communication

Significant differences between nonvocal and vocal communication are matters more of degree than of kind. Signs, signals, symbols, and possibly icons may, at times, be easily verbalized, although most people tend to think of them as visual means of expression. Kinesics and proxemics may also, in certain instances, involve vocalizations as accompaniments to nonverbal phenomena or as somehow integral to them. Be they grunts, words, or sentences, their function is to help in forwarding a communication that is fundamentally nonverbal.

Although there is no shortage of speculation on the issue, the origins of human speech remain obscure at present. It is plausible that man is born with an instinct for speech. A phenomenon supporting this belief is the presence of unlearned cries and gurgles of infants operating as crude vocal signs directed to others the baby cannot possibly be aware of. Some anthropologists claim that within the vocabularies of kinesics and proxemics are the virtual building blocks of spoken language; they postulate that primitive humans made various and ingenious inventions (including speech) as a result of their need to communicate with others in order to pool their intellectual and physical resources. Other observers suggest similar origins of speech, including the vocalization of physical activity, imitation of the sounds of nature, and sheer serendipity. Scientific proof of any of these speculations is at present impossible.

Not only is the origin of speech disputed among experts, but the precise reasons for the existence of the numerous languages of the world are also far from clear. In the 1920s an American linguistic anthropologist, Edward Sapir, and later Benjamin Lee Whorf, centred attention upon the various methods of expression found in different cultures. Drawing their evidence primarily from the languages of primitive societies, they made some very significant observations concerning spoken (and probably written) language. First, human language reflects in subtle ways those matters of greatest relevance and importance to the value system of each particular culture. Thus, language may be said to reflect culture, or, in other words, people seem to find ways of saying what they need to say. A familiar illustration is the many words (or variations of words) that Eskimos use to describe whale blubber in its various states—e.g., on the whale, ready to eat, raw, cooked, rancid. Another example is the observation that drunk possesses more synonyms than any other term in the English language. Apparently, this is the result of a psychological necessity to euphemize a somewhat nasty, uncomfortable, or taboo matter, a device also employed for other words that describe seemingly important but improper behaviour or facets of culture.