The Rudolf Steiner Archive

1. On the Origin of Language and Languages

[ 1 ] Good morning, gentlemen! Today we’d like to take this time to add a few more points to what we’ve heard. That will help us understand many aspects of the dignity of the human person.

[ 2 ] You see, I’ve explained in general terms how nutrition works and how human respiration works. We have also seen that nutrition is more closely connected to human life; that nutrition consists of our taking in nutrients that are actually in an inanimate state in our intestines; that these nutrients are then brought to life by the lymphatic vessels; and that they are then transferred into the blood in a living state. Then, as we know, this living nourishment comes into contact with the oxygen in the air once it is in the blood. The air is inhaled by the human being. The blood is transformed. This is the process that takes place in the chest. And at the same time, this is what gives us our sense of feeling.

[ 3 ] So, life is actually brought about between the intestinal processes and the blood processes. Within the blood processes, in turn—between the blood processes and the air—that which constitutes our mind is brought about. Now we must also turn our attention to the intellect and try to understand how the intellect came into being in human beings.

[ 4 ] You see, it’s only been possible to recognize this externally for, one might say, about sixty years. We could actually have celebrated the sixtieth anniversary last year, in 1921. It wasn’t celebrated, though, because people these days have little interest in organizing purely scientific anniversary celebrations. The discovery, which was made in 1861 and could have been celebrated as a sixty-year anniversary—that is, it’s only been fifty or sixty years since we’ve been able to talk about the subject I want to discuss today—is an important scientific discovery. I remember this discovery simply because it is exactly as old as I am. This discovery consists of the following:

[ 5 ] I told you the other day how one can observe this in human beings: There is no need to experiment; one need only pay attention to what nature itself experiments on human beings when a person falls ill in any way. If one then knows how to examine what has happened in the physical human being when a person has fallen ill in any way, then such an experiment, such a test, has been conducted for us by nature itself, and we can gain insight from this test.

[ 6 ] Back then, in 1861, Broca discovered that in people with speech disorders, when their brains were dissected after death, there was some damage to the third frontal gyrus on the left side.

[ 7 ] Isn’t it true that when we look at the brain—that is, when we lift, as it were, the bony skull, the bony shell—we get to see the brain? This brain has convolutions: there’s one convolution, then a second, and there’s a third (it is drawn). Because this fold is located here at the temple, it is called the temporal fold. Now, whenever a person has either specific speech disorders or is completely unable to speak, something is damaged in this left frontal fold.

[ 8 ] This can happen when a person suffers what is known as a stroke. A stroke occurs when blood—which is normally supposed to flow only through the veins—forces its way through the veins and then flows out into the surrounding tissue, where blood is not supposed to be. Such a hemorrhage then causes the stroke and the paralysis. So when blood flows abnormally into the person, into this temporal gyrus, it ultimately results—once this temporal gyrus is completely compromised—in the person being unable to speak.

[ 9 ] You see, this is a very interesting connection. We can say: A person speaks because they have a healthy left temporal gyrus in their physical body. And now we need to understand what that actually means: a person has a healthy left temporal gyrus. But to understand that, we need to consider something else.

[ 10 ] When young children die, and we examine this same area of the brain—that is, the left temporal gyrus—we find that this strip of brain tissue is a fairly uniform pulp; particularly before the child has learned to speak, it is a fairly uniform pulp. As the child begins to learn to speak, this left frontal gyrus develops more and more small folds. It takes on an increasingly artificial form. So one can say: If, in a very young child, this left frontal gyrus looked something like this (it is drawn), then in a child who has learned to speak—and in an adult—it will look like this: very artificially formed.

[ 11 ] So something has happened to the brain; while the child was just learning to speak, something happened. And no one should really think about such a thing any differently than one normally does in everyday life. You see, if I move the table from there to here, no one would say, “The table moved itself over here.” — Nor should I say, “The brain formed these convolutions”—but rather, I must consider what actually happened there, what the cause is. So I must consider where this formation of the left temporal convolution specifically comes from.

[ 12 ] Well, you see, when a child learns to speak, it moves its body. It moves its body through the speech organs. Before that, when the child cannot yet speak—when it is merely a fidgety little creature—it does nothing more than cry and so on. As long as it merely cries, the left frontal gyrus is still a kind of mush, just as I first depicted it. The more it learns not just to cry, but to let the crying give way to sounds, the more this frontal gyrus develops. So one can say: When the child merely cries, it has a kind of brain mush in that area. Now it begins to do more than just cry; it starts to make sounds. Then this general mush gradually transforms into a beautifully developed left side of the brain.

