The Prehistory of Protolanguage’s Notion. Condillac, Rousseau, De Brosses, and the Origin of Language

The famous prohibition of the Société de Linguistique de Paris, issued on M arch 8th, 1866, which forbade its members to submit research papers about the origin of language, reflected the mood of a precise historical and cultural situation. It was an affirmation of victory achieved by linguistic idealism and German historicis, formalized through an “edict” against the F rench naturalist-materialist tradition (or a E uropean tradition tradition in general: for instance, in I taly, represented by Giambattista Vico). It was a victory against the philosophy of the Enlightenment, linked to the F rench Revolution. It was a political and ideological choice and an reflection of the intellectual climate of the Second Restoration, after 1848. In fact, many various and interesting proposals were made in the eighteenth century by the E nlightenment thinkers on the subject of the origin of language. The approaches were empiricist and, at the time, they were meant to counter the theological clichés about the “divine” origins of the primordial language. This theological and metaphysical thesis was opposed by the E nlightenment with a naturalistic explanation. Therefore, those events mark the real prehistory of the protolanguage thesis, concerning human nature, being linked to natural modes of life of the “first men” and primitive humanity. Our paper aims to investigate some of the most original philosophical versions concerning the prehistory of the notion of a protolanguage, echoing the views of our contemporary “gesturalists” (Condillac) and “vocalists” (Rousseau) or “verbalists” (De Brosses).