PHILOSOPHY OF ANCIENT LINGUISTIC CONCEPT

V.N.Yurdanova - Senior Lecturer, N.A.Tkacheva - Associate Professor

Siberian Federal University

Abstract: Language as a social phenomenon has always been and still remains in the centre of researchers’ attention. It is caused by the fact that the language in the society performs the most important communicative and cognitive functions. There is no single answer to the question “How and where from has the language appeared?”, but there exist a number of theories on the origin of languages.

Key words and phrases: language, social phenomenon, communicative and cognitive functions, origin of languages, language genesis.

According to Democritus “Not a single thing appears without any reason, it appears on some reason due to some necessity”. The problem of language origin was investigated and is still investigated by many scholars. During all the period of the history of social, philosophic and linguistic concepts development the theory of language origin has been studied by outstanding scholars both philosophers as well as philologists. The central problem of all inherited past as well as present language studies is the understanding of the fact how the language appeared and what its origin is. The correct understanding of the international role the language takes in the system of modern relationship as well as the understanding of the part the language plays in the sphere of individual and social life of a human being depend on the answer to this question. The language problem in the modern culture is one of those key problems that have been burning and important during hundreds of years. Up to now the problem of how the language appeared is far from satisfactory solution and more new theories are still being produced in which observations of human psychology and the character of speaking activities are rather controversial.

The interest to this problem is explained by the great importance of such social parameters as “information”, “communication”, “culture” have in the development of human society and the part the language take in this development. We live in the information society where the globalization processes have covered the whole world. The solution of such important problems as modeling communication, artificial intelligence development, modern branches of science development, possibilities of human brain functions modeling, etc. depend on the methodologically correct solution of these key problems of language philosophy. The solution of this problem can be achieved only by joint efforts of scholars representing different sciences: philology, history, archeology, geology, anthropology, biology, paleontology, general theory of communication and others. The data available now for modern science are enough only for expressing general ideas.

Language as a social phenomenon is a complex problem and is a matter of investigation of different sciences. At the same time the generalization of the achievements in the field of language studies indicates that there exist some disputable and unsolved problems. First of all they are problems of language nature, its origin and its links with reality. These problems solution is possible on the basis of adequate analysis of language theories as well, beginning from the ancient philosophers and up to present time [6]. The social activity of people that is their interaction is the basis of the society. Such interaction of people causes all social formations that exist and function in the human society. Language as a social phenomenon appears on the basis of the social activities of people, is realized in it and functions. It is evident that the solution of the moot problems on the bases of language origin can be found by studying the mechanism of language origin as a result of social activities of people. One can’t study language as an independent formation. Its entire links are realized in social interaction of people, as it is the nature of the language. That is why the problem of language formation should be considered in the light of social activities with the help of philosophical analysis [6]. All through the history of philosophical theories about language phenomenon was in the centre of scholars’ attention. The theories about language formation have their own prehistory, different from those about culture formation as a whole. Long before the interest in how the people while developing started using the sounds different from the ones of other living creatures have arisen, somewhere in the fifth century B.C. there appeared the first speculations on how “the names were established” [2]. The speculations of such kind were connected with the critical attitude to the language as a means of expressing an idea. This approach arises in the sphere where the incipient linguistics and the epistemology were interacting. Later, somewhere in the middle of the same century, cultural and historical aspects of the language appearance as it was were added to these considerations. To some extent these different sides of studies about the language origination, namely, anthropological, epistemological and linguistic, can be found in their following history. So in the fifth century BC alongside with the great interest to the beginnings of the human culture as a whole, some clearly seen interest to the problem of the language origination was born. The scientific tradition of studying language originates from ancient Greek philosophy. The characteristic features of it were extra-human, perceptible, substantial Weltanschauung philosophy outlook, when in the unity of man and Nature, the Nature steps forward, when the ideal is thought of as quite material. The ancient philosophers perceived the objective reality, thinking and language together, where conceivable and uttered were identified with real things. Such was the viewpoint of Democritus, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Anaximenes and Heraclitos [1]. Later, under the influence of monotheism, the ancient concept of a thing, body and nature was replaced by the concept of personality, society and history.

When perceiving the opposition of Nature and a human being, on the one hand, and indivisible unity of soul, mind and word in the individual on the other hand, the thinkers realize the language being the second in relation to the reality. Later in the classical epoch the polemics were going on about the idea whether the things were connected with words objectively or arbitrarily. The connection between them itself was considered as a result of “establishment”. In the Hellenic period the dispute was about whether the connection of words and things was “set” or spontaneous, whereas the connection between the word and the thing retreated to the background. In later times in such schools as naturalism and conventionalism in the current interpretation of language there appeared different ideas about a creator (the idea about a wise “constitutor of language” who established the words corresponding to the real properties of things, or simple people who gave the things arbitrary meanings by means of agreement). In Hellenic studies one can find the difference in understanding the process of languages origin, as well as in the estimation of connection between words and things, which appear and are preserved at that, in the modern world. There arises a question how the naturalism and conventionalism practice the relation of words and things at different periods in connection with certain hypotheses of language formation. Thus the system of philosophical views: the relation of words and meanings took a special place in the views of philosophers Democritus Antisthenes, Plato and Epicurus. Democritus insisted on the fact that the words were set arbitrarily. Epicurus spoke about spontaneous appearance of the words as a result of emotional reaction on the things that affected the first people. Thus the Diodorus’ theory about the origin of culture has clear theoretical tradition: the necessity to survive and direct dangers of pre-cultural state served as the stimulus to acquire the cultural skills; inventiveness, ingenuity and other favorable features of a man, finally the success of evolution resulted in the language culture formation. As a whole this is rather alien approach to the language and culture formation. Democritus and Epicurus represented the evolution theories, alongside with them the views of Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle and Poseidon may be considered. They all formed the prerequisites for appearing and history of two opposite theoretical trends in the language philosophy – naturalism and conventionalism. The trends to which the theories of Diodorus, Vitruvius, and Loctantius belong are neither in understanding the prevailing in the language relationship between words and things, nor in the treating the process of language formation and the personality of its creator [11]. According to Democritus the connection between words and things has no objective character; it is arbitrary and is based on the fact of “establishment”. Socrates refers to the figure of a lawmaker. Protagoras, in his turn, explains the language formation, alongside with religion and crafts, by the fact that a person possesses the aptitude for “arts”, which was stolen by Prometheus from the Olympus and was given to people before they appeared on the earth. The articulation of sounds and their transformation into the words associated with things was done, in his opinion, by the first people independently without any deity’s help. The independent acquisition of a language as one of the civilization achievements is mentioned in “Antigone” by Sophocles (the end of the 40^s BC).

