Una fonte di Darwin: Hensleigh Wedgwood e l’origine naturale del linguaggio

Beginning with a passage from the linguistic chapter of "The Descent of Man", the paper will focus on the figure of Hensleigh Wedgwood, forgotten philologist and lexicographer which was highly estimated by Charles Darwin. In his work "On the Origin of Language" (1866) Wedgwood supported the hypothesis of an imitative origin of language through the mechanisms of onomatopoeia and interjection, assisted by analogical processes, according to a naturalistic paradigm which found in Darwin a careful reader. The analysis of his linguistic theory as exposed in "On the Origin of Language" will highlight the influence of Wedgwood on the genesis of Darwin’s ideas on language and the adjustments made by the naturalist to adapt a non-evolutionary theory to the theoretical system developed in "The Descent of Man".

Il contributo prende le mosse da un passo del capitolo linguistico di "The Descent of Man" al fine di approfondire la figura di Hensleigh Wedgwood (1803-1891), filologo e lessicografo oggi dimenticato ma a suo tempo tenuto in gran stima da Charles Darwin. Nell’opera "On the Origin of Language" (1866) Wedgwood sostenne l’ipotesi dell’origine imitativa del linguaggio attraverso i meccanismi dell’onomatopea e dell’interiezione, coadiuvati dall’utilizzo di processi analogici, secondo un paradigma di stampo naturalistico che avrebbe trovato in Darwin un attento lettore. L’analisi della teoria linguistica esposta nell’opera del 1866 metterà in luce l’influenza di Wedgwood nella genesi delle idee linguistiche darwiniane nonché le modifiche che il naturalista dovette apportare per adattare una teoria non evoluzionista all’impianto teorico di "The Descent of Man".