Conscious living beings who have harnessed the power of language occupy a unique place in the universe.
Walker Percy (1916-1990) notes the appearance of man in the cosmos in a somewhat poetic form:
In the beginning was Alpha and the end is Omega, but somewhere between occurred Delta, which was nothing less than the arrival of man himself and his breakthrough into the daylight of language and consciousness and knowing, of happiness and sadness, of being with and being alone, of being right and being wrong, of being himself and being not himself, and of being at home and being a stranger. [emphasis added]
—Walker Percy, The Message in the Bottle
Percy’s observations and reflections sprang from a lifelong interest in linguistics. As a trained physician turned writer and as a father of a deaf child, he pursued this intellectual fascination for over 20 years, writing multiple articles chronicling his insights gleaned from his years of research. His articles were collected and published in The Message in the Bottle (1975), but Percy’s fully developed philosophical approach was published posthumously in Symbol and Existence: A Study in Meaning (Mercer University Press, 2019). In it, he posits that human language is the foundation of our differences from other intelligent animals.
Percy strongly believed that the experience of 8-year old Helen Keller, who became deaf and blind at 19 months, revealed the link between language development and modern humans. In The Story of My Life, Helen describes a dramatic and life-changing experience that occurred one morning on a walk with her blind tutor, Anne Sullivan. They had come upon a well-house, and someone was drawing water from the pump. Miss Sullivan put one of Helen’s hands under the running water:
“As the cool stream gushed over one hand, she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motion of her fingers. Suddenly, I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten—a thrill of returning thought; and somehow, the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that "w-a-t-e-r" meant the wonderful, cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul. . . I left the well-house eager to learn. Everything had a name, and each name gave birth to a new thought. As we returned to the house, every object which I touched seemed to quiver with life. That was because I saw everything with the strange, new sight that had come to me.”
—Walker Percy, The Message in the Bottle, quoted p. 35. [Emphasis added]
This kind of breakthrough, Percy believes, must have occurred originally in the first Homo sapiens. But what changes occurred that allowed humans to develop this ability?
If we look at the fossil record, certain biological changes did occur that distinguished H. sapiens from the other hominids. This timing correlates nicely with some of Fr. Spitzer’s observations about the existence of our transphysical souls.
Anatomical Changes: How We Make Sounds
Dr. Philip Lieberman, professor of cognitive science and linguistics at Brown University, has studied the evolution of speech over five decades and, so, is well qualified to comment on the nature of speech.
Lieberman reveals interesting details from the fossil record.
The first time we see human skulls—fossils—that have everything in place is about 50,000 years ago, where the neck is long enough, the mouth is short enough, that they could have had a vocal tract like us."
—NPR Interview: From Grunting to Gabbing: Why Humans Can Talk
Once these changes took place, the anatomical foundation for speech was achieved. Speech, however, is only one aspect of language. How language is linked to “complex human thought” is one of the central questions in linguistics and continues to be debated in philosophical and linguistic circles. In other words, how did meaning become linked with sound?
“Making meaning with sound” is the definition of language proposed by Noam Chomsky, considered the father of linguistics. Chomsky believes the origin of language is not limited to the mechanisms involved in well-choreographed articulations. Language is not generated simply through positive reinforcement linking sounds to objects—the behaviorist model. He proposed that a “universal grammar” must be embedded genetically in neural networks associated with speech and language processing. The specific language that develops is environmentally driven (one speaks English or Swahili or Norwegian, depending on where one is raised, for example). Language acquisition then proceeds along a developmental trajectory in all humans. Only at this point does positive reinforcement come into play.
These considerations might seem obvious today, but 40 years ago, his idea of a genetic program required an intuitive assertion. Recent research has indeed affirmed the existence of multiple neural circuits associated with speech and language processing.
A Twist in the Plot: Language Itself Shapes the Human Mind
In a 2025 paper, Gang Cui, head of the Language, Psychology and Cognition Research Group, proposed that there is a complex and dynamic action of language on the emergence of the very systems and networks required for language processing. In other words, language shapes the human mind.
If language shapes the very structures involved in cognitive development in humans, where did it originally come from?
We saw the beginning of an answer to the origin of spoken language with the anatomical changes noted in H. sapiens that created a vocal tract. According to Cui and colleagues, other significant changes include those in the auditory system and the well-documented increase in H. sapiens brain size, especially in the cerebral cortex. These changes, linked to multiple genes, were accompanied by the emergence of mirror neurons.
Additionally, mirror neurons discovered in the pre-motor cortex (Rizzolatti et al., 1996) are vital for understanding actions, intentions, and emotions, facilitating language learning and social interaction.
Collectively, these changes facilitated “cognitive flexibility,” which enhanced human survival and expanded cognitive function.
Language as a System of Signs
Cui suggests that the symbolic nature of language links words (signifiers) to concepts (signifieds) through social conventions. But this symbolic system captures concepts (abstract ideas) transcending immediate sensory experiences. Language is a way of transferring information, but abstract ideas also allow for considerations like time, future possibilities, and imagined outcomes, which play roles in the higher cognitive functions of problem solving, planning, and reasoning. All of these abilities contribute significantly to the complex social interactions that are so much a part of human experience. These cognitive functions overlap nicely with Fr. Spitzer’s 12 capacities of the soul.
Back to Helen Keller
Helen’s experience may point to something not yet understood about human language, its development, and its relationship to human thought. The philosophical and biological debates will continue as scientists seek to unravel the mechanisms that brought about the amazing gift of human language. Whatever future discoveries might contribute to our understanding, as Carsten Knop, editor of the German newspaper FAZ, remarked:
The purpose of words is to live out relationship. To be endowed with language is not just about emitting grunts. We are able to confide in one another; we can establish connections and networks; we can enthuse each other, create shared knowledge and elevate ourselves in its light.
Indeed. Through language, we come to understand ourselves and interpret the world around us. In future posts, we will look at the relationship of language to imagination and our consciousness.
For further reading of Helen Keller’s exploration of a world hidden from sight and hearing, read her moving description of “listening” to the New York Orchestra’s performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. It is profound.
