The Prehistory of Protolanguage’s Notion. Condillac, Rousseau, De Brosses and the Origins of Language in the Eighteenth Century

Abstract

The famous prohibition of the Societe de Linguistique de Paris , issued on March 8 th , 1866, which forbade its members to submit research papers about the origin of language, reflected the mood of a precise historical and cultural situation. It was an affirmation of victory achieved by linguistic idealism and German historicis, formalized through an “edict” against the French naturalist-materialist tradition (or a European tradition tradition in general: for instance, in Italy, represented by Giambattista Vico). It was a victory against the philosophy of the Enlightenment, linked to the French Revolution. It was a political and ideological choice and an reflection of the intellectual climate of the Second Restoration, after 1848. In fact, many various and interesting proposals were made in the eighteenth century by the Enlightenment thinkers on the subject of the origin of language. The approaches were empiricist and, at the time, they were meant to counter the theological cliches about the “divine” origins of the primordial language. This theological and metaphysical thesis was opposed by the Enlightenment with a naturalistic explanation. Therefore, those events mark the real prehistory of the protolanguage thesis, concerning human nature, being linked to natural modes of life of the “first men” and primitive humanity. Our paper aims to investigate some of the most original philosophical versions concerning the prehistory of the notion of a protolanguage [1] , echoing the views of our contemporary “gesturalists” (Condillac) and “vocalists” (Rousseau) or “verbalists” (De Brosses). [1] I apologize that I will not adopt the notion of protolanguage in its technical sense, but rather in a historical and descriptive sense.