Let us listen to the voice of our first ancestors, far beyond written history, and explore what modern science reveals about it.
Imagine an ape. It is anxious. A branch snaps, or a fruit falls. It opens its mouth and lets out a natural, reflexive guttural sound from its throat: Axxaa… axxa… xxaa. Two fundamental elements exist within this sound: A (mouth fully open, requiring minimal effort) and X (the guttural, velar fricative scraping the back of the palate).
Now, imagine a Neanderthal (Homo neanderthalensis) 40,000 years ago. We are inside the Shanidar Cave, nestled in the foothills of the Zagros Mountains—today considered one of humanity’s greatest anthropological treasures. The Neanderthal places a hand against the stone wall, pointing to a handprint or a symbol carved into the rock. The exact same sound escapes their throat: Axxaa!
What did this sound mean at that very moment? “Look,” “here it is,” “I understand,” “watch out,” “I am speaking”… Perhaps, it was humanity’s very first exclamation of “I am reading.”
Anthropology and cognitive archaeology teach us a profound truth: Reading, long before it meant decoding an alphabet, was the act of extracting meaning from a sign in nature. When early humans looked at an animal’s footprint, the changing color of the sky, or a line on a cave wall, they were, in fact, reading the world.
The Evidence of Anatomy and Shanidar
This is not merely a romantic hypothesis; it is a fact supported by evolutionary anatomy and archaeological discoveries. In 1989, the discovery of a Neanderthal hyoid (tongue bone) fossil in the Kebara Cave (Israel), followed by advanced computer modeling, revealed a striking reality: Neanderthals had a higher larynx structure compared to modern humans.
This anatomical makeup made it difficult for them to produce high, front vowels like the modern “i” or “u”. However, their vocal tracts were perfectly designed to produce the vowel “A” (the mouth’s most relaxed state) combined with the harsh, guttural “X” (velar fricative) sound from the back of the throat. Thus, Axxaa was evolutionarily one of the very first reflex sounds the throat could produce.
The Shanidar Neanderthals, who possessed this exact vocal anatomy, did not merely grunt. They buried their dead with flowers, cared for their wounded for years, and developed a deeply symbolic inner world. These people, who “read” the world and each other so profoundly, spoke a language directly fueled by these anatomical reflexes.
A Comparison of Two Ancient Concepts of “Reading”
The linguistic world offers us two great traditions regarding the verbs for reading and speaking:
- Arabic (The Semitic Tradition): Iqra’ (اقرأ). Its root is q-r-’, meaning “to cry out, to call, to read.” It is the first command of the holy texts, deeply rooted and powerful. However, its phonetic architecture is distant from the primal throat reflex of early hominids; it lacks the rough, guttural “X” sound.
- Kurdish and Persian (The Indo-European Tradition): In Kurdish—the ancient language of the very geography where Shanidar Cave is located—we find Axaftin (to speak, to say) and Xwendin (to read). In Persian, we find Khândan (to read). These languages preserve the ancient laryngeal consonants of Proto-Indo-European. They directly maintain the primal, guttural reflex of early humans: the combination of A and X. In Kurdish, the root word Ax represents both the soil (the origin) and the most fundamental, visceral exclamation of awareness.
Updated Linguistic Comparison Table
| Language | “To Speak” | “To Read” | Contains Guttural “X” & “A”? | Phonetic & Linguistic Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kurdish | axaftin / axivîn | xwendin | Yes (Very Strong) | The “Ax” root is a velar fricative [x]. It directly preserves the primal vocal reflex. |
| Persian | soxan goftan | khândan (خواندن) | Yes (Strong) | The “Kh” character is phonetically the [x] sound (guttural ‘h’). |
| Arabic | takallama / nataqa | qara’a / iqra’ | Partially (Different character) | The “Q” [q] and “Ayn” [ʕ] are guttural but are plosive/pharyngeal, not the scraping “X”. |
| German | sprechen | lesen | No | Evolved through Germanic sound shifts, losing its primal guttural character. |
| Chinese | shuō (説) | dú (讀) | No | Completely tonal and detached from primal guttural friction. |
Conclusion: A Suggestion to the Planet
Let us listen beyond history, borders, and modern alphabets. The Neanderthal’s first cry of awareness on the walls of Shanidar Cave—that primal axxa—still lives today in the ancient languages of that very soil, in axaftin and khândan. These sounds are far older than letters, grammar, or holy books; they are the human anatomy’s first direct response to the universe.
Therefore, when we say “read” today, let us not only remember Iqra’, which decodes modern texts, but also that guttural Ax, humanity’s first cry of recognizing nature, death, and existence. Because the first act of human reading was looking at a cave wall and whispering from within: Axxaa.
Those who cannot hear that primal scrape at the root of speech and writing can never truly descend into the depths of what it means to read.
Scientific Bibliography
- Liebenberg, L. (2013). The Origin of Science: The Evolutionary Roots of Human Science and its Implications for Modern Science. CyberTracker. (A cognitive archaeology study showing that humanity’s first act of “reading” and science was tracking footprints in nature).
- Arensburg, B., Tillier, A. M., Vandermeersch, B., Duday, H., Schepartz, L. A., & Rak, Y. (1989). A Middle Palaeolithic human hyoid bone. Nature, 338(6218), 758-760. (The discovery of the Neanderthal hyoid bone in Kebara Cave and evidence of speech anatomy).
- Boë, L. J., Heim, J. L., Honda, K., & Maeda, S. (2002). The potential Neandertal vowel space was as large as that of modern humans. Journal of Phonetics, 30(3), 465-484. (Computer modeling demonstrating the Neanderthal vocal tract’s predisposition to the “A” vowel and velar/pharyngeal fricative [X] sounds).
- Solecki, R. S. (1975). Shanidar IV, a Neanderthal flower burial in northern Iraq. Science, 190(4217), 880-881. (Evidence of symbolic thought and flower burials in Shanidar Cave).
- Trinkaus, E. (1983). The Shanidar Neandertals. Academic Press. (Anthropological study of social cooperation, empathy, and healthcare based on the Shanidar 1 fossil).
- Beekes, R. S. (2011). Comparative Indo-European Linguistics: An introduction. John Benjamins Publishing. (The evolution of laryngeal consonants and guttural sound origins in Proto-Indo-European).
Thanks.
