Proto-World and the Origin of Language 

They have made 3D models of chimpanzee vocal tracts and shown that they can produce practically all the same sounds as us. They just lack the mental capacity. So it's likely that mental capacity for language was a later evolved trait.

Dolphins can communicate extremely well. They can comprehend abstract thoughts such as "red ball" or "blue ball" without seeing a ball at all. I've heard that they even develope certain languages within their pods.

There's an ancient Greek legend about a king in Greece and a king in Phrygia arguing about whose language was the first. Back and forth they argued. Then the Phrygian king proposed an experiment of taking two newborn twins and isolating them in the forest with a mute shepherd, to see what language they would speak first. The babies grew, and the mute shepherd tended his sheep and fed the babies sheep milk. Day after day the kings observed the babies from a window, but they didn't say anything, until one day, one baby made a noise... "Baaaaaaaaaa!" "Hey, that's not a Greek word!" "It's not a Phrygian word either. There must be a language older than yours or mine..." :-)

There's 3 words that we know for a fact prove the proto-world language: Ouch Yeouch Gneurshk

Welcome back! Such a good topic, especially when you one-up me and go even FURTHER back in time. ;) I think you have at least a half-dozen more gems buried in here. One interesting thought, as those charlatan long-rangers use the term, the reconstructed Proto-World would be our latest common ancestor, splitting "language origins" into two separate issues: "origin of [modern] languages" and "the origin of language". To borrow a Xidnafism, "MADNESS!"

If there was one original language, what would you name it?

Having increased intelligence seems to promote a natural desire to communicate things in greater detail. My best guess is that language evolved somewhat in tandem with our general intelligence. Tribes with both increased intelligence and the ability to articulate would have a much easier time organizing hunts, gatherings, alliances, communicating that theres danger nearby etc etc whereas those with weaker communication abilities would struggle far more at doing any of those things. My best guess is that language originated with just codes, like a short low grunt was understood by locals as someone saying "rock" and then eventually a short low grunt followed by a slightly higher pitched short grunt would mean "sharp rock" as they developed the intelligence to specify which rock they were referring to.

My theory is that when humans first started talking, no one really spoke an entire language, everyone only spoke several words, however the words used heavily differed from group to group and region to region, but as time went on though people from one group met people from other groups and discovered the words each other were using, later many series of words got unified and became bigger and bigger

5:05 according to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a Hee should be able to fly

6:30 R.I.P. United Kingdom and Iceland lol

Ooh: I have food Ee: There's a predator Oooh: There's other people over there Ah: Can you hand me that? Aah: Take this Ting: Help me with this Tang: Be quiet Walla Walla: We're going to fight Bing: Stay low Bang: Stay here

Don't worry. We'll know for sure when time travel becomes available to linguists.

Most animals were already able to convey emotional meaning through vocalization, if not complex semantic meaning. The most interesting idea to me is that the proto-human language is music. Music communicates emotions much too effectively to be a purposeless spandrel.

Oh my God, gather round the children, a monumental event! Xidnaf actually released a video

I know the word "mama" is at lest the same in English, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, and Quechua. "Baba/papa" is a least the same in English, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Malay, and Zulu. For this reason I believe in a limited Proto-world language. What do you all think?

I think it did exist cause 1: humans have a part of our brain dedicated to launguage 2: human anatomy has existed exactly like this for 150k years-ish 3: we only started migrating out of where we were all started 50k-ish years ago, 4:conclusion, we had 100k-ish years to develop launguage before splitting apart, and I’d say we could do it cause those humans had a launguage part of thier brain and it existing at all is clear evedencw of this (I made this theory up on my own, sorry if I got something wrong but I do know everything about what I said before 4 was right)

X-xidnaf? *raises from wheelchair, takes oxygen mask off* I-is it really you?

He's back.... after so long... praise 2017...

Some family terms like "Ma" and "Pa" for mother and father seem to be common in completely unrelated languages. Baby babbling could be the closest thing to "proto-world".

