How did early humans explain words to each other when they created the first languages?

Question

I am aware of the fact that humans did understand each other a little bit before the invention of language, but how did they explain complex words? Was the creation of languages like a buildup of words so they start with very simple words and gradually build up so that the rest of the tribe or country or whatever would understand the meaning of the new word easier? Or was it like one big language created at once and everyone just kind of figured out the meaning of the words over time?

In: Other

Answer 1

There was once a thing called “Watergate”, and there’ve been all kinds of “-gates” since then. Did anyone decide that “-gate” means “major political scandal” now? No. It even has nothing to do with the basic meaning of “gate” as in entrance structure. But — if a time traveler from 2030 shows up and tells you that “Bumblegate” is the #1 news topic of 2030, you’ll immediately know that it’s *likely* a political scandal that *maybe* involves… bumblebees? someone bumbling something? someone named Bumble? That would be anyone’s guess — but you could be quite sure of the “-gate” part even though there’s literally no reason this little word, which had already meant something else entirely, came to mean this very specific thing when added to another word.

Or think of “sequel” leading to “prequel”, “threequel”, and “sidequel”. Note how none of those words needs to be explained because there’s literally nothing to explain.

Think of this happening for many generations with every word or part of a word that you could re-use to say something quicker. Also note that most of the world’s languages are more “synthetic” than English. In other words, they rely more heavily on things like “happenING”, “RE-use”, “quickER”, “world’S”, or “EnglISH”. They’re real heavy-lifters, those building blocks of words; I could make up a word like, “the *undigupablest* document in this whole archive”, and without knowing how you know, you’ll know pretty clearly that “un-dig-up-abl(e)-est” means “least possible to dig up”. That’s generally how you avoid the need for explanations.