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Throughout the many-centuries-long debates concerning origin and character of human language, one question that has surfaced again and again in different forms is of the following basic nature: "Is language an evolution of primitive grunts and groans, or is there something beyond cultural evolution hidden in language that does not readily reveal itself in ordinary linguistic practice?" This is the same question as the earlier one, presented in a slightly different manner. Both ask what the Greek masters asked: Does language have phusei character or nomos character? In other words, has language sprung out of the essential nature of things or is it born of social rules of communication? Immense debates have raged through the ages around this question and its variants, and continue to do so without any clear resolution. Select parts of the important debates in both the ancient East and the West have been invoked here not in order to come to any conclusion but to deepen the pedagogical situation.

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-11178-6_5

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