... than about 4,000 or 5,000 years. Attempts to derive human speech from imitations of the cries of animals and birds or from mere ejaculations of joy and grief, as if onomatopoeia were the essence of language, were ridiculed for their inadequacy by the Oxford philologist F. Max Muller in the 19th century and have been dubbed the bowwow and pooh-pooh theories ... ...

• Word Count: 8535
• Approx Pages: 34
• Grade Level: Undergraduate