eJournals Kodikas/Code 39/1-2

Kodikas/Code
0171-0834
2941-0835
Narr Verlag Tübingen
Es handelt sich um einen Open-Access-Artikel der unter den Bedingungen der Lizenz CC by 4.0 veröffentlicht wurde.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Eighteenth-century authors considered language a prerequisite for complete or perfect humanity. Various scenarios were constructed to explain the puzzling emergence of this uniquely human tool, skill, or instrument of thought. The essay considers four such accounts of the emergence of the first human words (by Vico, Condillac, Rousseau, and Herder) from the perspective of the interrelations between image and word. It examines the significance of the visual versus the vocal in these Enlightenment scenarios after an overview of present-day debates over the same topic. While eighteenth-century authors saw spoken (or sung) language as a hallmark of human completeness, it is suggested here that they fully integrated human image-making within their theories and were not as logocentric as hitherto assumed.
2016
391-2

First Words in Wild Places

2016
Jürgen Trabant
K O D I K A S / C O D E Volume 39 (2016) · No. 1 - 2 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen First Words in Wild Places Jürgen Trabant (Berlin) Eighteenth-century authors considered language a prerequisite for complete or perfect humanity. Various scenarios were constructed to explain the puzzling emergence of this uniquely human tool, skill, or instrument of thought. The essay considers four such accounts of the emergence of the first human words (by Vico, Condillac, Rousseau, and Herder) from the perspective of the interrelations between image and word. It examines the significance of the visual versus the vocal in these Enlightenment scenarios after an overview of present-day debates over the same topic. While eighteenth-century authors saw spoken (or sung) language as a hallmark of human completeness, it is suggested here that they fully integrated human image-making within their theories and were not as logocentric as hitherto assumed. 1. Der Mensch ist nur Mensch durch Sprache The emergence of language is, according to most Enlightenment philosophers, the passage from an incomplete proto-human being to a complete human being. 1 Language is considered as the decisive step into human completeness: Man is the zoon logon echon, the being that has logos, the animal that has language. Thus the common conviction of these philosophers is, in a somewhat later phrasing: “ Der Mensch ist nur Mensch durch Sprache ” - “ the human being is human only through language ” . This is Wilhelm von Humboldt ’ s formulation. 2 No Enlightenment philosopher would have been shocked by this phrase, but today Humboldt ’ s phrase elicits protest. Two serious objections were raised against “ Der Mensch ist nur Mensch durch Sprache ” at a conference on this very Humboldtian phrase. 3 First, it seems to exclude people from the human race who are, for different reasons, unable to speak: deaf-mutes, aphasics, young children (in-fantes), and linguistically impaired people. Today, no one denies the humanity of these people; but Humboldt too never intended anything of the like. Humboldt ’ s apodictic statement does not exclude infants, deaf-mutes, aphasics, and otherwise linguistically impaired people from the human 1 See Avi Lifschitz, Language and Enlightenment: The Berlin Debate of the Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 2012), chapters 1 and 7. 2 Wilhelm von Humboldt, “ Ueber das vergleichende Sprachstudium ” (1820), in Gesammelte Schriften (Berlin, 1903 - 36), vol. IV, 15. 3 See Markus Messling and Ute Tintemann (eds.), Der Mensch ist nur Mensch durch Sprache. Zur Sprachlichkeit des Menschen (München, 2009). race. For him, “ Sprache ” by which the human being is human, is an innate faculty - “ unmittelbar in den Menschen gelegt ” 4 - a universal faculty that every human being possesses. It is true, however, that Humboldt ’ s eighteenth-century predecessors were not so sure about the humanity of people with linguistic deficiencies. 5 Another aspect of Humboldt ’ s statement has evoked even more passionate protest. Since it declares language to be the unique criterion of humanity, it seems to exclude or belittle alternatives for humanization. Image theorists read Humboldt ’ s sentence as an intolerably logo-centric or glosso-centric statement. They understand it as an outrageous expression of linguistic imperialism, an affront to the importance of images, a version of European iconoclasm in the name of the word, or of “ Bildangst ” . 