Protolanguage

Protolanguage is a term from historical linguistics that refers to the hypothetical, reconstructed ancestor from which a set of known languages is descended. The protōancestor is reconstructed using the comparative method, by which existing and/or historically attested forms are compared, and ancestral forms are reconstructed, which can yield the attested forms via regular sound and other changes. For example, the ProtōIndōEuropean form mater yields, by regular sound changes, forms as apparently distinct as English mother, Spanishmadre, Sanskrit matar,Greek mitir, and Pashto mor.

Sir William Jones (1746–1794), a British colonial administrator stationed in India, was the first person to recognize the relatedness among the far-flung members of the IndōEuropean family. Since then, linguists and anthropologists have worked on reconstructions of several language families, including ProtōJaqi (South America),ProtōBantu (Africa), ProtōAustronesian (Southeast Asia),and Protō Algonquian (North America).

The reconstruction of protolanguages has potentially important implications for anthropological research on prehistoric peoples. For example, if a word (for example, birch tree) can be reconstructed, it is at least plausible that the speakers of the protolanguage used the word in a sense related to contemporary senses, and, in this case, that birch trees were present in their environment. The reconstructed terms may provide clues to the geographical origin, material, and nonmaterial culture of its users. [Page 1961]Archeologist Colin Renfrew has carried this research farther than most.

Another important, and more recently introduced, use of the term protolanguage is in the sense of a prior stage in the evolution of human language. Bickerton and others have suggested that early hominins, such as Homo erectus, may have been capable of a form of language that lacked various design features of modern human language. It may have had a reduced grammar, especially in the realm of structure dependency and other syntactic principles, that made the language somewhat like the “telegraphic speech” of children around the age of 2 years; in fact, Bickerton has called the children's twōword stage, as well as pidgin languages and the “sign language” learned by some apes, “fossils” of protolanguage. Bickerton has suggested that the crucial property lacking in these examples is hierarchical syntax.

It is important not to mix these two uses of protolanguage, and also not to confuse the evolution of language as a human species property with the language change documented by historical linguists between a reconstructed protōlanguage and its descendants. For example, the language changes that occurred between ProtōIndōEuropean and its descendants (for example, Greek, Hindi, and Gaelic), were not examples of language evolution, because no new design features or elements of universal grammar were added.