[ 13 ] Well, gentlemen, the situation is this: As you know, when a child cries, the sounds it makes are usually what are called vowels: A, E. So when the child is simply crying, it doesn’t need a structured left frontal lobe; rather, it always produces what it’s crying out from within itself, without having anything artificial like that in the brain. If you pay a little attention, you’ll see that what the child cries out at first is very similar to the A sounds. Later, the child begins to add “U” and “I” sounds to its cries. And gradually, as you know, the child also learns consonants. The child first cries “A”; then it learns to add “M”: “MA” or “WA.” So the child gradually forms words out of its crying by adding consonants to the vowels.

[ 14 ] And how are these consonants formed? Just pay attention to how you produce an “M.” You have to move your lips. As a child, you have to learn this through imitation. When you produce an “L,” you have to move your tongue. And so you have to move something. You must therefore progress from the mere fidgeting that a child does to regular movements—movements that the speech organs perform through imitation. And the more the child adds such consonants—L, M, N, R, and so on—to the vowels that are merely present in crying, the more this left frontal gyrus becomes structured, the more this left frontal gyrus is artificially developed; so that with the same intensity with which the child learns the consonants, this left frontal gyrus develops.

[ 15 ] Well, now we can ask: How does a child first learn to speak? — A child really learns to speak only through imitation. It learns to speak—to move its lips—by imitating, based on its feelings, the way other people move their lips. Everything is imitation. That is to say, the child notices, sees, and perceives what is happening in its surroundings. And through this perception—that is, through this mental work of perception—the brain is shaped. Just as a sculptor shapes his wood, marble, or bronze, so too is the brain sculpted through the child’s movements. The organs that the child moves transmit their movement all the way into the brain. So when I say “L” with my tongue, the tongue is connected to the brain via a nerve and via other organs. This “L” extends into the left frontal gyrus of my brain and produces certain patterns there. So the “L” produces a figure where one part connects to the next, where this left frontal gyrus forms almost like an intestine. The “M” produces such spherical gyri. So you see, there is activity in this left temporal gyrus. This is where the activity takes place that moves the child—that the child experiences through perception. It is very interesting that, now that we know a stroke—a cerebral stroke—ruins the left frontal gyrus and thereby impairs speech, we can understand that the child is actually constantly working on this left frontal gyrus as it learns consonants. And this stems from the fact that the eye and all sorts of other organs perceive that something is happening in the outside world. What, then, is happening in the outside world?

[ 16 ] Well, you see, when we speak, we’re always breathing while we speak. We breathe continuously. And when we breathe, what is formed by the breath—this “breath surge,” as I’ve called it—first enters the human body, then travels upward through the spinal canal (this is illustrated), and enters the brain. So while the child is crying—not yet able to pronounce consonants, but crying and breathing—during that time this breath, this “breath surge,” is constantly moving upward; it moves upward and enters every part of the brain.

[ 17 ] Let’s ask ourselves: What actually enters the brain? Well, blood enters the brain. It goes everywhere, just as I’ve explained to you over the past few days. So, through breathing, blood is actually constantly being pushed into the brain. But the fact that breathing propels blood everywhere—yes, you see, this is already happening right after a child is born—and even earlier, though it works differently then. So when a child is born, it begins to breathe. There’s actually always this rush of air going up, which propels the blood into the brain.

[ 18 ] And in this way we can say: As long as blood is merely pumped into the brain through breathing, the child can do nothing but cry. It begins to speak not merely when blood is pumped into the brain, but when—let’s say—the child notices something through the eye or some other organ, specifically the ear, when it perceives something. So when the child notices a movement in another person, it imitates that movement; then not only does the blood flow go up there, but—let’s say, for example—another current flows continuously in from the ear (it is drawn). You see, that is the other current. And this other current is the nerve current.

[ 19 ] Thus, in the left temporal gyrus—the so-called language gyrus—blood vessels and nerve tracts intersect, just as they do everywhere else in the human body. What one notices and perceives acts upon these nerve tracts. The movements the child makes when producing consonants are thus transmitted through the nerves into its left language gyrus. And there, this gyrus develops quite well, as the respiratory impulse always interacts with the blood and with what comes specifically from the ear or the eye, and what gradually, between the blood and the nerves, beautifully structures the entire pulpy brain matter. So you can see that our brain is actually only developed—at least in this part, and it is exactly the same in other parts—through the interaction of one activity, namely perception, with another activity, namely this surge that drives the blood into the brain.

