Part -3 The wagging of tongue (The formal speech gets in to books): 336C

 My friend had a doubt. “How the formal speech got in to printed form?”

In reply I said, “Before discussing about it, let me give you an over view. Later on, I may use some of these points, to buttress a context.”

Human feelings such as fear, anger, love, hatred, astonishment, hunger, thirst, victory, defeat etc needed expressive adult sounds. The infant’s nascent cry became inadequate. They started developing structured syllables and words by combining vowels and consonants and permutation. I, they n turn combined with each other in different ways to generate the structured and grammatical sentences.

Eager to grow and slowly fortified itself, this ‘spoken’ language gleefully absorbed many tribal dialects. Riding on this euphoria-spree, this nascent language further evolved with rich expressions of a given region, imbibing its customs and culture.  The languages of today, probably began their journey from different corners of the Earth, about 20 millenniums ago. This trans-continental migration played an important role.

In the intervening period the human vocalising organs were undergoing gradual upgradation to make proper speech. These ‘spoken words’ thoughtfully spent many centuries, to transform themselves from signs, symbols, proto alphabets, to firm up as alphabets. The primitive arts and ‘speech’ preceded the alphabets for writing. Dramatic changes occurred about a few thousand years ago.

Infused with new roots and words, these languages flourished to claim wider following. This did not happen easily as these languages had to bend their backs to come out as winners in the fields of literature, science and technology by enriching themselves with new words every year. The dialects and languages which were lethargic to move forward became redundant or extinct. The era of modern languages had arrived! 

But the original, gritty first cry of a newborn, emitted countless millenniums ago, survived annihilation by aligning itself in tune with the written words of lyric to become the language of Music. Is this not a far cry, for the sound of music of the cradle fame? 

For the writing systems to gradually evolve, the humanity had to toil roughly another 5 to 6 millennium, with improved cognitive abilities, tool-making skills, agriculture, abstract thinking, technology, art, science, cultural diversity and languages. We are the only surviving species of that Homo genus fortunate enough to read our own history! Our ancestors walked to talk, and today are we not asking someone to 'walk the talk'. 

My friend interjected, “Is it a surprise or a coincidence or an imprint in the gene!” I managed it with an “all of them!” 

Immediately, he and my inner voice raised the doubt “Why there are so many languages, particularly in the Asian continent, when only the same ancestors crisscrossed across all the continents!” 

This question left me speechless with the thought that neither of them will leave me alone till such time I gave them the answer. A vacant look at the wall did not offer any assistance. Bingo! Countries and their topographic features started rolling through my mind. To make sure, I opened an old copy of Atlas and gazed at the map of the Asian continent. 

Imagining what could have happened I answered, “The continent’s geography with Snowcapped mountains, mountains, islands, jungles, plains and valleys and the river systems coursing through the land acted as quarantine for the settlers. This isolation of being trapped in typical weather phenomenon such as extreme to moderate cold, temperate to hot climate and heavy to sparse rain fall might have seeded the development of so many dialects/languages, in the range of several thousands.

Add to this the number of dialects/languages brought by the inbound migrants, you get the picture. Sure enough, many of these dialects/languages slowly joined the endangered list, or like the dinosaurs simply became extinct.” 

Both my friend and my inner voice disappointed me by not coming up with any comments. To keep them engaged I announced a little loudly, “Next my focus out will be to find how those surviving languages are faring today. But before that, let me trace the development of dialects   becoming spoken languages and later adopting symbols and alphabets to become the written languages.” 

My friend questioned, “What set off these processes?” 

Replying, I said “When our ancestors started to walk upright, two things happened. ONE: To sooth a baby from a distance, the mother made use of rhythmic sing -song vocalisation of cooing sounds which emerged as the proto baby-talk. TWO: Before their walk, they had only the baby-talk as the language, without properly articulated words. They had to surpass the ability of some of the other species who could also use gestures, vocalisation and facial expressions to communicate. Our ancestors accomplished this feat with their cognitive complex. 

However, they had to wait long for biological changes like the development of brain with specific location to handle processing of language and nervous system to control tongue, lips and vocal tract. This brain power left behind the animals and birds with only the ability to mimic or to communicate by sound without grammar and symbolism.”

My friend asked, “Maybe by the slip of your tongue, you had mentioned something about tablets to printers and time capsules. What did you mean by that?”  I was surprised to hear him repeating that phrase. Though it was a remark in passing, I decided to make use of it.

“It was a long process for the language to blossom into a handwritten and printed form. It achieved this by metamorphosing scratches to symbols to scripts to alphabets. Interestingly time capsules in the past, were sealed and buried to let the future generations to know about their civilisations. The time capsule we had sent into deep space was to let another civilisation to know that we inhabit a planet around a star system, probably millions of light years away from that civilisation! 

In both the cases, the objectives were to proclaim the state of advancement of respective civilisations.

Showing involvement, my friend asked, “How the writing systems underwent changes?”

