From what has been said, it must be clear that no one can make very positive statements ab

From what has been said, it must be clear that no one can

make very positive statements about how language originated.

There is no material in any language today and in the earliest (1)

records of ancient languages show us language in a new and (2)

emerging state. It is often said, of course, that the language (3)

originated in cries of anger, fear, pain and pleasure, and the (4)

necessary evidence is entirely lacking: there are no remote

tribes, no ancient records, providing evidence of

a language with a large proportion of such cries (5)

than we find in English. it is true that the absence

of such evidence does not disprove the theory, but in (6)

other grounds too the theory is not very attractive.

People of all races and languages make rather similar

noises in return to pain or pleasure. The fact that(7)

such noises are similar on the lips of Frenchmen

and Malaysians whose languages are utterly different,

serves to emphasize on the fundamental difference（8）

between these noises and language proper. We may

say that the cries of pain or chortles of amusement

are largely reflex actions, instinctive to ∧ large extent, (9)

whereas language proper does not consist of signs

but of these that have to be learnt and that are (10)