2. THE PRELINGUISTIC STAGE
2.1. How it started
In 2021 my daughter was born. Since 1 y.o. she is in a constant process of onomatopoeia and echolalia (see chapter 6 for terms' analysis), mimicking whatever she hears, at her effort to conquer our communication code. I was always enjoying her vocal experimentations and improvisations, but I never tried to consciously observe her speech development.
In summer 2023, while composing and rehearsing the music for the ancient Greek tragedy “Hecuba”, a singer-colleague told me “Come on, you make us sing what your daughter does!”. That was the first time I consciously opened my ears to what and how she was saying things.
2.2. The magician
Let's imagine humans born with superpowers: They would not question the origin of these skills; they would not seek the nature of these powers.
When the infant opens their eyes, the world shows up. When they close them, the world disappears. The world exists in relation to the infant. The infant is an egocentric organism, they understand the world as an extension, or result of their actions and senses. The maternal breast is the extension of their mouth. The infant is the cause of everything.
With a small cry or exclamation, the mother shows up, the breast is in their mouth. The infant only needs to want or wish something, and then this directly happens. Their wish directly brings results. The few words the little “magician” possesses at the first year of its life, still only serve its wishes. They are like magical invocations.
The spiritual function of the infants is, at first, developing, strictly connected to the fulfilling of their basic survival needs (feeding and sleeping). In order to develop this spiritual activity in higher forms of thoughts and ideas, they need to break free from these basic needs, from the effect of this general “magic” activity as well.
This magical way of thinking, the principle of “need-satisfaction” is the first spiritual activity of humans.
2.3. The trap
Magic belongs to a primitive way of thinking and to the prelinguistic state. What we call “rationality” starts with the development of the speaking ability and the use of words.
Unfortunately, the magician will “fall” by their own superpowers. At the “peak” of the magical activity, they will discover the power of the words, by which they can control the world. At that moment, they have fallen in the trap of a new exiting world, the world of words. The infant's existence starts following new rules, which will soon end all the magic.
For example, the combination of the word ma-ma results in the appearance of its mother, every time the infant uses this combination. At first, they don't know how this happens and they still attribute it to their superpowers. But, as time passes, they realize that this combination only stands for a specific person, their mother. Eventually, after endless repetitions, the word and the object (mother), identify with each other.
A clearer example, which shows the dominance of language over the infants’ existence, is the phrase "bye-bye". Whenever a dear person to the infant used to leave, the infant thought that this departure would be permanent, exactly because the world exists according to the infant's senses. As the infant turns to toddler (after 1 y.o.) they will learn that, when someone leaves, saying bye-bye is the word that includes a fairwell plus the return of the person. Speech will bring control over its instinctive reactions and feelings. This is the power of words. The toddler gains controls over its instinctive self. They have the ability to substitute human actions, or control physical needs, postponement, separation, or stay away from dangerous zones. Words result in the separation of the human intelligence from the physical urges. Words become labels, which assist in building memories and help in rationalizing fears which will disappear and will only show up in the world of dreams. It is the passing from the prelinguistic to the linguistic stage. Infants speak a universal language, till they lose all their abilities, for the sake of their mother-tongue.
2.4. A personal observation
The “Potato case”
Observing my daughter’s speech evolution closer, two cases attracted my attention the most. The first case was the word “Taa-ta-taaa”, which stands for the word πατάτα, ie. “patàta”= potato.
Potato, especially fried, is one of children's most beloved food, I guess because it encircles all senses, combining interesting and variable shapes, colour, taste, touch, smell and sound. Since the first time she tasted one, it became her big passion. After many versions of the potato's name, around the age of 1,5 y.o. this stayed for a long period of time.
In this case, the uncritical playfulness of a toddler, combined with the basic survival instinct (of hunger) and some “musical” information, resulted in what one could call a 1-second composition (or 2 seconds, depending on the level of hunger). It was so self-evident for her that, according to the information she had, potato could also be accompanied by some music, that she maintained this name for months, before slowly abandoning it, surrendering to mature speech.
2.5. Vernacular language
This first (“primary”) language that we learn, is called by Dante “Vernacular language”. It is the one which infants acquire from those around them when they first begin to distinguish sounds. It is the language we learn without any formal instruction, by imitating our nurses. According to Dante, this language is the most “noble”, first because it was the language originally used by the human race, second, because the whole world employs it, though with different pronunciations and using different words and third, because it is natural to us, while the other is, in contrast, artificial.
An interesting metaphor is found in “Babel’s tower”. Before its destruction, everyone spoke one universal language. God’s punishment was to remove the connecting element of all the languages, which were one entity. He didn't create new languages, nor destroyed the previous language, he just created what Dante called “The big Confusion”, by an act of subtraction. The result was the creation of new languages, based on the characteristics, habits, customs, landscape etc of every group of people. It is loss of memory, oblivion of that common element, which eventually brings disintegration of the global language and the necessary creation of new languages. The new languages are the “echolalias” of the Biblical language, just as mature speech is the echolalia of the global-babbling prelinguistic language.
The control of instincts and physical urges by the acquisition of words and language, can be both seen as a triumph and as a “consequence”. In place of the phonetic abundance, the phonemic poverty of the first linguistic stages, or even complete muteness, appears. This is the period in which the “wild sounds” are transformed into semantically meaningful entities. But what is it that we leave behind in the name of the new brave world of words? What is the cost of this “instincts’ castration”?
2.6. Chronological linguistic acquisitions
It is still remarkable, that the globality of the prelinguistic language is extended to the chronological acquisitions in the child's vocal system as well. For example, fricatives presuppose stops. Hence, there is no language without stops. On the other hand, there are Australian, Tasmanian, or Polynesian languages without fricatives. Back consonants presuppose the existence of front consonants (ie. labials and dentals). The acquisition of back fricatives presuppose the existence of front fricatives. These rules are global, shaping the steps of language acquisition, no matter its origin.