Sumerians developed the cuneiform, about 6 millenniums ago. Cuneiform was most common form of writing found on the oldest, ancient clay tablets. Scribes used a fully developed system with 600 to 1,000 distinct characters to combine syllables and word-signs. After dominating for thousands of years, this system was replaced by the Ugarit scribes of Syria, who started using a cuneiform-style alphabet consisting of 30 distinct letters. Eventually these alphabets made their way onto clay and wax tablets, maybe around 3.4 millennium ago. 

True linear alphabets, like Phoenician, were developed to make use of materials like papyrus, leather and wax instead of clay. For ease of erasing and rewriting the alphabetic text, wooden boards layered with wax came into usage. 

In the subcontinent, the Indus Script, an older proto-writing system, came in to existence between 4600 to 3900 years ago. This, largely undeciphered, pictographic script failed to transform into alphabets. 

Brahmi was the first standardized alphabet and written scripts appeared in India, by about 2700 years ago. It followed an abugida style, a consonant-vowel writing system. All modern Indian scripts eventually evolved from Brahmi script. 

For example, Tamili script having Tamil, and Telugu lineage, appeared around the same time. Scripts like Vatteluttu and distinct Grantha and Tamil scripts emerged out of the Tamil-Brahmi tradition. 

During Emperor Ashoka’s reign, the first widespread use of standardized Brahmi script across the subcontinent occurred. He had commissioned monumental Rock Edicts written in Northern and Southern Brahmi, about 2300 years ago. 

A Brahmi variant changed in to the Gupta script and later became the Devanagari script, by about 700 to 800 years ago. Hindi and Marathi languages use this script. 

Astonished he asked, “With so many languages, will there not be countless systems for writing?” 

Referring to my notes, I replied, “Of the estimated 7000⁺ languages, half of them did not have an alphabetic system for writing. For the remaining languages, a wide variety and different types of writing systems exist. The main types being Alphabets Systems used in Latin, Greek, or Cyrillic, where each symbol represents a single vowel or consonant sound. Abjads Systems used in Arabic and Hebrew, where symbols mostly represent only consonants, and readers infer the vowels. 

Abugidas Systems like Tamil Brami and Devanagari, used in Hindi and Marathi, where each symbol represents a consonant with an inherent vowel, and small marks modifying that vowel. Syllabaries Systems fused in Japanese Kana or Cherokee, where a symbol represents a syllable. Logographic Systems used in Chinese characters, where symbols represent whole words or ideas rather than specific sounds. 

Not to leave with any doubt he asked, “How about the number of alphabets are in use by these systems?” 

I clarified, “Writing systems are tools designed for specific language. The term "alphabet" doesn't cover all the ways people communicate in writing across the globe. Likewise, even the number of ‘alphabets ‘differ! Read this page of the notes to understand what I said. 

Khmer (Cambodian): 74 letters, Sinhala (Sri Lanka): ~60 letters, Sanskrit: 47 primary letters which can go up to 54, Thai: uses 44 consonants + numerous vowel combinations, Russian: 33 letters, English: 26 letters. 

Tamil script relies on combinations 12 vowels and 18 consonants to get 247-character.

Korean Hangul: 40 basic alphabetic letters (Jamo), uniquely combine to create over 11,000 distinct syllable blocks. Chinese uses a logographic system encompassing tens of thousands of distinct symbols, containing over 50,000 characters” 

After reading, he murmured, “Why at all to write with all these permutations and combinations? Why not say what you wanted to and move on?” 

I explained that this is why? 

“Humans understood natural sounds and what they meant to someone in mystical ways. Instinctive emotional cries and the languages must have evolved from spontaneous, rhythmic vocal reaction to pain, surprise, fear or joy. Evolving in an arbitrary manner, the languages revealed no natural explanation or reason as to why a particular sound should mean a particular thing. Due to this arbitrary nature, different languages came out with different meanings to the same sound. The expressions used might have been unique to each language.  An unconventional convention?

Social bonding played a key role in human evolution and in those communes’ dialects might have originated. Later on, the dialects evolved into languages and with a yearning to live as long as possible and lent themselves to be written down and buried in time capsules to preserve their history along with that of the humans who practiced them.

As the humans migrated from continent to continent, the languages also migrated with them, enriching themselves with foreign words, roots and grammar. While developing the language got scribed on tablets, in the ancient times. From unsophisticated usage, it slowly graduated to present cultural richness in the form of poem, prose and epic. Unmindful of its greatness, the modern "tongue" gets twisted and squeezed, barely escaping mutilation in the name of abbreviations. 

The invented vocabulary dangled the carrot of advancement in Science and Technological fields, often preceding the inventions and waiting with apt describing words. Due to this, few languages received preferential treatment. It is not the preferential treatment that is to be blamed for this but the users of other languages for orphaning their native tongues. It is sad to note that many tongues have already become extinct. More are in the queue to suffer neglect, like the medical condition dubbed as the "Cauda Equina Syndrome (CES). Most importantly, how a civilisation could prepare their time capsules?

My friend again had a probing question. “What role the so-called experts played in all these?” 

I replied, “Many experts have contributed to give us the full picture. Theories on origin of language could only capture small pieces of the puzzle namely imitation, emotion, rhythm, music, gesture, cooperation and symbolic thought. Probably all played some role, but none could provide a complete answer. A language started evolving so long ago and continuing to so in many gradual steps. We will never be able to pinpoint a single moment when it all began, unless someone decided to travel back in time. 