6 Does the image not appear earlier in human cultural evolution? Is the image or the production of visible and tangible artefacts not the decisive step to humanization, hence the sign of human completeness? There are hand axes that are millions of years old, artefacts that clearly show the presence of human artistic skills and hence of a specifically human activity before the appearance of language. Language seems to emerge only after these visual skills or products, and hence language is only a further step on the road to humanity rather than its threshold. In short: Humboldt ’ s sentence was interpreted as an intolerably iconophobic statement. It enhances the importance of language while belittling the image. 7 This protest against Humboldt ’ s or the Enlightenment ’ s glossocentrism is my point of departure. The old contest between language and image - what comes first or which is more important - will be the angle from which I will approach the question of the origin of language. Thus, I hope to add a footnote to Lifschitz ’ s discussions of the origin of language that focus mainly the transition from the natural to the artificial as the most important step in human evolution. Is it the image that makes the human being - does the image constitute human completeness and perfection - or is it language? Is language only a further and later refinement or addition, and as such only something like “ ultimate completeness ” ? 2. Today This is not just a philological or historical question but still one of the major issues in the very active modern discussion on the evolution of language. 8 And here is how the most popular scenario depicts the origin of language: Michael Tomasello tells us that humans do something no other primates perform: they point to things in the world with a 4 Humboldt, “ Ueber das vergleichende Sprachstudium ” , 14. 5 Cf. the discussion of this problem in Etienne Bonnot de Condillac, Essai sur l ’ origine des connaissances humaines (1746), ed. Charles Porset (Auvers-sur-Oise, 1973), 167 - 173. 6 Horst Bredekamp, “ Wider die Bildangst der Sprachdominanz ” , in Messling and Tintemann (eds.), Der Mensch ist nur Mensch durch Sprache, 51 - 68. 7 I have tried to explain that this is not the case in an article for a festschrift for Horst Bredekamp: Jürgen Trabant, “ Nacquero esse gemelle. Über die Zwillingsgeburt von Bild und Sprache ” , in Ulrike Feist and Markus Rath (eds.), Et in imagine ego. Facetten von Bildakt und Verkörperung (Berlin, 2012), 77 - 92. 8 There is a major conference on the evolution of language every second year. The 10th International Conference on the Evolution of Language (Evolang X) was held in Vienna in 2014. See also Jürgen Trabant and Sean Ward (eds.), New Essays on the Origin of Language (Berlin/ New York, 2001). 134 Jürgen Trabant (Berlin) communicative intention. 9 Humans are, from the very beginning, extremely social and hence extremely communicative beings - a zoon politikon - but the specifically human trait of their being together is: pointing at the world for the other. No ape points at something in the world with the intention to draw another ’ s attention to that object. Deixis is thus the fundamental trait of human behaviour, or - in Bühlerian terms - the representational dimension, Darstellung, is typically human. 10 And - thus the story continues - if the object is out of sight, human beings pantomime, referring to the absent object by mimetic movements. In Tomasello ’ s scenario, gesture - and hence a visual activity - comes first. Language as a vocal action definitely comes later in Tomasello ’ s scenario. The vocal system is primarily used for the expression of emotions, exactly as in other animals - i. e. for expression (Ausdruck) and appeal (Appell) in Bühler ’ s model, not for objective cognitive representation. 11 Eventually, however, the vocal system too switches to the task of representation. The vocal mode (which implies hearing) - and with it spoken language - comes after the gestural pointing and pantomiming. This transition is a weak point in Tomasello ’ s scenario: he has no watertight theory of vocal language. What lacks is a theory of articulation, and he does not explain why the vocal system switches from expression and appeal to representation. But this is not my concern here. The point I want to make is that in his scenario the vocal character of language is a further step - and of course a step into further human completeness - after the development of gestural and visual activity. Vocal language, according to Tomasello, is not the decisive step that separates humans from apes. The decisive and human action is pointing, gesticulation, visual semiosis. Thus, one may think, this modern scenario does not support Humboldt ’ s phrase that the human being is human only through language. Other modern biologists, however, still believe in Humboldt ’ s maxim and are looking for the antecedents of vocal language in the evolution of primates. Thus, for example, in a recent book on primate societies Julia Fischer focuses on vocal forms of expression in her reflections on the evolution of language. 