Only One Human Language. The Unique language of Homo Sapiens. IVER Publications 2016, 393 pp.; Asia-Amerindia Language Comparisons. Only One Human Language II. IVER Publications 2018, 411 pp.; The Speech of Early Homo Sapiens. Only One Human Language III. IVER Publications 2019, 346 pp. by Charles Graves
The three volumes should be of interest to linguists and historians as well as biologists and geneticists. The author has isolated 214 proto-syllables believed to have been spoken by the earliest homo sapiens, each representing one of eleven categories of different relations between ‘subject’ and ‘object’. They are believed to have been coded early in the brain and the accretions to them have determined the various ethnic languages and cultures existing in the world.
By applying the 214 syllables according to their eleven categories to the terminology of any spoken language, we can begin to analyze and understand the main ethos of the speakers and their culture. This is especially interesting while comparing words meaning the same thing but using various phonemes in different languages.
The research began thirty years ago and published in the 1990s in a series of books entitled Evolutionary Cultural Semiotics (Universitätsverlag Dr. Norbert Brockmeyer, Bochum University). It was continued later when the author discovered similarities between some Amazonian Amerindian terminology and that of some Australian aboriginal language as well as with Ainu (Hokkaido, Japan). DNA studies seem to support the theory. In volume III the author provides his final conclusions and situates his findings vis à vis the research of major linguists. The 214 syllables arranged according to their categories and divided between those beginning with a vowel and those beginning with a consonant are provided in each volume. A chart showing the origin of the syllables is in vol. III.
Vol. I concerns terminology of Europe, South and South-East Asia, and Australia; Vol. II deals with Central Asia, Siberia, China and Amerindia; Vol. III concerns Africa and the Middle East. The conclusions were reached upon the basis of terminological comparisons of Indo-European, Burushaski, Japanese and Australian Aboriginese as well as Yanonami (Amazon).
The volumes are available on Amazon.com and can be seen in summary on www.iverpublications.ch
The volumes consider the following questions:
- How early man / woman began to speak
- What created the various syllables
- How the syllable became coded in the brain
- How early homo sapiens children learned to speak
- How foraging for food influenced the ability to speak
- Why there are not a multitude of origins for human language
- How the theory relates to Darwin’s theory of ‘survival of the fittest’
- Was the origin of human speech masculine or feminine?
- How did homo sapiens make complicated speech when his primate ancestors did not speak much
Photograph: ‘rock painting’ in Australia photographed by Graeme Churchard, Bristol (UK)