[ 20 ] But now you must also understand the following. The child learns to speak in this way; that is, it develops the left frontal gyrus. But, gentlemen, if you sit next to a corpse and dissect it, and observe the right frontal gyrus—which lies symmetrically there—you’ll see that it is relatively underdeveloped. So there we have the left frontal gyrus; it has developed so beautifully, just as I told you. The right one, on the other hand, usually remains throughout one’s entire life just as it was in childhood—that is, it remains undifferentiated. I would say: If we had only the right frontal gyrus, we would be able to do nothing but scream, and it is only by artificially developing the left frontal gyrus in this way that we are able to speak.

[ 21 ] But, you see, if a person is left-handed—that is, if he is in the habit of performing his tasks not with his right hand but with his left—then a curious thing happens: if he suffers a stroke on the left side, he does not, for example, lose the ability to speak. And when he is then dissected, it is found that in him—the left-hander—the right frontal gyrus is structured in the same way that the left frontal gyrus is structured in ordinary, normal people.

[ 22 ] So arm and hand movements play an extraordinarily significant role in this development of the brain. Where does this come from? Well, you see, it comes from this: When someone gets used to doing a lot with their right hand, they don’t just do what they do with their right hand—they also get used to breathing a little more strongly on the right side, that is, using more breathing power. They get used to hearing more clearly on the right side, and so on. This simply shows us that when a person gets used to using their right hand, they generally tend to engage in more activity on the right side than on the left. However, it is precisely the left frontal gyrus that develops when a person is right-handed, and the right frontal gyrus when they are left-handed. Why is that?

[ 23 ] Yes, gentlemen, look: Here (he draws) you have the right arm and right hand of a body; here you have the head; and here you have the left temporal lobe. Now let’s examine how the nerves run. The nerves run like this; you have nerves everywhere inside here. If you didn’t have these nerves, you wouldn’t be able to feel warmth or cold here, for example. It’s all connected to the nerves. You have nerves everywhere here; they run up through the spinal cord and enter the brain. But the curious thing is that the nerves in the right hand go here into the left side of the brain, and the nerves in the other hand go into the right side of the brain. Inside there, the nerves actually cross over. The nerves cross over in the brain, so that when I, for example, do some kind of gymnastics exercise or a eurythmy exercise with my right hand or right arm, I feel it because the nerve transmits that sensation; but I feel it with the left hemisphere of my brain because the nerves cross over.

[ 24 ] Now imagine that a child prefers to do everything with his right hand. Then he also breathes a little more deeply on the right side, hears a little more clearly, and even sees a little more sharply on the right side. The person then exerts more effort on the right side and processes the movements they perform into the left hemisphere of the brain.

[ 25 ] Now you just need to imagine that we all tend to have this little habit of making gestures while speaking: Ah! (corresponding gesture); and when we reject something: E! We make gestures while speaking. These gestures are perceived by our nerves; and the gestures of the right hand that we make while speaking are perceived by the left hemisphere of the brain. And likewise, if we are right-handed, we tend to pronounce vowels and consonants more strongly with the right side of the larynx—to articulate the sounds more strongly; then what we’re doing there is also perceived more strongly by the left hemisphere of the brain. And this is why the brain, which is originally a pulpy mass, becomes more developed. We leave the left hemisphere largely unused; therefore, the right hemisphere of the brain becomes less developed and remains pulpy. But if someone is left-handed, the opposite happens.

[ 26 ] This leads to all sorts of important implications for education. Just think: with left-handed children—and there are, after all, a few left-handed children in school—one must realize that while the left temporal lobe in the brain is developed in a very artificial way in all other children, in these left-handed children the right temporal lobe is in the process of full development. And when I teach the children to write, I use the right hand. Right-handed children will only reinforce in their left frontal lobe what they have already begun to develop while learning to speak. But those children who are left-handed—if I now force them to write with their right hand—will ruin what they have developed in the right temporal gyrus through language. They will ruin that again, and I therefore have the task—since writing should not be such that left-handers are allowed to write with their left hand— my first task is to slowly and gradually transfer what these left-handed children do with their left hand over to their right hand, so that they first learn to work with their other hand in this way, and only then—much more slowly than the other children—begin to learn to write. It doesn’t matter if they learn to write a little later.

[ 27 ] If I simply teach left-handed children to write as quickly as right-handed children, I’m making them less intelligent, because I’m ruining what they’ve developed in the right hemisphere of their brain. So I have to make sure that I teach left-handed children to write differently than right-handed children. This won’t make them any less intelligent for later life—in fact, it will make them smarter—if I gradually guide their left-handedness into right-handedness, rather than simply confusing their entire brain by making them write with their right hand.