12 But she wisely refrains from inventing scenarios of its origin. These sketchy remarks must suffice to show that today one of the major issues in the discussion of human completeness is exactly this question concerning the materiality of human communication and cognition: how is human cognition embodied? Do we have to choose? Is vocal language really the decisive trait of being human? It is with this question in mind that I approach the origin stories of the eighteenth century. 9 Michael Tomasello, Origins of Human Communication (Cambridge/ London, 2008). 10 See Karl Bühler, Sprachtheorie. Die Darstellungsfunktion der Sprache (1934) (Stuttgart, 1999). 11 This is what Herder says, when he starts his treatise on the origin of language with the famous (and often misunderstood) sentence: “ Schon als Tier, hat der Mensch Sprache ” - “ Already as an animal, the human being has language ” . ( Johann Gottfried Herder, Abhandlung über den Ursprung der Sprache (1772), ed. Wolfgang Pross (München, 1978), 9; Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Johann Gottfried Herder, On the Origin of Language, trans. John H. Moran and Alexander Gode, (Chicago/ London 1966), 87.) 12 Julia Fischer, Affengesellschaft (Frankfurt am Main, 2012). First Words in Wild Places 135 3. Wild Words In the most renowned eighteenth-century scenarios of the origin of language, the first human “ words ” appear in four rather different manifestations. 3.1 In the Forest: Ious For Giambattista Vico, wild proto-humans - bestioni - are roaming the gran selva del mondo, the big forest of the world, trying to become human beings: (447) In séguito del già detto, nello stesso tempo che si formò il carattere divino di Giove, che fu il primo di tutt ’ i pensieri umani della gentilità, incominciò parimenti a formarsi la lingua articolata con l ’ onomatopea, con la quale tuttavia osserviamo spiegarsi felicemente i fanciulli. Ed esso Giove fu da ’ latini, dal fragor del tuono, detto dapprima “ Ious ” . 13 (447) To follow up what has already been said: at the same time that the divine character of Jove took shape - the first human thought in the gentile world - articulate language began to develop by way of onomatopoeia, through which we still find children happily expressing themselves. By the Latins Jove was at first, from the roar of the thunder, called Ious. 14 Ious is the first wild word, a mimetic word, a wild sound, imitating thunder. That sound is also the first thought, “ il primo di tutt ’ i pensieri umani ” . Following the meaning of the Greek logos, for Vico, language is word and idea at the same time. The first word transforms the beast-like proto-humans - the bestioni - into humans. Being the first thought, it overcomes the foreignness of the world through cognition (labour is the other, material way of overcoming the wildness of the world). It is the appropriation of the world through the wild mind, through fantasia or imagination. This first vocal word - voce - is, however, not the first and only step to humanity. According to Vico, gestures and bodies are first: atti e corpi. The wild human transports his anima into the objects, corpi. He animates trees, stones, rivers, animals - sostanze animate - and he points to these - additando. Or the other way round: atti are mimetic movements of the body. Through these actions, the first human beings transport the objects into their own bodies: they dance the tree, the animal, the seasons etc. 15 However, on a yet closer look at Vico ’ s text, it may not be quite correct to take gestural and visual signs as the first ones. (33) [. . .] naquero esse gemelle e caminarono del pari, in tutte e tre le loro spezie, le lettere con le lingue. (33) [. . .] letters and languages were born as twins and proceeded apace through all their three stages. “ Letters ” in Vico ’ s terminology are not just signs for writing; “ letters ” here are all kinds of visual signs. Vico does not yet have an adequate terminology for his broad semiotic theory. Therefore “ nacquero gemelle ” means that visual and vocal signs are born as twins, that 13 Giambattista Vico, Princìpi di scienza nuova d ’ intorno alla comune natura delle nazioni (1744), ed. Andrea Battistini (Milano, 1990). The numbers refer - according to a well-established practice in Vico scholarship - to the numbers of the paragraphs of the Scienza Nuova. 14 Thomas G. Bergin and Max H. Fisch (eds.), The New Science of Giambattista Vico, (Ithaca/ London, 1986). 15 See Jürgen Trabant, Vico ’ s New Science of Ancient Signs: A Study of Sematology, tr. Sean Ward (London/ New York, 2004), chapter 3. 