I once was out for a walk in the woodlands and thought, "What if I lived before there was any culture at all? How would I interpret things?" After a good while trying, I managed to clear my mind completely and view things as if I were the first person ever to experience them. It is incredibly difficult to stay in that state of mind, your brain automatically wants to throw a bunch whatever culture you've absorbed all over every thought you have. I had to recentre myself a few times but had some interesting thoughts and even came up with a word for water, "!na", almost like a sort of suckling noise, which is where it came from because I was thirsty at the time. So I wonder if the first words evolved in a similar way to this, more like sounds associated with an action, creature or thing?

Such a great video! Subscribed! As a Hungarian I would love to express my appreciation for consistently leaving a tiny blank hole for us in the middle of Europe! It means a lot!

With noche/noite and ocho/oito, you so nearly showed the right thing. It's actually that Spanish corresponds to Portuguese in those cases which in turn derive from earlier Latin . By the time western vulgar Latin has diverged, this has become (cf. French nuit, huit) and then, in Spanish, became when it follows a vowel. Mucho/muito seems to be a bit different because they derive from Latin multus with a not a and the development parallel to is specific to Western Iberian (Spanish, Portuguese, Galician, Extremaduran, Leonese etc.). French and Catalan both preserve the Latin . In both old spanish and old portuguese, a has appeared (hence the parallel development) but the reason for this is unclear; an equivalent process does not take place in the phonologically identical tumultus. It's also worth noting that Extremaduran is odd here in that it actually has munchu instead of the expected *muichu

DAMMIT you wrote "Tounge" and not tongue, Kidnap

I've always been of the mind that the ability to use language proficiently is the combination of several independent characteristics that evolved bit by bit into how we communicate today, and that other animals have pieces of what we have, but not the totality and complexity. Heck some kinds of communication, like symbolism, might be very ancient indeed if other animals have the capacity to understand symbols. Some very simple parts of language might be incredibly basic to multicellular life in general, like maybe symbolism is just advanced pattern recognition.

Yay your back

I love how this video was more about the things we don't know, than the things we do. Really got me thinking, thanks!

humans did first communicate by singing. this is why songs can make you feel a certain way even if you don't understand the lyrics. you can tell if a song is sad, cheerful, aggressive, etc. there was a documentary that i watched many years ago that talked about this. i forgot the name but it was about music from a neurological standpoint.

2:49 dolphins can talk to each other with clicks and whistles

Britain and Ireland don't appreciate being left off the globe xidnaf :(

Nice video! Since there are already videos about the _Proto-Indo-European language_, I'd like to see a video series about the *Proto-Uralic language* and its descendants.

I've heard chimps give each other unique names in the wild. I think it makes sense that it would start there and combine with gestures and grunts until words like "here" and "no" and "give" were invented out of necessity, possibly by different individuals, or maybe by one particularly intelligent individual who ate a bunch of psychedelic mushrooms.

I like that idea that language could have come out of nursery rhyme types of songs. It’s not unheard of something having a different function before it becomes used for something more complex and it’s a fascinating idea.

I feel like proto-world must have used all or some basic plosives. For example, some of the first sounds human babies do are "papa, tata, kaka" and stuff like that, and besides, the polynesian culture is one of the most ancient, originally from prehistoric Asia, and after going around conquering islands, because of the ocean, their language family rarely came into contact with other language families, so, in my opinion, if proto-world is a thing, then it is likely that polynesian languages would be the thing most resembling it, and polynesian languages have some very simple sounds, so my guess would be that proto-world phonetical inventory might have been similar, like say, only unvoiced plosives and a set of two (or at most three) nasal consonants, and a simple set of consonants as well, like "A, I, U" and maybe "E and O"

Question: What is the thing on "your" head? Is it a bowlcut? A hat? A helmet? I NEED TO KNOW!

This is one is one of my favorite channels. I truly appreciate your videos.

I just found this channel from this episode on my feed. I really really like this stuff!! I marathoned every video on the channel already. great work xidnaf!

when you like a channel so much so you skip all your other subscriptions to watch his first video in months. great new video!

Dude you're so good at making these videos. Everything you say gets your point across clearly and concisely.

I literally had "Fruits of her Labour" open in another tab when I watched this video. Good taste in music Xidnaf.

Impressed by the visualization in this video. You did a really good job explaining fairly complicated concepts using simple drawings! Really cool!

