Some scholars speculate that humans’ first words were onomatopoetic. You may remember from your English classes that onomatopoeia refers to words that sound like that to which they refer—words like boing, drip, gurgle, swoosh, and whack. Just think about how a prehistoric human could have communicated a lot using these words and hand gestures. He or she could use gurgle to alert others to the presence of water or swoosh and whack to recount what happened on a hunt. In any case, this primitive ability to communicate provided an evolutionary advantage. Those humans who could talk were able to cooperate, share information, make better tools, impress mates, or warn others of danger, which led them to have more offspring who were also more predisposed to communicate (Poe, 2011). This eventually led to the development of a “Talking Culture” during the “Talking Era.” During this 150,000 year period of human existence, ranging from 180,000 BCE to 3500 BCE, talking was the only medium of communication, aside from gestures, that humans had (Poe, 2011).
I think even today we often revert back to using hand gestures and different sounds to refer to certain things when conversing with others. To make the story come to life almost the listener can almost visualize the story you are telling. I think it is cool to read about how talking started originally for humans. It would be interesting to go back in time and try to communicate the way humans originally did. Going back before we had full conversations and understood the meaning of words and what they all truly meant.