Rousseau and Language

Rousseau brings up in Part One of this section of reading the idea of, "...how many ideas we owe to the use of speech..."(48). This brought a very startling thought to my head about how much he is accurate. Without the creation of speech and language this world would not be where it is today. Rousseau describes how the first language must have taken years to have been developed. He goes into describing how it would be very different from what todays speech is. The first language would have been developed with gestures as the main part of the language and small words with much wider meanings to them. He says it would have began with I found it very interesting to think of how this language would have been developed between people and how has it come to become so quick and easy to communicate with one another through technologies like the internet and cellphones. Then once he moves on to the more major issues of the text he first asks the readers a very interesting question that to me would have multiple different answers depending on your personal belief of origins. Rousseau asks, “...which was the more necessary: an already formed society for the invention of languages, or an already invented language for the establishment of society?” (51). This to me is a very interesting question that asks which cam first language or society? Besides the other issues that Rousseau brings up and discusses regarding the state of nature and civilization in this section of reading, this was a very interesting topic of nature becoming a society in the sense of language.