From Ludwig Noiré’s tool conception of glottogenesis to Nikolai Marr’s paleontology of language: Controversies of the labor theory of the origins of language

The article discusses the problem of the connection between two conceptions of glottogenesis, one of which was created at the end of the 19th century by the German philosopher Ludwig Noire within the framework of his philosophy of language, and the other by the Soviet scientist Academician Nikolai Marr in the framework of his “new theory of language” based on the synthesis of Japhetidology and Marxism. Noire for the first time in the history of linguistics, even before the appearance of the works of Friedrich Engels, developed a holistic synthetic concept of the labor origin of the language, showing the role of labor tools not only in glottogenesis, but also in anthropogenesis. The author poses the problem of the conformity of Marr’s doctrine to Marxism and shows that it was more important for Marr to present his own teaching as Marxist than to really rely on the provisions of Marxism in posing and resolving the problems of the origin of language. In his works on the theory of the origin of the language, Marr puts forward an extraordinary hypothesis of the “zero stage” of language. He postulates the thesis of a linear (manual, or kinetic) language as a precursor to a sound (spoken) language. The author shows the conceptual similarities and differences between the paleontological conception of Marr and the paleoanthropological theory of Noire. Based on this analysis, the author establishes the relationship between the two conceptios. The starting point that unites these two theories is the principle of the labor origin of language, which is interpreted differently by the two scientists. In connection with the problem of the influence of Noire’s ideas on Marr’s conception, the author also discusses some aspects of the creation of the “new theory of language”, in particular, the role of the historian of Ancient Rome Sergey Kovalev as a systematizer of Marrism, who developed an algorithm for transforming Marr’s Japhetic theory into “Marxist linguistics”. The author also reveals the role of Alexander Bogdanov as a proponent of Noire’s conception and the role of Abram Deborin as the author of the philosophical version of the “new theory of language”. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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