As of now, the birth of language remains shrouded in unsolved mysteries. The theories of anthropolinguists try   to explain what makes us humans! Language being the most human thing of all, the cryptologists and anthropolinguists are still attempting with hope to decipher and bring to light languages that have eluded discovery. 

Collective efforts of the Archaeologists, paleoanthropologists and evolutionary biologists brought out the important facts that humanity relied on cave and rockface arts, much before they were fully equipped with developed anatomy to start speaking properly. They explained how those invented pictograms and symbols transformed into the alphabets. Now we can conclude that the cave & rockface arts preceded scribing, writing and printing. Various technological inventions and innovations culminated in the Modern-day printing technology”

I was not sure, how much of these ‘meets and talks’ benefited him. Looking at my voluminous notes, with a sense of awe, he said, “Languages have undergone stupendous transformations and now I understand the arduous journey of the tablets to printers and to time capsules.”

Part-2 The wagging of tongue (The Mother tongue and Father tongue): 336B

 We regrouped after a few days. The first question my friend asked was why the word ‘evolution’ found repeated mention in the imaginative story I had told earlier. Noting the silence of my usually alert inner voice, I prodded it with a “Were you sleeping?’ jibe.  “Now and then, you threw at me numbers with a long tail of cyphers. I did what one does, when confused.”  With this sarcastic comment it turned the table on me, just like that. 

I replied, “Before moving forward, I may use some of the earlier points from the earlier discussion, in support of a context. “The proto form of humans of today started the evolutionary journey about ~ 70 lakh years ago. Then our proximate ancestors appeared on the Earth by about 2 lakh years ago! After about 1lakh years, they learnt to walk on two legs, became mobile and embarked on   a migration spree.

 During this migratory phase, they dabbled in arts on rocks and fabricated rudimentary musical instruments. Then on, a sizeable portion of human existence was spent in developing a unique system - the musical sounds as a form of communication, combining indoor and outdoor versions. Spoken words were still out of their repertoire. This was my reason for repeatedly mentioning the important word evolution. Though the exact year of the first cry is not known, I am going to used it as an anchoring point to start with.” 

I silently spoke to my inner voice, “Did you notice that I have reduced the number of zeros for easy comprehension.  Now, will you listen without confusion?”  Going ultra-silent, it did not respond with either a zero or one! 

Eagerly, my friend raised a hand and asked, “Why and how nature got involved in all these?” 

“Probably, the early humans perceived two other types of sounds, other than the cry of newborns. The less threatening and soothing ones made by the non-jungliwallah animals, and birds.  The thoughtful Nature had included the haunting images of forlorn, expansive landscapes dotted with thick forest and water bodies teeming with ferocious, born free jungliwallahs and fortress sized birds making blood curdling, high pitched squeaks and calls greeted and terrified them in equal measures.  

Sound effect was provided by storms, crashing waves, thunder, tremors and pyrotechnics with lightning forest fire and impacting meteorites. These harsh exposures frightening and threatening their very existence. But this experience was the key that let them into the library of sounds of varying depths and tones to refresh and remember.

Nature always protected and provided a species which was evolving from its lab. By incorporating these elements in the syllabus, the humans were being taught the art of survival.  Driven by anguish and helplessness, the students must have literally grasped the gift and tirelessly worked with it, hoping to make speech.” 

My friend questioned, “Suppose they had unresolved doubts, would they have ended up in the clouds of confusion?”

Though his tone struck a different chord in my ears, ignoring his double entendre I replied, “The teacher was confident that these frightening sounds would eventually become background noise, as centuries roll by. These sights and sounds were used only to reinforce the feeling of fear, fright and wonder which were already imprinted in their genes.” 

Two questions came from my friend. ‘Where from the humans got their genes? What did the ancestors do before they could speak in words?” 

I   retorted, “From the same lab that was trying to teach survival. How to spread and occupy the vast real estate called the Earth?  How to produce roots for multiple languages? Nature had the perfect answer in uninhabitable climate and food scarcity. The tribes were forced to move from place to place and continents to continents, for the sake of survival. In the process new sounds were detected, adapted by the settlers.

The settlers did not sit on their hands till such time primeval sounds could become words.  They took to rockface and cave arts to serve as a medium of expression. The music of sound proliferated with many variations to keep the seeds alive for the latter spoken languages. The first speech like sounds uttered by humans could be as old as the rockface and cave arts.”

In no mood to stop, he asked, “When humans started walking one lakh years ago, why speech did not follow soon after?” 

I exhorted him to imagine like this; “The migration of our hunter-gatherer ancestors was a ploy used by nature. It played an important role to push another step forward in the human evolution - the creation of a “speech” gene. This gene was crucial in the transformation of the elementary ‘click' sounds to the nascent, humanlike speech. 