136 Jürgen Trabant (Berlin) visual and vocal signs emerge simultaneously. Vico was a professor of rhetoric and hence knew that actio and vox, gesture and voice, always go together. “ Nacquero gemelle e caminarono del pari ” - they emerge together and develop in parallel. Here is a sketchy representation of the semiogenetic history in the three ages of Vico ’ s universal history. signifiers: atti, corpi semata voci materiality: GRAPH graph graph phon phon PHON In the beginning, the visual-gestural twin (GRAPH) is stronger than the vocal one (phon), but later the vocal aspect becomes increasingly stronger until, in modern times, vocal language is the most important semiosis. And only in modern times is language “ conventional and arbitrary ” , hence an elaborate and articulate vocal language. In Vico, the question of the priority of image or language is resolved in the most peaceful way: visual and vocal semiosis are twins. Humanization is marked by both image and language. 16 3.2 In the Desert: Cry and Action In Condillac, the scenery of the narration of the origin of language is completely different. There are two children (A and E) in the desert, “ dans des déserts ” , without language. Quand ils vécurent ensemble, ils eurent occasion de donner plus d ’ exercice à ces premières opérations, parce que leur commerce réciproque leur fit attacher aux cris de chaque passion les perceptions dont ils étoient les signes naturels. Ils les accompagnoient ordinairement de quelque mouvement, de quelque geste ou de quelque action, dont l ’ expression étoit encore plus sensible. Par exemple, celui qui souffroit parce qu ’ il étoit privé d ’ un objet que ses passions lui rendoient nécessaire, ne s ’ en tenoit pas à pousser des cris: il faisoit des efforts pour l ’ obtenir, il agitoit sa tête, ses bras, et toutes les parties de son corps. 17 Living together, the children had occasion to give these first operations more exercise, for their interaction caused them to connect the cries of each passion with the perceptions of which these passions were the natural signs. They usually accompanied them with some movement, gesture, or action with an even more noteworthy expression. For example, the one deprived of some needed object was not satisfied just to cry out. He tried to obtain it, he moved his head, arms, and every part of his body. 18 Child A feels a besoin, a need; he cannot reach the desired object, “ l ’ objet du désir ” . He produces a multi-modal sign: a movement - action - towards the object accompanied by a vocal production, a cry of passion. This complex sign is objective (towards the world) and subjective (expression and appeal) at the same time. 16 We have, however, to take into account the fact that neither Vico nor the other philosophers of the eighteenth century had a clear understanding of the phonemic structure of articulate vocal language. 17 This and further citations are taken from Etienne Bonnot de Condillac, Essai sur l ’ origine des connaissances humaines (1746), ed. Charles Porset (Auvers-sur-Oise, 1973), 194 - 195. 18 This and further citations are taken from Condillac, Philosophical Writings, vol. 2, tr. Franklin Philip (Hillsdale/ London, 1987), 525 - 526. First Words in Wild Places 137 Child A produces the sign in the presence of the other; he appeals to E. E is watching and she has a specific innate faculty that is responsible for the evolution of semiosis. She has an innate instinct for pity, therefore she comes to help. L ’ autre, ému à ce spectacle, fixoit les yeux sur le même objet; et sentant passer dans son ame des sentimens dont il n ’ étoit pas encore capable de se rendre raison, il souffroit de voir souffrir ce misérable. Dès ce moment il se sent intéressé à le soulager, et il obéit à cette impression, autant qu ’ il est en son pouvoir. Ainsi, par le seul instinct, ces hommes se demandoient et se prêtoient des secours. Touched by this sight, the other one looked at the same object. With feelings not yet understood, he or she suffered to see the discomforted companion suffer. From then on, he felt himself wanting to relieve his friend ’ s discomfort, and he acted on this feeling as far as he could. Thus, just by instinct, the couple asked for and received each other ’ s help. Here again, the visual and the vocal go together. But the complex sign is not yet very human, it is still a natural sign, i. e. bestial behavior. It becomes human when the semiosis switches to the intentional mode: the words à son gré, disposer de, avec réflexion, reflect this transition in the following citation. Cependant les mêmes circonstances ne purent se répéter souvent, qu ’ ils ne s ’ accoutumassent enfin à attacher aux cris des passions et aux différentes actions du corps, des perceptions qui y étoient exprimées d ’ une manière si sensible. Plus ils se familiarisèrent avec ces signes, plus ils furent en état de se les rappeler à leur gré. Leur mémoire commença à avoir quelque exercice; ils purent disposer eux-mêmes de leur imagination, et ils parvinrent insensiblement à faire, avec réflexion, ce qu ’ ils n ’ avoient fait que par instinct. The same circumstances could not often recur without the couple ’ s eventually getting used to connecting the impassioned cries and various bodily movements with the