The investigation allows to make the following conclusions: 1. The crystallization of opposite views on the standard correlation of words and meanings conventionalism and naturalism dates back to the fifth century BC and is based on the observation of multi-language words and divergence between their reference and etymologic meaning that were realized in different fields of knowledge; ` 2. The concept about a “wise teacher” as well as the image of a godlike creator of a language is not related with the conventional views but already originates at this stage;

3. The most brilliant treatment of the fifth century BC linguistic conventionalism belongs to Democritus;

4. The pre-history of “conventionalism” and “naturalism” shows close connection between the theoretical problems and the views on language creators, which found its continuation in the theories of the V-VI centuries BC.

In the Middle Ages the interest to language philosophy faded, but later on the period of Renaissance and in New time its rebirth took place which resulted in appearing of different theories that were based on the Bible as well as the ancient theories.

Thus, the prevalent (current, existing) philosophical considerations were later formed into the following theories:

The principles of onomatopoetic theory were stated by Leibniz. According to his idea there are languages derived, late, and there is a “stem” language on which all following derived languages were formed. In his opinion the onomatopoeia took place first of all in the “stem” language and only to such extent in which “the derived languages” developed further the bases of the stem language, they developed at the same time the principles of onomatopoeia as well. While moving away from the derived language their word production appeared to be less and less “naturally onomatopoeic” and more and more symbolic. Leibniz attributed the connection with quality to some sounds. In his opinion, one and the same sound can be connected with some qualities at a time. Accepting the onomatopoeia as a principle of language formation on the basis of which “the gift” of speech was given to a human being, Leibniz rejected the significance of that principle for further development of the language. This principle followers considered the language not as a social phenomenon, but as a natural one, which was a drawback of that theory.

The representative of the theory of emotional origin of the language was J.J.Russo (1712-1778). In his treatise on the origin of languages Russo wrote that “the passions had caused the first sounds of voice”, that “the first languages were “melodious and passionate and only later they became simple and methodic”. According to Russo the first languages appeared to be richer than the later ones. D.N.Kudryavsry (1863-1920), a Russian linguist, was the follower of this theory. He considered that the interjections were specific first words of human beings. The interjections were most emotional words of primitives the meanings of which were different depending of this or that situation. In his opinion in interjections the sound and the meanings were still inseparably linked. Later as the interjections were turning into words, the sound and the meanings separated, this transformation of interjections into words being connected with the formation of the articulated speech.

The theory of vocal shouts appeared in the 19^th century in the works of vulgar materialists (Nuare, Bukher). This theory stated that the language appeared as a result of shouts accompanying the collective labour. But they considered that those shouts might only be the means to make the labour rhythmic, they did not express anything, not even emotions, but were just outer technical means in their work. From the middle of the 18^th century there appeared the theory of social agreement mentioned above. But it is quite evident that first of all “to agree about a language” it is necessary to have it.

Herder, a German philosopher, spoke about a purely human language formation. He thought that the human language originated not to communicate with other people, but to communicate with oneself, to realize one’s own “I”. According to Herder, even if a human being lived completely alone, a language would be formed. The language is the result of “secret agreement that the human soul have concluded with itself”.

In connection with the labour theory of language formation the F. Engels’ work “The role of labour in the process of turning a monkey into a human being” should be mentioned. According to Engels’ theory the revolution that the man brought into the nature states, first of all, that the human labour differs from that of an animal in that this is the work with the labour tools, made by those who should possess them, the work progressing and social. Engels thought that first the labour and then the articulated speech was two main stimuli that promoted to transform the primitive brain into a human being one. As it has already been stated before, during all the history of social and philosophical thought development the theory of language formation has been worked out by outstanding scholars both philosophers and philologists. The central problem of all inherited in the past and later theories about language were the character and origin of the language. How did human being receive the colossal force of the thought – the word? There is no single and irrefragable answer. Despite of the fact that different aspects of ancient theories about the language formation were touched upon to some extent in the works on ancient linguistics, there is no generalized, based on the critical analysis of the sources investigation of this problem in modern science. It requires further investigation.

The basis of society is the social activity of people, i.e. their interaction. This interaction gives rise to all human social formations, existing and functioning in human society. Language as a social phenomenon occurs on the basis of the social activity of people, it is implemented and operational. Obviously, the solution of controversial questions about the origin of language can be determined by studying the mechanism of the origin of language as a result of the social activity of people. One cannot learn the language as a separate entity. All its communications are provided with the social activity of people, because it is the nature of language. Thus, the philosophical problem of the origin of language must be viewed through the prism of social activities.

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