Why it did not happen soon is known only to Nature. Not in a hurry, it had taken a cautious approach to develop the human vocal box, in stages. It deliberately spent nearly half of their pretty long migratory period to incubate these elements – mouth, pharynx, nasal passages, larynx and the vocal cords. A giant leap occurred when these formless sounds transformed themselves from clicks to words in the form of monosyllables or twin-syllables or as a proto-language. The frequent migratory changes naturally resulted in the birth of more and newer tongues. We will have to follow them step by step, to understand and appreciate.” 

The inner voice a doubt. “What was it called then as Mother tongue or Father tongue or by any other name? Why you call a language a tongue?”

 I just scratched my head and murmured, “Surely those habitats and the languages would have been overrun many times over as like how you overwrite a hard disc. The answer might emerge from the bowels of an archaeological excavation, who knows, when?

For our convenience, let us tag this nameless tongue as “Mother Tongue. For the growing child, it is a limited edition of spoken words! Years rolled by and the growing child left the fold of the mothers to tag along with the male member of the family. While learning survival skills, the children picked up, side by side, the forager's language - “Father Tongue. It is a utility language to stay safe and gather food. What developed as “Mother” and “Father” tongues   in one group of settlers happened in many other different settlers in different environmental zones! For the present, shall we leave it here?

Even for modulating a meaningless sound, the tongue plays a role. It plays a much important role in a developed language. That is why by convention people call it a ‘Tongue’, O.K?”

My friend asked, “Is it not confusing when you mention Mother tongue and Father tongue in the same breath? Is there no distinction between the two?”

“Unless I clear your doubt now, you will hear everything with doubt and confusion. As newborns, the mother and father might have heard the same musical sound. Later when they became parents, they would have played the same music. This father would have gone out with his father and learnt some unique sounds. He then would have educated his son with those unique sounds and so on. The mothers also would have heard all these unique outdoor sounds. In fact, the parents more or less equally contribute to the mother tongue, understood within a group of settlers.”

Not knowing where the concept of Father tongue was hiding, my friend was not ready to accept my compounded and confusing explanation.

His confusion forced me to explain clearly what became a mother tongue or Father tongue. “Foetuses / Babies and mothers keep communication with each other via feelings Newborns are exposed to their mother’s tongue, the language they hear from the cradle. They grow up making growls, squeals and vowel-like sounds, mastering phonetics, and to attain a level of competency. This exercise, eventually becomes the speech, in their mother tongue.

When the child accompanies the hunter-gatherer father and gets exposed to ‘attacker-attacked’ or ‘hunter-prey ‘sounds from the group of hunters.  Genetic mark-up variation might have triggered the child to become proficient in the hunter’s language of sounds. Due to migration, the father might have brought a different mother tongue and if the child manages to master it, then the father’s mother tongue becomes the child’s father tongue.”

As soon as I finished, I sensed a dramatic change in the room. From the facial expressions, I understood that my friend has landed himself on those places where the humans learned to walk. He might be reliving the haunting images of forlorn, expansive landscape, thick forest and water bodies, ferocious animals and fortress sized birds making blood curdling, high pitched squeaks and calls that greeted and terrified. 

My friend, in an accusatory tone said, “Since barely there is any distinction between the two, you could have stopped after mentioning that the parents more or less equally contributed to the mother tongue! And it would have been nice.” 

I liked this criticism which also brought a worry - will he be back for the next session?

I did not want him to sit on the tip of an iceberg to know about Father tongue. Confident of gathering sufficient points, I asked, “Want to know about Further tongue?”

He must have immediately sensed my intention to spin some passable story and said, “Why not? Let us see tomorrow.”

“Don’t ask me whether I am sure about the first humanoids being a man and a woman.   That being the case, how there could be a mother tongue and father tongue in existence for them to speak?  Clearing these doubts may not produce certainty.  It produces an appearance of certainty. Would you like me to continue?” 

The words doubt and clarity might have scared him from having further doubts. He meekly nodded in agreement. 

"Father tongue" refers to the language or dialect passed down or spoken specifically by one's father. This term is used to differentiate it from the "Mother tongue". The concept is applicable to families where parents from different linguistic backgrounds share each of their native language with the children. 

Anthropolinguists introduced the "father tongue hypothesis" quoting many historical migrations, when the immigrant men introduced the vocabulary of a new language. The local women shaped it with grammatical structures. Maybe, you can call it a migrant’s language! 

Besides the education in the vernacular or dialect as a child we naturally grow up speaking, the "Father tongue” informally describes the second language learned through reading and instruction.  There is one thing you have appreciate about the language. It is always eager to mix up with other languages, seeking company and probably to perpetuate itself in an evolving form. 

My friend asked, “Can you clarify with examples?” 

A kid speaks a third language, if parents speak different Mother tongues and also speak that third language. The second important factor might be the influence of a sibling in school or Smartphone and Television on the kid to speak a third language a smart language, there is a variant to this Smart tongue, which helps the toddlers and children to pick up multiple languages, including or excluding Mother & Father tongues. The malady is that Smart tongues might suffer from being relegated to spoken only category. 

