Quote Originally Posted by Leo View Post
Oh! I had become somewhat famous back in my Undergraduate Days when I proposed that Human Language first flourished and developed at the time that the Dogs were being domesticated. Well, since Homo Sapiens had been up and around for several hundreds of thousands of years, and getting by well enough on ordinary primate grunts, squeeks and whistles, then it was too much of a coincidence for language to begin at exactly the moment when we found ourselves needing to cross-species communicate with Dogs.

It was thought that Dogs were scavengering off of Human Hunters. But I proposed the opposite, that dogs were the better hunters and were making the majority of the kills (as in Fox Hunting, and bear baiting). Human Language was initiated as a means of signalling to dogs. The first words were probably "Good Doggy".

Why would the Dogs agree to a partnership? Well, because the on the Savanah Plains of Africa and the Euroasian Steppe, the grass was very tall. Dogs have a keen sense of smell, but if the Human Being could stand up and look off into the distance and see something, and then signal intelligently and coherently the direction and distance, then both Parties would benefit.

If one looks at it, then one discovers that dogs were learning to COMPREHEND language just as Human Being were learning to speak it. Indeed, all of the domesticated animals have some ability to differentiate words through learning.
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Oh! The mechanism? Homo Sapiens, to convey working concepts to the dogs with whom they were speaking, first started stretching their vocal chords into nonordinary primate sounds through first trying to imitate the noises the dogs were making, and then by imitating the various other animal noises. For instance, a Human Being would 'howl' to get the attention of a pack of dogs, and then would 'Moo' and point to indicate a remote herd of cattle. By such vocal mimicry the number of possible phonics and their combinations were increased. Once they became available, they developed entirely human to human applications.