[ 28 ] Well, you see, if one tries to address the whole person through writing at all, then from an educational standpoint one actually achieves the exact opposite of what one intends. There is now a strong tendency to teach people everything with both hands, to let them do everything with both hands. That just confuses everything in their minds. And it only shows how little people know when they have such a tendency to make people do the same thing with both hands. One could certainly strive for that; but first, one must do something else. And what would one have to do? Well, gentlemen, one would first have to transform the whole person! One would have to slowly shift one activity from the left side to the right side and gradually weaken the activity on the right side. What would happen then? Well, you see, what would happen is this: beneath the surface of the left temporal gyrus (it is drawn), the left temporal gyrus would be more artificially developed, and on the outside, the outer surface, it would remain a mushy mass. And the same thing would then occur in the right temporal gyrus. Instead of distributing the two activities between the left and right sides, I divide each temporal gyrus into two halves—an outer and an inner half. And the inner half is then more suited to speech, while the outer half is more simply for shouting out the vowels and consonants. But all speech is, after all, a combination of shouting and articulation. It remains that way throughout one’s entire life.

[ 29 ] So you see, one must not simply tinker with people; rather, if one wants to practice pedagogy—even just elementary school pedagogy—one must understand the whole person. For everything one does actually changes the person. And that is what is truly sinful—that today people merely tinker with outward appearances and fail to consider how things really stand when one truly delves into the human being.

[ 30 ] Well, in very few people are both frontal gyri functional; rather, the right frontal gyrus is more permeated by blood flow, while the left has less blood flow and is more permeated by nerves. And this is true of our entire brain: the right side is more for the outflow of blood—that is, for blood to flow out—while the left half is more for noticing and perceiving.

[ 31 ] Once we come to realize that the brain develops under the influence of external factors, only then will we begin to grasp just how powerful these external influences are. These external influences are, of course, immensely powerful when we realize that they are responsible for everything that actually takes place in the brain. So, by learning what actually happens in the brain when a person speaks, we can now form an idea of what the human brain is really like. You see, when we examine the brain further, it turns out that there are actually more blood vessels on the outer surface—where the brain’s outer wall is located—than there are inside. So we can say: The outer surface of the brain is richer in blood, while the interior is richer in nerves. Inside, it is rich in nerves; there are such nerve tracts within it.

[ 32 ] So how, then, in the case of, say, a child who learns to speak in the usual way—that is, a right-handed child—how exactly does the brain develop in such a child? Well, you see, if you take a very young brain from a child, it is surrounded by a blood-rich—I would say—mantle (it is drawn). This is viewed from the front. This is supposed to be on the right from the person’s perspective—that is, from your perspective it is on the left—this is supposed to be on the left from the person’s perspective. All these nerve tracts form there. Because that is the case, gentlemen—because there are nerve tracts inside—you see, when you remove them, the inner brain matter looks whitish, while the more blood-rich brain matter surrounding it, when removed, looks reddish-gray. It looks reddish-gray,

[ 33 ] Now, if the child continues to develop in such a way that it learns to speak—that is, as its left temporal gyrus becomes structured—what happens then? Well, you see, what happens is that these nerve tracts extend further into that area; the blood supply develops more here and less there (it is illustrated). So, in a sense, the inner part of the brain in a normally developing child shifts more to the left; the other part shifts along with it. The brain shifts over to the left side in this way, and it becomes whiter and whiter toward the left side. It shifts over in this way. The entire process of human development is based on such subtle mechanisms.

[ 34 ] Well, let’s continue with the topic of language. You see, there are languages that, let’s say, have a great many consonants, and there are languages that have a great many vowels: A, E, I, and so on. There are other languages that pronounce everything so strongly—S, W—that you hardly notice the vowels at all. So, what’s actually going on here?

[ 35 ] If someone lives in a region—since this depends on the region, as languages do vary according to the different regions of the Earth—where consonants are more pronounced, what does that mean? It means that they live more in the external world, because consonants must be formed in relation to the external world. So if someone lives more in the external world, the white matter of their brain shifts more toward the left. If someone lives more within their own inner world—developing in a region where people live more within their own inner world—then this white matter shifts less toward the left. The person is more inclined to produce melodious vowels from within. But this varies depending on the region of the world.

[ 36 ] So let’s take the following example, gentlemen. Imagine there is the Earth (it is drawn), and people are standing at various points on the Earth. I’ll draw it very schematically: a person here and a person there. So there are various people standing on Earth. That’s how we always stand on Earth—even though this is, of course, drawn far too disproportionately—but that’s how we stand on Earth. And the person here, let’s say, is given a language with vowels as the main sound, while the other is given a language with consonants as the main sound.