The language learning skill of a child gets interesting hereafter wards. This bi or tri-lingualism, lays the foundation to handle many other languages. With eyes on higher studies, learning a foreign language becomes easier. Professionals, working in foreign countries, learn tongue twisting and vocal cord stretching languages for easier acceptance.  Few excel in this endeavour, with tongue and vocal cords intact, and while a majority is content to pass by without hurting the language sentiments of the natives. 

“The Kichidi tongue” used by professionals to discuss technical matters, mixing native tongue, education tongue and local tongue. A cauldron of Mother tongue, Father tongue, Latin, Greek, French, German and English words and the local tongue.

“The Sweet tongue” with no language barrier is used to exchange affection and intimacy.

The “Hot tongue” with no language affiliation is used to diverge on disagreements.

“The Beverage tongue” with no language barriers is used to strike a compromise after the sweet tongue had turned hot & sour. 

He asked, “What holds back the majority from becoming proficient in many languages?”

“An interesting question. Scientists and researchers believe the key is in the differing degree of Y- chromosomal and attempted mitochondrial DNA variations in our genes could be the contributor. It is difficult to understand the sketches and structures of the variants, not for laymen like us!

After hearing out my friend asked a doubt, “How do you know all these things?”

Closing my notes, I replied, “I had doubts, clearing them did not produce certainty.  I just took the ‘appeared certainty’ as clarity and closed the chapter. After all, how could the learned and peer reviewed anthropologists and Medical Scientists be wrong?”

Part-1 The wagging of tongue (The origin of a language): 336 A

Me and my friend were strolling down the road, hearing the animated chattering of school children. The mix of languages in different inflexions drew our attention. Our conversation turned towards the topic of mother tongue and father tongue. But my friend was not so convinced about the concept of a father tongue. I asked, “When foreign tongues, and work-space generated technical tongues (jargon-sprinkled with jargons of professionals) are readily accepted, why not a father tongue?”   

His face clouded with doubts, he replied, “You are a glib talker. Can you explain all these points on record?” 

Accepting, I replied “The first part will take you to the very origin of a language and the second and third parts will bring you to the stage of printed books. In between, I will touch upon the mother tongue and father tongue. Are you ready to hear?”

When he acceded to hear, we parted company. I started thinking about how to handle this task and he, probably wondering, why did not he keep his tongue in cheek! 

Thoughts tumbling in my mind, I spent considerable time twisting and turning on the bed, in an attempt to catch that elusive sleep. Finally, my eyelids started to droop. My subconscious mind, the sleep spoiler, commenced playing some vague video clips to clue in to familiar snippets of information. 

I found myself in the corridor of a hospital, where parents and relatives were anxiously waiting to hear the first cry of a newborn baby. Though asleep, this doubt popped up in my mind - “how can it be parents, should it not be a parent while the other is undergoing the delivery pangs? 

I applauded myself for clearing my own doubt by explaining it away as parents of the husband and wife! After this interruption the dream continued to show how this first cry becomes the wails of a siren. The session ended with a warning - as the baby grows, its market share of the initial welcoming warmth will go down with these ‘sleep spoiler spells. 

When this vivid dream ended, I woke up bedraggled with this doubt “Did I over play my hand promising to easily trace the evolution of a language right from the beginning.?” My inner voice added a twist and asked, “A doubtful promise or a promising doubt?” 

Next day, my friend brought his august presence, whether to hear my insight or to watch me squirming uncomfortably, to my house. In all seriousness he asked, “How did they manage it?” He has the knack for asking open ended questions without referring to a subject matter and leave others in confusion. 

How could I forgo an opportunity than this to test the strength of our friendship? Chuckling to myself, I decided to test him with my thoughts. 

“Let me start with an overview. Later on, I may use some of these points, to buttress a specific context.

Unmindful of inconveniences, the mother becomes the only linguistic expert to decode the cry as expressions of wants and feelings of the baby, till such time the child starts to mouth the sounds and syllables to convey its wants, pleasures and displeasures. Growing older the baby starts to blabber in strings of syllables and body language to communicate. If annoyed, the child did not hesitate to belt out the strings of syllables with raising crescendo. 

The present-day mother has the ability to speak whereas the first humanoid species did not have that faculty.  Then how did those mothers manage the situation? Did those mothers used sounds without definitive structure to communicate? Due to the newborns’ proximity to mothers, did they simply inherit it by mimicking?   

Though successive generations must have felt the necessity for a better means of communication, they could not have done anything but to look at the sky in despair and keep their thoughts imprisoned in a wordless world. Their plight, inability and anguish had kept me busy on a thinking loop. 

I asked, “Can you guess how the evolution of tongue or language, as we call it started? How the mothers of our ancestors managed the tantrums and with what secret formula?”

He chose silence instead of speaking out his mind. He knows that I know that he knows the answer. I also understood his reservations on the explanations I would be making. A cautious fellow with an impenetrable silence as armour!

Answering my own question, I continued, “Unable to speak like a present-day mother could do, the mothers of our ancestors only could have made pseudo-speeches (sounds without definition) in the form of clicks or clacks”.  

My friend asked, “What is this ‘click’ and where from you have imported it?” To tease him I quipped, “from my bag of guesses!” This sarcasm was my attempt to evade answering how sound becomes speech and to hold back some of the scientific findings on this, for appropriate use later.

