Gesture, not speech, may have been humanity’s first language

Evidence

It seemed to me that we were perfecting this sign language, adding shades of aIl the possible meanings that chanced along. So until my departure we shared scraps of the language of gesture that Jean:Jacques Rousseau claimed preceded aIl spoken language. — Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation, 632

Categorization

• QUESTION: Rousseau’s claim that gesture preceded spoken language is cited — worth chasing the actual passage in Essai sur l’origine des langues.
• XREF: Non-verbal communication pre-dating speech resonates with gesture / mimesis material read on Deep Listening and the Frankfurt mimetic impulse. — connects to: Hebrew was long treated as the first language of mankind; A sixteenth-century Christian Hebraist argued that Phrygian was the first human language — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 925

Broader Connections

• A sixteenth-century Christian Hebraist argued that Phrygian was the first human language #contradicts (0.90) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 925
• Hebrew was long treated as the first language of mankind #contradicts (0.85)