The Origin of Language as an Anthropological Topic: The 1769/1771 Prize Question of the Berlin Academy

The paper focuses on the prize-question of 1769-71 of the Berlin Academy, which was devoted to the origin of language. The first part aims to take stock of the prevailing convictions on this topic by considering the different theses and approaches of some of the competing essays, whose authorship cannot always be reconstructed with certainty. The second part dwells on the recurring topics of the essays analyzed—among others, language in animals, the existence of an original language and, above all, the relationship between words and thought. The goal is to highlight that and how in those years, despite the diversity of standpoints, the theme of language and reflection on its origin, was becoming one of the central issues in a discipline such as anthropology, which was increasingly claiming its own philosophical status. This trend in anthropology is confirmed in the last part of the paper through a comparison with some essays concerning the origin of language that in the same period were being published outside the context of the Berlin Academy.