Not to be sidelined, my inner voice joined issues with a growl and prodded, “Why this sudden interest in trying to fathom the origin of a language? Do you have the requisite expertise to understand and then to proceed forward? Be warned.  If you are planning a write up, it will get scrutinized and maybe, you will be crucified on the literary stakes.”

Out of my friend’s hearing, I managed to post a silent reply, “I am only trying to imagine how all these things would have evolved. Like great Scientists standing on the shoulders or building upon the theories of their predecessors, I will be looking over the shoulders and building upon the theories of archaeologists and borrow their assembled dates, artifacts and other evidence. Have they not constructed a picture using their imagination? Likewise, I am just trying to add a little humane touch and colour on to the canvas. Will you withdraw your earlier warning?

You can pull in an idea from thin air, but to develop it into something, don’t you need the skills of a language? A Logophilic, who loves words, will easily spans this chasm. A ‘Xenolingohassenist’ will find it frightening and gives up.”. This exercise will also help me to decide whether I am Logophilic or a Xenolingohassenist. Satisfied now?”

My friend with an impenetrable silence has another talent – to read silent conversations. He had unscrambled our unspoken communication and questioned me, “Why do you use Xenolingohassenist, instead of the word lingophobic?  Attempting to overwhelm and confuse me?”  At this point, having done its job, my inner voice quietly withdrew.

Taking the comments seriously, I started digging into relevant archaeological archives and absorb the findings, before embedding them in my, imaginative narration for the limited purpose of tracing the development of a language.  I believed this exercise will please my friend and satisfy my inner voice, if at all they let me to work in peace.

They obliged and left me in peace for a week. Somehow sensing enough time had elapsed, my friend dropped in and straight away declared, “I am ready to hear you”

Not to douse his enthusiasm, I started.  “Remember your question on clicks. It takes us to these important places - Nature’s laboratories. The Nature, being an ultra-utilitarian, had set up these laboratories in caves, edges of forests, on the mountains, on the seashores and by the banks of rivers. This was where our ancestors discovered, improved and delivered the clicks of a tongue or a dialect.    No doubt, their efforts and time spent would have been truly mind boggling and were in no position to judge the importance of their toils, vis a vis humanity.

The different environments must have helped the mothers to pick up sound cues from the cooing of birds, roaring of animals, crashing of waves and thunders must have evoked different kind of feelings, which they could have expressed by mimicking these sounds. Choosing the soft sounds, the mothers might have crooned to communicate with or to lull the fetus or baby to remain calm. Harsher sounds were probably reserved for admonishing a child or to warn of dangers. These sound-tricks were the products of mothers’ instincts!

What else could they do as they themselves were speechless?  As years rolled by, this precursor to lullaby formed the backbone of a language still retaining the sound only tag.  The sole purpose of this vocal-musical language of sound was to offer comfort and safety to the cradlers! Maybe, this sound-tricks had the potential to develop into a soundtrack of a mother tongue.”

To appreciate motherhood, I highlighted their efforts to become composers, song writers and singers, using primeval sounds learned from nature. A plethora of inspired musicals resulted due to introduced variations. The menfolk slowly became attracted by this music to become melomaniacs or melophiles. Many of them later might have turned out their own type of musicals, infusing their outdoor experiences. More about this when we come to the topic of Father tongue. 

After hearing this my friend asked, “You mean to say that the womenfolk played a key role in the birth of a language? Is it why we have the term mother tongue?”

 

“Yes, if we assume that the first mother taught the first newborn, then she played the key role. By association the man in the house picked it up and went about adding more teeth to it. Yes, now we have the fore runner to a mother tongue!” 

He had another question.  “How long this fore runner took to become spoken words? 

“Perhaps, near about 75,000 years ago, these wordless musicals befriended cave and rockface arts to join hands with them. The images carved or painted or drawn on rock faces and walls of caves, reflected the earliest form of pictorial communication to overcome the lack of spoken words.

Over time, these cave and rockface arts too might have inadvertently formed the backbone on which the bare musical sounds used to communicate grew to become a different form of vocalization called music. This could have happened 35,000 years ago, when our ancestors made rudimentary instruments and started to play the musical notes on them! They might have used this crafting skill   as a diversion or as  a path to creativity or to simply express anguish for living in a wordless environment!”

My inner voice chose to interrupt the flow.  “Nowadays, a child starts to speak in a year or two, and why after thousands of years that first cry could not become spoken words?

Silently admonishing it to wait patiently, I continued with my explanation to my friend who was probably searching for a pinch of salt to take whatever I was about to dish out. “Nature was never in a hurry at all. It had the biggest biolab in the Solar system and chose three streams to work with.

One: Working in three domains aquatic, terrestrial and arboreal, it incubated verities of species with unimaginable variations, arranged their food chains and survival mechanisms. Two:  It did not want every species talking at once, so taught them only to make sounds as in the same exact way nature was communicating with them. Howl of wind, crashing of waves, rolling of thunder, crackling of fire, creaking of trees and so on.

