2.5.2 evolution of language

Q: Do all languages go back to one original language, or did various original languages emerge independently?

There have been several different sources from which language has originated. First of all, it is from the human body that language springs forth. Now, in the ancient times, when the human race was first to develop, language came from the ancestors of this race and was given to the human beings as per their capacity. Then over time this language shifted and changed. With the onset of the ice age many people became separated. They could not travel back and forth. So again language was modified in local groupings, and again it changed. So you see, change upon change has occurred as the ages have passed and the human beings have developed in independent groupings.

But there is a commonalty to language which springs not from locality or origination but from the vehicle in which the seed arises. That is to say, the human body. That body has a certain capacity, and from that capacity the basic tonal forms which human beings are capable of have arisen. With the onset of superior intelligence, these basic tonal categories have been formed into language for the purpose of communication. It is from the basic capacities of the human body that language has arisen,and it is in the human body that language has its base. Within the body there is the play of the five fundamental factors, and from these factors has arisen the structure of language. It is from the subtle sounds and the very subtle formations or distinctions of tonal vibrations which compose the human structure. This is the basic structure of all language.

So you cannot say that language is similar because its origin is one in time and space. But you may say it is similar because it has one origin which is the human structure. It may be that the human being will live in Africa,or in the mountains of Tibet, or in the Alpine region of Europe, but they have one commonalty from which the language has arisen and that is the human body.

Now historically, there is not one central origin for human language, for human beings are not of one origin. There are a variety of factors that have come to bear on the development of the human race, and this race cannot be said to have one origin. Therefore language is from more than one source. But the commonalty is the human structure, and that is why language has a common base.

Now I have said that Sanskrit is the most pure, the purest of all language at this time in its reflection of its origin. For Sanskrit reflects the subtle centers, the subtle tonal emanations, with the most precision of any language in use at this time. But there have been languages of greater subtlety in the past from which Sanskrit has arisen. These languages were a pure form developed by a very advanced race and given to this planet, to a particular group.

But that is ancient history. Now, today, language is diverse. It has many commonalties in differing cultures and those commonalties can often be traced, but you will never trace them to one source alone. For there is more than one influence in the development of language.

Q: When and where did the original language(s) emerge on earth?

Language has its origin in three localities. One in Africa, another in the Alpine region of Europe, and the third in India, in the southern region. From these localities there was diffusion and the influence spread far. The origins of the languages were not the same and the time was different. That is to say they were not simultaneous, but in different periods.

Now, you may think that developed language came about in the same way that migration patterns developed. But this is not the case. Developed language was in three locales, and from there it spread forth to the world at large. But in those locales its development was independent.

From a very ancient race the origins of a language of great subtlety came which was crudified by native people and spread throughout southern India, then came north and went also to the south. But in its northern travels it was greatly modified. Then, from the Mongolian race there came the development of a third language and the intermixing of the tongues, so that the languages of the east were established and then spread further to the islands. From the ancient islands across the sea, came a proto language which was inadvertently mixed with the primitive language of the natives of the Australian continent, thus forming another grouping. Now again, in the mountainous regions of what now is Switzerland, in this alpine region, a very early human form took its origin, and in that area a primitive language developed which grew over time and became more subtle, more developed. This language spread out to the north and east and down to the Mediterranean where it was then changed due to eastern influence of the subtle languages from the south of India. Then, a third influence came.

There were many other later influences and patterns of development. In this I have referred only to the most fundamental origins. But remember, language has its origin not in a place, but in the human body. That is the key to understanding. As the time went on and the groups were isolated, as calamities occurred, each developed independently, and language began to reflect the region and the people who used it.

Q: Who were its first speakers?

There is no name for these people. They are lost in the hoary past.

Q: How did the original language(s) spread over the earth, and in what time frame?

As I have said, the timing was not identical. There was maybe a half million years between developments. For the origins of language go very far to the past. Do you know that even the ape has language? Even the dog has language of sorts. But as the brain grows in capacity, language also grows and the vocal chords develop. You see in those creatures which do not have the final layer of mind, the reflective layer, but in which all the other layers of mind are in place, there may be a somewhat sophisticated language, because all of the propensities are in place. But the full development will not be there because of the lack of self-reflective capacity. So there will not be full development of language, as there is not the full development of the spectrum of subtle propensities and the subtle tonal differentiation of the cosmic sounds are not fully developed. Thus the vocal chords are not developed for these and language will not be fully expressed.

But in the human being there is the full spectrum of this breakdown of the tonal vibration of the cosmic mind. The white light turns into the spectrum of color, and the tonal vibratory rates of the subtle sound of creation - the Om sound - turns into the spectrum of colors of human development. And from this spectrum of colors comes the manifestation of the human body and the human vocal chords which are designed to imitate this spectrum. From this imitation of this spectrum comes the development of language.

Now this process requires the full development of the spectrum of expression. So there must be the self-reflective layer of the human mental structure. That is what differentiates the human being from all of the other creatures of the natural world. The human being may have many different shapes, different colors and forms, but a human being will have this capacity. In the human body there are certain fundamental developments which go hand in hand with this self-reflective capacity, and one of them is this development of the full spectrum of language from the vocal chords. (There may be development beyond the use of vocal chords when language becomes a mental function, but that is another story.) Within this spectrum, the human body has developed this reflective capacity of the subtle sounds in the crude sounds of the vocal chords through which the expression of the human mind may be communicated.

Do you see how it goes? The human mind has certain capacities. Those capacities are qualified and developed through the spectrum of subtle tonal vibrations which emanate from the cosmic mind. And those mental capacities of the human being which are carried on the subtle tonal vibrations then are transmitted by the vocal chords to expression for communication in the crude world. Do you understand? This is the working of language.

Now this is universal, so there will be commonalty. But,in terms of origin, there was once a very ancient race that lived long,long ago in the southern regions of India. They were not from this world. They settled in this place and they lived very peacefully long, long ago. From them the cruder creatures of the land began to learn some things, and they began to cultivate a kind of relationship with the primitive peoples. Over time through the influence of their presence the peoples grew to a more developed status, and they became the servants of those people, and they learned the language of those people and the ways of those people. From those people came a very pure language, for they were a very subtle race and they lived in a quiet and peaceful way. Their presence was only for a few thousand years and then they were gone.But their influence remained, and from them the language which developed was spread in the four directions. It spread in all ways, throughout the world. That was the very first language. Later came the others. There was some genetic manipulation.

Now, in the ancient European race, it was perhaps 250,000 years ago, there was the development of a purely human language. And still later the Mongolian race came to know language. The African development was a quarter million years ago. That one is the most noted for its influence upon the ancient world as we know it, but in fact, it is the later development in terms of time.