Post #236 November 23 2020 “Og, Grog and the Origins of Story” Over a number of posts in the past, I’ve had a lot of fun with our prehistoric guys Og and Grog and speculating how storytelling might have begun. Recently, I read an excerpt from a book called Ancient Bones (authors: Madaleine Bohm, Rudiger Braun and Florian Breier) that seems to shed light on this interesting subject. The gist of their analysis is that speech, and thus language, may have started with gestures, like our primate friends the chimps, bonobos and orangutans. From gestures, they theorize, speech and later language evolved. Abstractions and concepts came after that. It’s not too hard to imagine storytelling evolving from these humble beginnings. We seem to be hardwired to tell each other stories. Perhaps story evolved from Og and Grog relating to their tribemates how a recent hunt went down: We detected the game, we stalked it for days, we surrounded the game, we killed it and now we share the spoils. Look at the structure: you’ve got a hero and a problem, complications, rising action, an apotheosis or high point and a wrap up with a moral and lessons learned. Sounds like a story, right? Here’s what the authors of Ancient Bones have to say: There is some indication that the evolution of the hand had a significant influence on the development of speech. You can deduce this indirectly by observing our closest relatives, the great apes or by watching children as they acquire language, using hand gestures to indicate what they want long before they say their first words. For humans, gestures are an important component of expression. They both precede and accompany speech. Chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans are also capable of communicating with gestures. The vast majority are just simple orders, such as “Give me that!” “Come closer!” “Groom my fur!” “I want sex!” or “Stop that!” All these gestures serve to start or stop a specific behavior. Michael Tomasello from the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig have been searching for the origins of language for the past two decades. It seems that it all started with gestures, centered around self-interest and then, sometime in the story of becoming human, gestures were added to share experiences, intentions, interests and rules. Communication originated when early humans started pointing to things to show them to others. For example, an early hominin may have pointed to a vulture that was circling overhead, over a recently killed animal. At first, pointing gestures would have helped coordinate communal activities such as hunting or child rearing. Later they evolved into more complex signs for concepts, such as a fluttering movement to indicate a bird or cradling the arms to indicate a baby. According to Tomasello, sounds were then added to augment and expand this language of gestures. This corresponds with American psycholinguist David McNeill’s idea that gestures are basically nothing more than thoughts or mental images translated into movement. Having the hands free was a necessary part of the evolution of speech—and integral to communication as we know it today. And I would add to the origins of story itself. Think about that next time you read a story. It all may have begun with Og and Grog gesturing and grunting at their tribemates about how the hunt went down, so many millions of years ago. The next post to The Word Shed comes on December 7. I’ll be skipping a week for the Thanksgiving holiday. Have a great Thanksgiving and I’ll see you then. Phil B.