The 3 Theories of Language Origin: Bow-Wow, Pooh-Pooh, and Ding-Dong

No, really. That’s what the theories are actually called.

I was researching onomatopoeias and accidentally stumbled upon the bow-wow theory of language origin. I thought that name was pretty funny, and then I glanced at the footnotes, which referenced two other theories of language origin: the pooh-pooh theory and the ding-dong theory. That’s not even a joke—these are the official scholarly names of these very serious academic theories. I love it.

Words Have To Come from Somewhere

Words are created in many different ways: acronyms turn into words like laser and sonar, words are borrowed from other languages, we create shortened versions of longer words (ad from advertisement) and back formations (baby–sit from babysitter), common nouns can be formed from proper names (sandwich from the Earl of Sandwich), we might combine multiple existing words, etc.

But what about the FIRST words EVER?

The bow-wow theory (and other theories about how language evolved) is closely tied to onomatopoeia because the first-ever “language” of the world was likely that of simple sounds. We can’t say that onomatopoeia was the only driving force behind the creation of human language, but it almost definitely played a major role. Before humans were saying words to each other, we were probably making undefined sounds.

There are many different theories about how language came to be. It’s impossible to know for sure since spoken language precedes written language, so we don’t have any records about language formation. But here are the three most common ideas about how we went from grunting at one another to speaking in fully formed sentences.

The Bow-Wow Theory

The bow-wow theory basically suggests that people began speaking by imitating animal sounds. People observed how animals communicated with one another and began copying their vocalizations in order to communicate with other people.

According to this theory, it wasn’t just animal noises that people copied: they also may have used other natural sounds, like thunder, as part of their language.

The bow-wow theory was first posited by Johann Gottfried Herder, a German philosopher, in the 18th century. He proposed that humans mimicked animal sounds, which later evolved into more complex languages.

Of course, it would take a LOT of evolution for a dog’s bark or a bird’s tweet to become the complicated languages that we know today. And critics also point out that “relatively few [modern] words are onomatopoeic,” which suggests that language must have evolved from somewhere else. Still, it’s possible that animal sounds were at least part of the beginnings of human language.

The Ding-Dong Theory

The ding-dong theory is similar to the bow-wow theory in that it proposes that humans copied natural sounds in order to communicate. However, the ding-dong theory is more general and doesn’t stick to mostly animal sounds.

This theory was named by Dutch linguist Jan Baudouin de Courtenay in 1913, but it was also popular with ancient philosophers like Plato and Pythagoras.

According to this theory, people might have made the noise of a river to communicate that there was fresh water nearby, or they would make the sound of rain to communicate that a storm was coming. They corresponded the natural sounds of their environment to specific noises in order to warn and inform one another.

This theory is criticized for many of the same reasons that the bow-wow theory is dismissed. There are definitely some instances of sound symbolism in modern language, but it isn’t common enough to consider that to be the entire foundation of spoken language.

The Pooh-Pooh Theory

Unlike the bow-wow and ding-dong theories, the pooh-pooh theory is not focused on natural sounds. Instead, this one posits that language originated from interjections that acquired meaning and evolved into words.

According to Ebbitt & Ebbitt (in Index to English), “Various exclamations of surprise, pain, scorn may have started as emotional noises—ow, ouch, fie, phooey—and later become regular words.”

British linguist Henry Sweet came up with this theory in the 19th century. He guessed that humans made involuntary, emotional sounds that, over time, developed into sophisticated languages.

This theory has its own problems, though. First of all, we don’t actually have that many interjections in modern languages. There are some interjections—like ouch, oh, and ah—but perhaps not enough to consider them to be foundational.

These aren’t the only theories of the origin of language: some others include the yo-he-ho theory (which proposes that language evolved from the sounds evoked by heavy physical labor) and the la-la theory (suggesting that language developed from sounds associated with love, play, and song).

So Which One Is Right?

Each theory has its champions and critics, and there isn’t one that is agreed to be the “correct” explanation for how spoken language began. Most likely, language evolved from a combination of many different kinds of communication, including emotional sounds, natural sounds, hand gestures, etc.

Even if these theories aren’t the whole answer, I think each one is very interesting and—more importantly—hilariously named.

Which language origin theory do you like the best? Let me know in the comments!

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Sources:

• “America’s Most Trusted Dictionary.” Merriam-Webster. Accessed August 7, 2024. https://www.merriam-webster.com/.
• Ebbitt, D. R., and W. R. Ebbitt. Index to English. 8th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
• Nordquist, Richard. “5 Theories on the Origins of Language.” ThoughtCo, May 25, 2024. https://www.thoughtco.com/where-does-language-come-from-1691015.
• Osoblivaia, Tatiana. “How Did Languages Emerge? Theories of Their Creation.” PoliLingua, February 22, 2023. https://www.polilingua.com/blog/post/theories-of-languages-origin.htm.