Chapter 5
The origins of language
Article outline
- Historical excursion: Lucretius
- The natural origin of language in De Rerum Natura
- Lucretius’s view of language and animal communication as interpreted in Montaigne
- The problem of human-animal continuity in Lucretius and in discussions today
- Lucretius and the nomothetic theory of language origin
- The 18th century: Rousseau and Condillac
- Condillac’s Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
- Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality
- Rousseau’s Essay on the Origin of Language
- Rousseau’s Émile
- Later developments with regard to sign language
- Bébian: Sign language of the deaf as a surviving form of the language of action
- Edward Tylor’s view of sign language
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Notes