Three: It chose the humans as candidates but deferred the initiation of its ‘Project Speech’. What are a few million years to be expended by humans out of a few billion years given to Earth? So far in the story of language, it has not managed to cross the barrier of wordless communication.

The evolution of a mother tongue is facilitated by the mother- child transfer as a major contributor and a commune level collaboration to develop it further. These points along with the time frames involved are crucial to understand the intervening stages of evolution, before the story ends in a printed book.”

Without waiting for my friend’s reaction, which would surely come later, I closed this imaginary journey to   “The origin of a language”

The parrots squawk and screech: 344

Milaghu (Black pepper corns) paatty not breathing her last at 92 or Jeeraga (cumin seed) thaththa battling insomnia at 95 and Vendhaya (Fenugreek seeds) aunty dashing in and out of ICUs at 88, is great news being shared in group chats.  With wires crossed , the chat group was waiting for a signal announcing the apocalypse (a noun with an abject connotations). 

The only other worry ploughing through these chatters seemed to be, “Why some in the group are not joining in to share and worry about these octogenarians and nonagenarians! This was a concern, over riding the risk factors of wars, nuclear tipped missiles and economic meltdowns and shortage of subsidised fuel and onions either rotting or unavailable. 

The worrywarts, or shall they be called worry termites, who don't get a day's sleep when they fail to share these as chats or if nothing else as important as the deteriorating health of octogenarians and nonagenarians takes place, then the worrywarts end up happily (emojis included) sharing forwarded messages. Really, the warts or termites might have feasted on their neurons! 

Anyone worth the cost of a smartphone gets all these 'forwarded' messages, with plenty to spare. Why to respond with a like or dislike and waste emojis? This is the stand of some in the group, who silently bin such forwards. 

Pre-scheduled and periodic, minutes of face time on, any platform that can put up with simultaneous chatter and visuals, is spent in discussing Milaghu paatty, Jeeraga thaththa and Vendhaya aunty, but in a carefully curated diplomatic move, discussions sidestep from not even hinting at drawbacks within the chat group. 

One-on-one discussions overflow with bucketful of concerns about family X, but do not have the courage to step in and hand over the full bucket to the concerned. If it is for fear of getting rejected or hurting the feelings of family X, then why at all have this fill the bucket and forget act? Is it to appease the appetite of the resident worrywarts or worry termites or unable to do something useful or to just pass the time of the day? Separation by distance provides the fertile ground for these worrywarts and worry termites to thrive! 

The chatters who worry about those who don' t respond has some soul searching to do. Were the non-responding members included with permission or taken in like commercial establishments do? Whether the chatters’ domain has any hidden motive and by not responding some are reacting to that motive? If the wisdom, buckets of  of concerns or the shared forwarded messages fail to evoke interest in all, what has to happen, happens - No response. 

One such facetime involved a group member held the center stage with his tabletop aquarium and ornamental fishes. From the lengthy monologue of the home grown pisciculturist, the other participants became wiser to know that fishes thrive in R.O water flushed with Ozone instead of Oxygen! Emojis with encomiums flew back and forth. Of course, he had conveniently omitted to mention the weekly replenishment with fresh stock to make up for the tanked ones! 

To divert attention from the loss of ornamental fishes, he pisciculturist distributed these titbits, free of cost - When the fish starts hunting for its own food, it is called a fry. As the fish grows to about the size of a human finger and develops scales and working fins, it is called a fingerling. When the fish looks like a miniature version of an adult but is not yet old is called the juvenile. This Zoom event left everyone to feel ‘something fishy’ but closed their noses, and mouths, as relationships stated stronger than the smell of the tanked fishes. 

Forget Schrodinger's cat. Another member of the group has a kitten and it consumes minutes of face time, with voice over commentary of its purported antics in the hope of enthralling the others, who may or may not like cats.  Then there is a dog and a parrot vying for equal importance by competing with barks and with squawks & screeches. And then there are exotic (local variety) plants to be admired upon. 

Collective nouns expect the elective nouns to whole heartedly appreciate the sugary sweetness oozing out of their pets’ intelligence, antics and their own achievements. This over reach unsettles the elective nouns and they remain eloquently silent. Not to be put down so easily, the collective nouns launch arrows of allegations and ‘pin’ning  at the elective nouns. 

First the allegations. “You should have rolled your eyes and exclaimed ‘how cute! You must have felt the emotional or sentimental strings being thrummed.”  

Next the ‘pin’ning. “For being unresponsive, you will get the label - anti schmaltz. This label will find a prompt mention in the next face time as well as in the annals of the cat’s, dog’s & parrot's histories and the plants' botany books and the fish lings' Zoology books”  

The evolution of the state of Retirement: 

Sixty years ago, the dream after attaining superannuation was to buy, if not already available, a recliner and relax on it with a cup of coffee or tea. News Paper and one or two weekly magazines to keep company, if the financial outgo on this account did not hurt the budget of the family. The glass lens in a thick frame gets a 4- wheeler windshield wiper treatment. A clean cotton cloth replaces the wiper to get the job done.  It is a ritual whether clear vision results or not. 