perceptions so strikingly expressed. The more familiar they became with these signs, the more able they were to recall them at will. Their memory began to be exercised. They gained some control over their imagination, and gradually succeeded in doing reflectively what they formerly had done only by instinct. And then the complex sign becomes vocal. The primordial gesture and cry becomes a sound that will become increasingly articulated. Action and cry develop separately (and come together again in writing). But all this is not very clear in Condillac: why does natural behaviour become intentional? Why and how is this primordial synthesis of gesture and sound dissolved and how is sound then articulated? Why does sound represent the object, why does it not express the passion any longer (the same question as the one put to Tomasello)? Here are many unexplained transitions. Herder will criticise this point fiercely, mainly in regard to the mysterious switch from expression and appeal to representation. 3.3 At the Fountain: Song An unarticulated melisma is Rousseau ’ s first human word. It is not wild any more; it is rather tamed desire - apprivoisé. Language originates in the famous scene around the well. Là se formérent les prémiers liens des familles; là furent les prémiers rendez-vous des deux sexes: Les jeunes filles venoient chercher de l ’ eau pour le ménage, les jeunes hommes venoient abruver leurs troupeaux. Là des yeux accoutumés aux mêmes objets dès l ’ enfance commencérent d ’ en voir 138 Jürgen Trabant (Berlin) de plus doux. Le coeur s ’ émut à ces nouveaux objets, un attrait inconnu le rendit moins sauvage, il sentit le plaisir de n ’ être pas seul. [. . .] Sous de vieux chênes vainqueurs des ans une ardente jeunesse oublioit par degrés sa férocité, on s ’ apprivoisoit peu à peu les uns avec les autres; en s ’ efforçant de se faire entendre on apprit à s ’ expliquer. Là se firent les premiéres fêtes, les pieds bondissoient de joye, le geste empressé ne suffisoit plus, la voix l ’ accompagnoit d ’ accens passionnés, le plaisir et le desir confondus ensemble se faisoient sentir à la fois. Là fut enfin le vrai berceau des peuples, et du pur cristal des fontaines sortirent les prémiers feux de l ’ amour. 19 That is where the first ties were formed among the families; there were the first rendezvous of the two sexes. Girls would come to seek water for the household, young men would come to water their herds. There eyes, accustomed to the same sights since infancy, began to see with increased pleasure. The heart is moved by these novel objects; an unknown attraction renders it less savage; it feels pleasure at not being alone. [. . .] Under old oaks, conquerors of the years, an ardent youth will gradually lose its ferocity. Little by little they become less shy with each other. In trying to make oneself understood, one learns to explain oneself. There, too, the original festivals developed. Feet skipped with joy, earnest gestures no longer sufficed, being accompanied by an impassioned voice; pleasure and desire mingled and were felt together. There at last was the true cradle of nations: from the pure crystal of the fountains flow the first fires of love. 20 The scene is exclusively communicative; the function of that sound of the voice is communication of passion (le coeur), there is no objective relation, no cognitive dimension. The first word is expressive and appellative - its meaning is “ Aimez-moi! ” This first word is sung, and it is the step into culture. Love is a cultural accomplishment as opposed to sexual desire. Where is the visual aspect and where are the gestures? The gesture and the visual, for Rousseau, clearly precede language. He praises the image and the gesture - visual semioses which he calls signes - before he tells the story of the origin of language: “ Ainsi, l ’ on parle aux yeux bien mieux qu ’ aux oreilles ” (Essai, 62). By doing so, he clearly has in mind the objective, representational function. The signe comes first in that regard and, as visual semiosis it precedes the word: “ les hommes, épars sur la terre n ’ avoient [. . . ] de langue que le geste et quelques sons inarticulés ” (Essai, 91). But it is not yet human. What Rousseau is interested in - and this is his criterion for complete humanity - is not objective representation but rather “ émouvoir le coeur et enflammer les passions ” (Essai, 62). For this purpose, humans need sound. Love and language as sound are invented at the same time. And notice again: language-voice does not represent anything, it is pure expression and pure appeal: “ Aimez-moi! ” This beautiful erotic sound of the blissful moment is immediately destroyed by articulation: The melisma will be articulated, i. e. segmented by consonants, while charged with the task of representation. What we would call language to Rousseau is already the first step into its decay. Human completeness is reached in the blissful musical moment at the fountain. Articulation destroys the sound of love, which will be completely bereft of its musicality by transforming it into writing. Writing destroys the communicative situation: writing humans are as isolated at the end of the historical evolution as they were in the beginning, “ épars sur la terre ” . Characteristically, what is seen as progress by other writers is 19 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Essai sur l ’ origine des langues (1781), ed. Charles Porset, (Paris, 1981), 123. 