A quite different view of the beginnings of language is based on the concept of natural
sounds. The human auditory system is already functioning before birth (at around seven months).
That early processing capacity develops into an ability to identify sounds in the environment, allowing humans to make a connection between a sound and the thing producing that sound.
This leads to the idea that primitive words derive
from imitations of the natural sounds that early men and women heard around them.
Among several nicknames that he invented to talk about the origins of speech,
Jespersen (1922) called this idea the “bow-wow” theory.