The waiting specs taking its position on the nose and News Paper of the day offer a glimpse of the country and the world. At that time, not yet jet propelled, events around the world were moving at a slow pace as the next day News Papers confirmed this. Of course, obligations and debt servicing might continue for some more years. Retirees might occasionally meet and compare notes, in a café or a park whenever possible. 

A sedentary life, in the company of the recliner and News Papers unless the health check-up warrants a stroll or a brisk walk, targeting cholesterol or diabetes. An occasional parrot card reading reassures the retiree that “if used to difficulties, you become immune to them.” 

Move forward by thirty years. The retiree might have come out of debts but not yet fully out of obligations and the recliner dream might have given way to a settee with or without the inseparable throws. To protect the eyes from harmful UV rays, Crooke’s glass lenses with a blue tinge have come to stay.  The user has the choice to choose a Photochromic Lense. It is goodbye to the 4-wheeler viper treatment as vigorous wiping leaves scratches and damage the photochromic coating.

The Zen next coated lenses are allergic to soap baths. The specs, with modern looking frame, retain its position and along with the News Papers & magazines, a new entrant affectionately known as the idiot box ready with a lending library full of tear-jerking melodramas and spine hurting slapstick comedies. 

If an adventurous type, the retiree lets the specs hang on a chain, when not in use or to overcome the just popping up Alzheimer’s head! The tension filled sedentary life is threatened by health issues. Retirees meet during indoor and outdoor activities or in doctor’s waiting rooms. Not willing to let go these opportunities, chronicles on chronic ailments are exchanged to be studied at leisure. 

Or insert a coin, after the needle comes to rest, into the mouth of a weighing machine standing forlornly in public places and wait. It will hungrily swallow that coin and reluctantly deliver your fortune in general terms. The choice is yours to believe or blame. After all, for a small value coin is it not too much to expect a voluminous prediction?  Still the machine could surprise you - the coin disappears and the fortune card does not appear. Rarely, the coin returns without the card. 

Hop on to a time machine and move forward to the next thirty years. The traveller will land in an era of polycarbonate plastic lenses, having variable focus, mostly replacing the bygone era glass varieties. They are light in weight and coated in shades of grey, black or brown or green combining anti-glare property. With the make-up of a photochromic coating, the specs become a moody cine star, needing extra care. 

Vigorous wiping leaves them in scars. The optician strictly recommends a Special sprayable ® solution” wash and toweling with super soft cloth. A rough cloth or Beauty soap wash in any form, gel or solution in water is absolutely prohibited. Violate, you pay for another specs! 

The lenses produced by latest technology partner with unbreakable, flexible and foldable frames and still holds its position along with new entrants like smart phone and iPad and iPod. The News Papers get dismissed as the events in the world change at breakneck speed and late news is dead news. Moreover, gadgets like Alexa can get you the latest information.  The idiot box has become “smart” but cell phones & iPads are versatile and portable to stream or scream whatever is one’s choice. Particularly handy to annoy and cause nuisance for fellow travellers, especially in trains. 

The Tarot card foretells about the existing alternate employment options to break the monotony of a retired life along with suggestions for filling up space with unwanted comfort furnitures, diet control, medicines and must do physical activities. Based on these multiple advises, the retiree reaches the pinnacle of philosophy – “The more you have, lesser the chances of to you get to enjoy them. iPad and iPod do not substitute a plate of proscribed, steaming food. In place of money or wealth, what you need is an unfished dream or project to keep driving. This is important, to retain your importance in life!” 

With time running out, your travel by the time machine ends here. It is hard to judge whether the advance was thirty years or more than that! 

Recliners get thrown out by form-fitting floating pods that are stabilized and controlled by Tripple A rated AAI (Advanced Artificial Intelligence). 

No lense or specs, as print and electronic media have become fossils. EQE (Electron Quantum Entanglement) refreshes the brain cells with instantaneous happenings from all over the universe, whether you want or not! 

When the mind and body are taken care of, will there be a need for employment and retirement?  The human beings would have to face this dilemma: To bin the notion of earning one’s keep. Or alternatively to live in peace, choose to imagine the in between state of not seeking to be employed and hence not foreseeing a retirement! 

Probably, realising that there are two states, active or inactive, are available to it also the time machine took the decision to retire from its job. What the stranded traveller would do? Decide to retire there! 

A dose of laughter, the best medicine: 

Can you answer a question with a question? 

Yes. I know of a student who did it, not for one but for all the questions in the exam with questions. 

Why? 

To understand that you have to listen to this story. His lecturer was very strict and allowed no questions to be raised during or after the classes. One frustrated student decided to take it head on. During a test in that particular subject, he just wrote the question number and asked all the doubts, as questions, he wanted to ask during those lectures. 

He filled more and more additional sheets, till he came to the last question of the test paper. The lecturer was aghast to see this student’s answer papers towering over the combined answer sheets of the rest of the class. 

Then, after a few days, the unthinkable happened. 

Was the student taken to task for pulling a stunt like that or for scoring zero marks? 

No. The lecturer timidly announced, "From now onwards, ask away as many questions as you want during or after the classes. But don’t answer a question by raising number of doubts on the question!"