This book argues that ideophones provide the 'missing link' in our knowledge of how communication has evolved to become the spoken language of today.

Ideophones have been recognized in modern linguistics at least since 1935, but they still lie far outside the concerns of mainstream (Western) linguistic debate

This is a unique view of the origins of language, describing what linguistic science would look like if sign language rather than speech was used as the basis f

Developments in cognitive science indicate that human and nonhuman primates share a range of behavioral and physiological characteristics that speak to the issu

The present volume represents a selection of papers presented at the International Symposium on Ideophones held in January 1999 in St. Augustin, Germany. They c