20 Rousseau, “ Essay on the Origin of Languages ” in On the Origin of Language, 44 - 45. First Words in Wild Places 139 presented here as decline, or as a return to the pre-human savage stage. Human completeness or perfection is only present in the song of the beginning. And that beginning is forever lost. 3.4 Perhaps on a Meadow: A Mental Event Herder ’ s first word is neither gesture and cry nor musical sound, it is not a bodily movement at all, but something one can neither hear nor see. It is an entirely interior mental event. And hence the question of image versus language is somehow suspended: for Herder, the stories of primordial communication we have just recounted cannot explain the genesis of language. Herder rejects the scenarios of transition: shifts from communication to cognition, from pre-human to human, from visual to vocal. In his eyes, one cannot derive a cognitive device from a communicative scene, nor can one derive develop the human from the pre-human or the vocal from the visual. Herder gives a new answer: the faculty of language is innate. 21 He creates a new term for it, Besonnenheit (loosely translatable as conscious reflection). The specifically human trait of language is cognition, hence Herder ’ s primordial scene is a cognitive one. The human being encounters the world, not another human. The social and communicative dimension is presupposed; communicative sounds are Tiersprache, animal language. The characteristically human language does not derive from Tiersprache but from Besonnenheit. This innate and cognitive faculty chooses sound or, with regard to the human senses, the ear as its medium. Not sight, not touch. Such is the meaning of the famous encounter of the human being with the lamb, with Mendelssohn ’ s sheep. 22 Das Schaaf kommt wieder. Weiß, sanft, wollicht - sie sieht, tastet, besinnet sich, sucht Merkmal - es blöckt, und nun erkennet sies wieder! “ Ha! du bist das Blöckende! ” fühlt sie innerlich, sie hat es Menschlich erkannt, da sies deutlich, das ist, mit einem Merkmal, erkennet und nennet. 23 The sheep comes again. White, soft, woolly - the soul sees, touches, remembers, seeks a distinguishing mark - the sheep bleats, and the soul recognizes it. And it feels inside, “ Yes you are that which bleats. ” It has recognized it humanly when it recognized and named it clearly, that is, with a distinguishing mark. 24 Now, the specific quality of the first word is its silence: the first human word is a mental event caused by sound, an inner word. The essential cognitive event, the invention of the Word, is a completely interior movement. Und was war das anders, als ein innerliches Merkwort? Der Schall des Blöckens von einer Menschlichen Seele, als Kennzeichen des Schaafs, wahrgenommen, ward, kraft dieser Besinnung, Name des Schafs, und wenn ihn nie seine Zunge zu stammeln versucht hätte. 21 See Lifschitz, Language and Enlightenment, chapter 7. 22 See Moses Mendelssohn ’ s reply to Rousseau in his “ Sendschreiben an den Herrn Magister Lessing in Leipzig ” , in Gesammelte Schriften - Jubiläumsausgabe (Berlin/ Stuttgart Bad-Cannstatt, 1929-), vol. 2, ed. Fritz Bamberger and Leo Strauss, 81 - 109. 23 Johann Gottfried Herder, Abhandlung über den Ursprung der Sprache (1772), ed. Wolfgang Pross (München, 1978), 33. 24 In Rousseau and Herder, On the Origin of Language, 117. 140 Jürgen Trabant (Berlin) And what was that other than a distinguishing word within? The sound of bleating perceived by a human soul as the distinguishing mark of the sheep became, by virtue of this reflection, the name of the sheep, even if his tongue had never tried to stammer it. 25 Only after this, in a second movement, the word becomes sound for communicative purposes. But the first human movement is a cognitive spark and it is purely mental. This radical interiority of the word is at first sight no consolation for the friends of the image. But the advocates of vocal language must be disappointed too: there is no vox, there is no material sign at all but an innerliches Merkwort, an internal distinguishing mark. At a second glance, however, language is bound to hearing and to sound in Herder ’ s Abhandlung rather than to sight. The cognitive humanization depends upon sound. Herder is rather otocentric than phonocentric: the ear is the sense for language, “ Sinn der Sprache ” . Further on, however, hearing is connected intimately to the other senses, there is no fight against the eye or against touch. The ear is only “ der mittlere Sinn ” , the middle sense, not a superior sense. There is no hierarchy in Herder ’ s democracy of the senses; the senses are connected by a sensus communis. Herder, by choosing the ear as the central sense of the human being, develops an alternative to the dominant European visual epistemology. Vico still celebrates the eye by saying that “ ideas ” are visions. The major epistemological metaphors of the European languages are visual metaphors, while the ear is the sense of practical philosophy (as in Gehorsam, obedience - from ob-audire, “ listen towards ” ). By choosing the ear, Herder repeats a very Leibnizian gesture: the gesture of complementing the visual bodily sources of cognition with auditory ones. Yet even Leibniz subscribes to a very ocular hierarchy of notions ascending from obscure via clear and confused to distinct (i. e. clearly visual) forms of cognition. On the other hand, he introduces the ear as well as the tactile feelings of the body into his epistemology. His is a breathing world: sympnoia panta, “ tout est conspirant ” , everything breathes. It is also a spheric world (englobant) and a world of petites perceptions, which are mainly auditory perceptions. 26 In Herder the inventor of language-thought perceives the world as having a voice, hence as being animated, as being alive just as you and myself. The cognitive and the communicative eventually merge in the phonetico-acoustic event. This auditory epistemology differs profoundly from the visual tradition. It is, however, not directed against the image but is rather profoundly complementary to the visual since all senses are united in a sensorium commune. 4. The Difference: Articulation The eighteenth-century stories about the origin of language concern the eye and the ear, the gesture and the voice, never excluding one or the other. Eventually they all focus on vocal language, it is true, since this is - and we started with that statement - what finally renders a human being human for Enlightenment authors. But there is never a struggle or a polemical 25 Ibid. 26 Cf. Leibniz ’ s introduction to his New Essays: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Nouveaux essais sur l ’ entendement humain (1765), ed. Jacques Brunschwig (Paris, 1966). First Words in Wild Places 141 relationship between the visual and the vocal. There is no polemos, no war between language and image. On the contrary: they are twins in Vico, they go together in Condillac. In Rousseau, the most phonocentric (and perhaps the most antagonistic) thinker, voice is preceded and followed by signes. And also in the otocentric Herder, language is embedded in sight and touch. “ Der ganze Mensch ” (the whole human being), an Enlightenment motto, clearly fosters the friendship between image and language, not their struggle: no iconoclasm, no glossophobia. “ Nacquero esse gemelle ” - “ they were born as twins ” . Indeed, “ Der Mensch ist nur Mensch durch Sprache ” but Sprache is accompanied by, preceded by, embedded in and followed by the Sign. Even Wilhelm von Humboldt, who seems to be the most phonocentric author after the Enlightenment debate, can conceive of language only as a picture: languages are “ Welt- Ansichten ” , world-views. He also calls them “ Gemälde ” , paintings. The image is the background, the source of metaphors for thinking and speaking about language. In this sense the image precedes the word even in Humboldt. Yet it is true that Humboldt is more radical than eighteenth-century philosophers because he refers to a further quality of language in his apodictic statement. Humboldt knows what the authors of the preceding generations do not yet grasp correctly, namely that language differs structurally - and therefore profoundly, not only with regard to the medium or the sense - from the image, namely through articulation. It is a twofold articulation: on the one hand, humans form what Humboldt calls “ portions of thought ” , i. e. concepts, ideas, representations, cognitive units that are always synthetically united with sound. In that sense, as unions of material signifiers and concepts or ideas, images articulate the world. But in language, humans articulate sound - and linguistic sound has a very specific structure: some minimal movements of the alimentary and respiratory organs form phonemes. They are only a few and can be repeated and combined in such a way as to form an infinite number of words and hence of sentences and utterances. This invention is bound to the vocal system. No visual system is able to do this, and no other animal can perform it. Articulated language is the basis of the explosion of human culture. Therefore one can still claim: “ Der Mensch ist nur Mensch durch Sprache. ” 142 Jürgen Trabant (Berlin)