YES XIDNAF RETURNS

What!?!? Xidnaf is back? Thanks for uploading, I had just found out about Proto World a couple days ago, and you posted this...

I really enjoy these video's you've done. They have a stream-of-consciousness quality to them I like.

I love the way u use easy to understand symbology like colors and shapes to demonstrate complex topics! It’s a great learning tool and the way you use it seems pretty unique!

What was up with the 8 month hiatus

I like the idea that language came from when we first descended from the trees and started roaming the plains of Africa, where we started experimenting with new kinds of food, one being the hallucinogenic mushroom that grows readily in animal dung (psilocybe cubensis). The state of synesthesia that resulted was what was necessary to make the neural connection between noises made with the mouth and pictures in the imagination. We may have discovered even greater forms of mental technology had the plains not dried out.

Delighted to see you back after such a long time !!!

I've read several linguistic articles that state that musical ability, aka the ability to differentiate between notes, keys, tones, octaves, etc, may have developed in humans before language did. It's certainly plausible, as non-lyric singing doesn't require as much thinking capacity as spoken language does.

The Portuguese word for night noite does actually make the /tʃ/ sound. It may be an exception in the development of Portuguese but words ending in -te make that sound. Otherwise a great video glad to see you back.

I was just telling my dad about this channel yesterday but how it's been dead for a year. good timing.

I have a theory. Perhaps music was the earliest form of communication, and then language kind of just evolved from that.

man, before i even finish the video, i want to say how impressed i am with visual components of the video. maybe i've just been watching pretty lame videos recently, but honestly the visuals really help to illustrate and clarify what you're talking about. idk, i just think you did a really stand up job, man. 👍

Glad to see you're back. Love your videos as always.

YES NEW XIDNAF VIDEO! Xidnaf, I love, love, love (not only your content, but) your animations! Please keep doing them your style, they're so creative, thought-provoking and funny! I really enjoy them! Also, I bet IF there was a Proto-World and it had words, there were two types of words in it - nouns and verbs. I think that simply because I feel like they're so easy to come up with as a concept. Maybe it had adjectives too and maybe that was all the types of words it had. It's indeed interesting to think about!

I'm so happyyyy you're back!!!

The coolest thing is that we possibly do know two words of Proto-World. Those being the words for mother and father, with them being some variation of 'mama' and 'papa', because those words are similar all throughout the world and are probably based on the universal way of babies babbling nonsense, which parents mistakenly believe to be the baby talking to them, and then reinforce it.

Never clicked so fast in my life. It's been too long, Xidnaf. Welcome back.

8 long months the world had to survive without Xidnaf. and here he is again!

Great, you are back! :-) Looking forward to watch all your new videos;-)

nice to see you're back!

New video notification. At work. Don't care!

Missed your work, nice to have you back. 🙂

Wow so I just read every comment and wow, you are really eloquent and kind and take everyone seriously, you're just seriously an awesome person 😅

I'm so glad to see you back! Hope college is going well!

Yes! Xidnaf is back; this is exactly what I need after the crap week I've had.

Yay you're alive! Also thank you for getting me interested in linguistics!

I sincerely really love tge little stick figure graphics. It gets the point across and it's easily definable.

i love that i can have a completely random thought and ask google and instantly get a video that gives a sufficent answer to appease my curiosity

Dude. Finally. Nice video tough, I've been wondering too whether there was a proto-language of proto-languages

See you soon in 8 months! :D

OMG YES YOU ARE BACK I MISSED YOUR VIDEOS SO MUCH THEY ARE SO GOOOOOOOD

Thank you for dumbing down language history to the point where I can understand it! Really helped me study.

guys every language was has evoloved from latin except for sand script which was evolved from tamil. you can prove it because some words have the same letters.