[ 37 ] What must have happened in that region? Well, a great many things could have happened—all sorts of things—but I want to highlight one possibility. Just imagine: here are high mountains (a drawing is made), and here is the plain. So, high mountains here, the plain there. Well, in fact, wherever there are flat plains, you notice that the language there becomes richer in vowels. Wherever there are towering mountains, the language tends to become richer in consonants.

[ 38 ] But you see, the story isn’t quite that simple; rather, we must ask ourselves: Yes, how are the mountains formed, and how are the plains formed? It’s like this (a drawing is made): Here, there is soil everywhere; here, the sun shines. Our entire Earth was once a kind of paste. The mountains must first have been pulled out of that paste-like mass. So the Earth is basically a paste, and the mountains are pulled out of it.

[ 39 ] Gentlemen, what is it that forms the mountains? The mountains are formed by forces from the universe that act upon us from outside! So we can say: Certain forces from the universe act upon us, causing the mountains to form. These forces are strong, which is why mountains are formed. Here, weaker forces are coming in from the universe, so no mountains form. In ancient times, the earth’s surface was pulled out less in these areas. And those people who are now born on such soil, where these forces are less active, speak using vowels, while those born on soil where these forces are more active speak using consonants. So this is connected to all the forces of the universe.

[ 40 ] And how can we possibly say something like that? Well, gentlemen, whatever we say, we have to adjust it to how we look at the clock. We have to get to work or we have to leave. But we’ll never say for a moment: “Now it’s too much!” That damned big hand—it’s a dreadful thing, whipping me into work right now! — That wouldn’t even occur to us. The hand tells us when we should go to work, but we wouldn’t attribute the slightest blame or cause to it. Wouldn’t we agree? We certainly wouldn’t do that. So it’s completely innocent in this matter.

[ 41 ] Similarly, gentlemen, we can look toward the sun here and say: When we stand here, at a certain moment the sun is, let’s say, for example, in front of the constellation of Aries. That gives us the direction from which the powerful forces are acting. It is not Aries itself, but it indicates the direction from which the strong forces are acting. At the same time, a person is standing here. For that person, the first thing to consider is this: When the Sun has moved over here (it is drawn), it stands here—for my sake, in Virgo, in the constellation of Virgo. The weak forces come from that direction. Instead of describing the entire process now, I can therefore say: If someone is born in a region where, at a certain time—let’s say at the time of their birth—the Sun is in the constellation of Aries, then they learn to speak in a more consonantal manner; if they are born at a time when the Sun is in the constellation of Virgo, then they learn to speak in a more vocalic, vowel-oriented manner.

[ 42 ] So you see, I can use the entire zodiac like a clock from which I can read what is happening on Earth. I just have to always keep in mind that it is not the constellations that do this, but rather that the constellations are there to be read. From this you can see that the zodiac can already tell us a great deal. It can tell us enough for us to understand how languages on Earth differ.

[ 43 ] So we can certainly say: Let’s look at the Earth. Let’s imagine the Earth is there, and let’s place a chair there—it’s not actually possible, but hypothetically we can assume it—a chair out into the cosmos, and look at a kind of language map showing the various languages on Earth. Then we get a picture. And now let’s turn the chair around; now let’s look out into the cosmos from there. There we get a picture of the stars, and they correspond to one another. If someone were to look at the southern half of the Earth and examine the languages there, and then turn the chair around and look at the southern starry sky, it would be quite different from if someone were to do the same with regard to the northern half. So that one could map out the starry sky, and anyone who has studied this connection could identify, based on a specific constellation, what language is commonly spoken under that constellation.

[ 44 ] So you see that precisely when we begin to observe the spiritual life of human beings—that is, where their intellect develops through language—we must look up at the starry sky if we want to understand anything. Here on Earth, we cannot find any connection. No matter how much you ponder why languages are different, you will not find an explanation.

[ 45 ] You see, if you want to know what’s going on in your stomach, you have to ask the soil—what lies down there. If cabbage is the main crop grown in a region, you can say to yourself: In this region, the cabbage plants that have died must constantly be brought back to life. — So if you want to know how people in a region are nourished, you must ask the soil. If you want to know how people in a region breathe, you must ask what is happening all around in the atmosphere. And if you want to know what’s going on inside that box—the skull—you must ask how the stars are aligned out there. And so you must be able to integrate human beings into the entire universe. And then you will see that it is indeed a superstition when, based on remnants of what people once knew, one simply says: “When the sun is in Aries, this and that happens.” — That’s nothing at all. But when you understand the whole context, then the matter ceases to be mere superstition; then it becomes science.

[ 46 ] And that is what gradually leads us from an understanding of the mere transformation of matter to an understanding of what is happening and what is connected to the entire universe out there.