origins of language: ding-dong and other theories

Theorizing the origins of language has been a popular endeavor.  The different theories of origins were given pet names: the ding-dong theory focused on origins of language based on what things sounded like, pooh-pooh theory focused on spontaneous interjectional sounds, and the bow-wow theory focused on imitation.  These theoretical categories were originally discussed by Max Müller, see his (free Google ebook) 1861 Lectures on the Science of Language.

And a few related links:

• You can learn more in William Dwight Whitney’s (free Google ebook) 1892 Max Muller and the Science of Language.
• Edward Thorndike’s 1943 Science piece reviewed these theories and he also had his own theory of the origins of language.
• Adam Smith also had a theory of the origins of language: Considerations concerning the first formation of languages.
• Here’s somebody’s website capturing various pet names for theories of the origin of language.
• And, here’s a recent (2011) book on the origins of language: Corballis, M. The Recursive Mind: The Origins of Human Language, Thought and Civilization.  Princeton University Press.  (Here’s his other book, which focuses on gestural origins: From Hand to Mouth: The Origins of Language. Princeton University Press.)
• Another book, Why We Talk: The Evolutionary Origins of Language. Oxford University Press.
• Chomsky’s take, from last year, on some of the more recent arguments about the evolution/origins of language: Language and other cognitive systems: What is special about language?
• Here’s Tecumseh Fitch’s piece on “Musical protolanguage: Darwin’s theory of language evolution revisited.”  And his book, The Evolution of Language, Cambridge University Press.