protolanguage

[ proh-toh-lang-gwij ]

noun

, Linguistics.

1. the reconstructed or postulated parent form of a language or a group of related languages.

protolanguage

/ ˌprəʊtəʊˈlæŋɡwɪdʒ /

noun

1. an extinct and unrecorded language reconstructed by comparison of its recorded or living descendants Also calledUrsprache

Word History and Origins

Origin of protolanguage¹

First recorded in 1945–50; proto- + language

Example Sentences

Of that enormous group of languages, most belonged to the Pama-Nyungan family, with dozens of branches that descended from a protolanguage probably spoken 6,000 years ago in the northeastern part of the continent.

From Scientific American

Cox’s investigation sweeps from the putative protolanguage of human ancestor Homo heidelbergensis to the likelihood of creative algorithmic discourse.

From Nature

Christiansen and his colleagues considered whether it could be a result of evolution from some prehistoric protolanguage spoken by the earliest humans, but various statistical analyses ruled that possibility out.

From Washington Post

The researchers conclude that the successful spread of even the earliest known toolmaking technology, more than 2 million years ago, would have required the capacity for teaching, and probably also the beginnings of spoken language—what the researchers call protolanguage.

From Science Magazine

“The ability to rapidly share the skill to make Oldowan tools would have brought fitness benefits” to early humans, Morgan says, such as greater efficiency in butchering animals; and then Darwinian natural selection would have acted to gradually improve primitive language abilities, eventually leading from protolanguage to the full-blown, semantically complex languages we speak today.

From Science Magazine