Xout 50 years ago the Linguistic Society of Paris established a standing rule barring from its sessions papers on the origin of language. This action was a symptom of the times. Speculation about the origin of language had been common throughout the 19th century, but had reached no conclusive results. The whole enterprise in conse quence had come to be frowned upon as futile or crackpot-in respectable linguistic and philological circles. Yet amidst the speculations there were two well-reasoned empirical plans that de serve mention even though their results were negative.

A century ago there were still many corners of the world that had not been visited by European travelers. It was reasonable for the European scholar to suspect that beyond the farthest fron tiers there might lurk half-men or man apes who would be" living fossils" attesting to earlier stages of human evolution. The speech (or quasi-speech) of these men (or quasi-men) might then similarly attest to earlier stages in the evolution of language. The search was vain. Nowhere in the world has there been discovered a language that can validly and meaningfully be called" primitive." Edward Sapir wrote in 1921:" There is no more striking gen eral fact about language than its uni versality. One may argue as to whether a particular tribe engages in activities that are worthy of the name of religion or of art, but we know of no people that is not possessed of a fully developed language. The lowliest South African Bushman speaks in the forms of a rich symbolic system that is in essence per fectly comparable to the speech of the cultivated Frenchman." The other empirical hope in the 19th century rested on the comparative meth-