ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE

Abstract

IN Nature of February 5, 1944, I gave a summary of my researches regarding the origin of the Ide. languages, as set out in my book “On the Primitive Speech of the Ide. people and their First Home” (published in Icelandic in 1943). I had come to a similar conclusion as Sir Richard Paget had propounded in his work “Human Speech” (1930), that a great part of human speech originated in the speaking organs' unconscious imitation of the gestures of the human body, especially the hands. I succeeded in explaining about 25 percent of the whole Ide. material (about 2,200 constructed roots). I was interested to see whether my conclusions for the Ide. languages were confirmed or not in the Semitic group and undertook therefore a special examination of Hebrew, which is recorded in Nature of October 7, 1944, p. 466. Further researches were then made in an attempt to prove the gesture theory. In one of these, “On the origin of Ide. eu-” I undertook to examine all constructed Ide. roots, beginning with eu- (as geu-, peu-, teu-, etc.). Most of these roots have a common meaning, namely: to swell, become round, vaulted, curved.