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March 21, 2017

The origin of speech

Development of thinking, thus, cannot be considered independently of the development of speech. Language and thought from the beginning grew at the same work the soil, were in close connection and interaction with each other. Language fixes and records the results of the thinking and enables the exchange of ideas, which is indispensable to social production and, consequently, the very existence of society.

Hence, it is clear what great significance in the history of ancient humanity, in the development of his thought and culture was to belong to language.

In science, dating back to the ancient world, a lot of effort to solve the mystery of the emergence of speech, set the time when it appeared, and the reasons that caused it to life has been put forward many hypotheses spent. Nevertheless, all attempts to explain the origin of the speech were fruitless because the creators of these theories were correct dialectical materialist conception of society and the historical process and, therefore, could not understand the social role and importance of the language.

The classics of Marxism first in the history of science has shown that language as a means of communication between people, was born the development of labor and society; He at the same time was a condition and a powerful impetus for further development of employment rights and public relations.

It should be emphasized here that it is already the oldest was sound; gestures and facial expressions only complement it sound, though the role of these aids the expression of thoughts and feelings could be the ancient people greater than at present.

It is known that monkeys are the noisiest inhabitants of the rainforest. The sounds of life belong to the huge role. Loud cries of monkeys to help to find each other in the dense foliage, shouting, they warn each other of danger, attract attention to the food supply. A variety of cries and noises accompany the movement of monkeys, their games, and so on. D. Sounds monkeys complain, anger, fear, impatience, frustration, satisfaction.

However, the sounds made by ancient people already were fundamentally different from the sounds that can issue voice box monkey. Difference was here, of course, is not easy and not only in the richness of various modulations, not sounds Diversity, and in their social roles, their social function in humans. Sounds speech ancient people qualitatively different from the monkey sounds, they were about the same relation to him, in which is used by primitive people are instruments of labor, even the simplest, most primitive, to the sticks and stones, which are sometimes used by the ape.

Whatever the primitive sounds of the ancient language, but accompanying the work, emerging from the work and serving it, such sounds have expressed a certain social content. “To form men,” I wrote about this Engels, over time, inevitably “came to the conclusion that they had was the need to say something to each other”

Sounds speech oldest men differ, therefore, from the vocal sounds produced not only the apes, but without exception, all the animals, including the most gifted in the sound relation. The sounds of speech of people expressed were abstracted ability of the mind, the conscious nature of human activity, rather than blind instinct. Therefore, speech sounds do not remain at the ancient people and their immediate ancestors in the same unaltered state as the animals. On the contrary, as the development of labor and in connection with these sounds, and together with them and relevant authorities, improved, developed and enriched.

Comparative anatomical study of the larynx higher apes and humans demonstrates how closely connected with other changes of the human body gradually changed the vocal apparatus of our ancestors:

Crucial is primarily the fact that Pithecanthropus was already biped, that his body was straight, upright position. Straightening head position strengthened the bond of the larynx and oral cavity and led to a change in shape of the glottis disappeared fuzzy screams were replaced by sounds from more subtle shades, significantly different from the sounds made by monkeys.

Judging by the nature of the mandible, in Pithecanthropus or Sinanthropus was no more opportunity to frequently change the articulation of speech. Their vocal apparatus was this still too primitive and undeveloped. Larynx primitive man was not yet able to say more or less sophisticated and well designed combination of sounds. But having already differentiated relief in the bottom of the left frontal gyrus, one TE, where the motor center of speech activity, suggesting that, for example, Sinanthropus already explained audible speech, though not quite articulate. We are the people of the Lower Paleolithic, of course, still composed of poorly differentiated sounds, supplemented as necessary facial expressions and gestures. We cannot determine what exactly was the primary complexes of sounds, as they were designed, these ancient words, with which it began. However, clearly the most important thing – it was born of hard-powerful means of further promoting human forward on ways to strengthen social ties.

Continuing the progressive development of the rudiments of the language was natural and inevitable because the development of work, more and more intensified the need for communication, fix public relations, demanded enrichment and improvement of the language as the primary means of communication between people.

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