The development of speech and expression

Abstract

Speech and language as a means of communication are marvellous qualities. Speech is used between man and man or on occasions, it is used in, what can be termed as, a collectivised speech. Speech is part and parcel of everyday life and we tend to take it forgranted. However, we can safely assume that in primitive man, speech and vocabulary was limited and rather crude. In the long history of man's development, his progress, though siow, has been remarkable; from a crude ape to an intelligent being in a million years or less, from hunter to agriculturist, from stone to metal user, to citizen in about twenty thousand years or so. That the primitive man who appeared some half-a-million years ago should have had within him the potentialities of civilization with all its achievements in various fields and cultures is an amazing thing.