HOLY SHIT XIDNAF

Using colors to illustrate the divergence of languages is a really cool visualization of the concept

1:36: As a reconstructed Latin speaker, in all these examples, I can conclude that originally it was pronounced as a "t" ES PO LA Noche. Noite. Noctibus. Ocho. Oito. Octo. Muchos/Muchas. Muitos/Muitas. Multi/Multae

While the concept of "Linguistic Genetics" is both fascinating and very useful, the use of the word "genetics" makes it confusing, especially in the context of describing human biological evolution and how it impacted the evolution of language. I think linguists would benefit from taking a cue from sociology, and how they handled the concept of sociological evolution through the use of "memes" instead of "genes" and "memetics" instead of "genetics". I think "Linguetics" has a nice ring to it!

I once read a very interesting, and in my opinion convincing description of how some humans might have established words for things. The idea was as follows: Animals make certain noises for when they are attacked by a predator and so on, and obviously early humans have done the same. Now imagine a fireplace with some people around. One of them thinks he is seeing a tiger. He is scared and warns the others about it using whatever noise or gesture nature dictates him. They all run away, but for some reason or other, the one giving the warning falls down and can't get away. He is scared, but suddenly he realizes that there is no tiger. He was fooled by his eyes. But then he realizes that all the other people are gone and he can take all the food for himself. Obviously, next time when he is sitting around the fire with the others again, he remembers what happened and that the results were good for him. So this time, he uses the "there's a tiger!"-cry again to scare the others away so he can eat the food. This is the first step towards a real language: using the cry/gesture/whatever not because nature dictates it, but intentionally and to reach an aim. Of course the trick works and so he uses it again and again until sooner or later the other people realize they have been tricked. Next time around the fire and the first one tries his trick again, but nobody reacts. So his "predator noise" is useless to him. He tries some more times, but by then they know the truth, so he stops using it. Some weeks or months pass by. Then one day when they were out hunting, the first one sees an actual, real tiger in the distance. He knows, he has to warn the others, but does not know, how. But he is a smart human and remembers what he had done some while ago. He hopes that the others will remember, too. So he goes to the others and makes the noise. At first they are confused, because there is no fireplace and so no food to get for the first one. So they don't know why he should make the noise to warn them of a predator. But then the first one points out the tiger and the others see it, too and react properly. Only then the second step to a language is made: noises meaning the same thing in different contexts. The original was longer and I am not sure whether I retold everything correctly, but it gives you an idea on how spontaneous noises slowly and over time became words.

This left with more questions than it answered... love it, never thought of all that

Personally I think the most likely possibility is that language first evolved with a common ancestor we had with neanderthals (who i believe we're pretty sure spoke?) and since Dolphins have names, I think it makes sense that the first language was probably just names and the vocalizations that meant certain things, like "danger". It makes sense to me that after naming ourselves it was easier to name other things, then verbs probably happened after that, then adjectives. Just my thoughts though.

YOU'RE BACK WE'VE ALL DEARLY MISSED YOU

Why do you use MLP fan songs all the time?

YOU'RE BACK!

Videos that raise questions instead of giving answers are awesome. Yeah, this was a "we don't know anything about anything" video, and that's amazing! Maybe you can inspire someone to go do some search in that field and discover new answers? Maybe all you can do is make your viewers more confused? But anyway, it's not everyday that we see a video on RU-vid that makes us think, so good job with that! And nice to see you back! :D

Holy Crap! A wild Xidnaf video appears!

You are back!This video seems to have the best drawings.

Oh I did not expect that wave of nostalgia from your outro song.

Thank you! Simple but enough to answer my question.

Wut I just discovered your channel today and subscribed, few hours later you upload first new video in 10 months. Am I secretly Jesus?

Uh doy, language evolved when some ape accidentally ate the wrong mushroom, everyone knows that.

This feels very early 2000's , god this gives me chills.

Nice to see ya back, Xiddy.

XIDNAF! My week just gets better and better.

INDEED THIS YEAR IS MAGICAL!! XIDNAF UPLOADED A NEW VIDEO!!!

GODDAMNIT! YOU'RE FINALLY BACK

Wow I'm amazed at how much details with meaning there are in your drawings and graphic representations... and how much I actually understood from that. You seem to be a visual learner or a synesthete, as am I lol.

Uploaded 45 seconds ago. am sonic. fear me.

YOU'RE ALIVE!

Great "We have no idea" presentation. Love these kinds of speculations. Keep it up :-D

This is the channel I miss the most in RU-vid, come back for us man :(