in contrast with Müller’s idea of language as the “Rubicon” that separates Men from Animals. This opposition is analysed in Primitive Culture and Anthropology, where Tylor explicitly discusses of interjectional and imitative theories.
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