ऋऌक्
Why Early Language Was Mutation-Proof
Long before dictionaries, teachers, or writing, language had only one possible way to work: the sound itself had to carry the meaning directly into the listener’s brain. This direct, intutive link between a sound (वर्ण) and its meaning is the neurosonic footprint. This is why we see a high degree of correlation between sound and meaning in a variety of languages[^1].
Imagine two dogs settling a fight.
- Dog A growls low and long → superiority.
- Dog B answers with a high, broken whine → surrender.
No dog ever explained this growl means I am boss. Every dog’s brain instantly recognises the meaning because the acoustic shape triggers the exact neural response evolution built for that situation. These two barks are वर्ण in dog language.
Now suppose one puppy’s superiority growl mutates and sounds like a playful yip. Other dogs do not understand. The mutated signal fails to trigger the correct circuits, leading to confusion, attack, or ignoring. The mutation dies with that puppy. The original sound-meaning pair survives unchanged because it is anchored in the shared wiring of the dog brain.
Early Hominini language worked the same way.
In the era of Homo erectus, and earlier, there was no possibility of teaching arbitrary word meanings. The only sounds that could become वर्ण - uniquely identifiable sound with built-in meaning - were those whose physical shape (frequency, rhythm, articulation, formants) directly activated the right neural circuits in every listener’s brain.
Because meaning was wired into the brain itself, mutation was almost impossible:
- A वर्ण whose sound no longer matched the neural target simply failed to communicate.
- Listeners did not learn the “wrong” meaning; they just did not understand — like the dogs with the mutated growl.
- The incorrect variant died out in one generation.
- Only वर्ण that fitted the shared brain circuitry survived and spread.
This is why proto-language needed no teaching of meanings: the वर्ण already carried their meaning inside every skull. Teaching became necessary millions of years later, when संज्ञा revolution invented many words that needed means beyond direct neurosonic grounding.
In short: the first language sounds were mutation-proof because they were biological, not cultural. The brain itself was the dictionary, and any misspelling was fatal to the word. This is the true origin of language stability across deep time.
The वर्ण and their meanings are like fossils - unchanged over millions of years. Also, this is why they are considered [स्वयंभु वा स्वयं प्रोक्ता - पाणिनीयशिक्षा-3] (https://ashtadhyayi.com/shiksha). Because वर्ण and their meanings are hard wired in brains, they are considered अ-पौरुषेय - not created by any human.
The superiority growl has survived as ऋ and the submission growl has survived as ऌ. Although these two वर्ण had evolved way before mammals, they were very much part of the vocabulary of Homo erectus and were included in शिव सूत्र when the same was compiled.
This fits perfectly with two key technical properties of ऋ and ऌ.
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ऋ and ऌ. are स्वर and are distinctly different from वर्ण thet are produced by mouth parts touching each other -[स्पर्शानाम् पाणिनीयशिक्षा - ४ ] (https://ashtadhyayi.com/shiksha). We Homo Sapiens can’t pronounce ऋ and ऌ without tongue touching other parts of the mouth. But this was possible for Homo erectus (or some other species that compiled शॉव सूत्र.) We can understand original sounds if we hold the tongue with two fingers and try to pronounce ऋ and ऌ.
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Because ऌ has a tendency to quiver when elongated and does not remain a continuous sound, it has ह्रस्व and प्लुत forms but does not have दीर्घ form. In a दीर्घ (2 मात्रा) duration, pronunciation stops at the pause, causing quivering, and ऌ becomes ह्रस्व.
Besides this ऋ and ऌ aspect, there are many other linguistic indicators suggesting that the concept of शिव has deep roots, indicating to Homo erectus (or at least bipedalism) as the species that compiled शिव सूत्र. This makes the time frame for शिव सूत्र compilation somewhere between 1 lakh year ago to 20/30 lakh years ago.
[^1] : The bauba/kiki effect and Taket-Maluma Effects.
An Experimental Contribution to the Problem of the Psychological Foundations of Naming
by Dimitri Uznadze (https://pure.mpg.de/rest/items/item_2403335/component/file_2403334/content)
Gestalt Psychology by Wolfgang Köhler (https://ia601400.us.archive.org/19/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.198114/2015.198114.The-Task-Of-Gestalt-Psychology.pdf)
Synaesthesia: A window into perception, thought and language. by Ramachandran & Hubbard
(https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318494178_Synaesthesia---AWindow_Into_Perception_Thought_and_Language)
The bouba/kiki effect. (https://keio.elsevierpure.com/en/publications/the-boubakiki-effect-is-robust-across-cultures-and-writing-system)