Social Basis of Primitive Life:

In the previous section, we gave you a glimpse of  how the primitive human beings faced the problems of day to day existence and found some solutions. As their material life became organised by  the invention of  tools, the discovery of  fire and some protection against natural elements, their social life also evolved. Language, customs and rituals emerged as the social basis of  primitive life. We will now briefly describe some features of  their social life. 

Language: Language must have originated as several individuals  in a group cooperated  in hunting and other activities  related to food gathering. There must have been highly specialised sounds specific to each group. As the groups started the process of exchanging surplus  food. certain standardisatidn  of spoken word became necessary to ensure better communication. The specialisation meant special terms for specific animals and plants available locally. The general conceptual terms, such as 'animal' for all types of  animals, and  'tree' for all  types of trees came much  later. We can easily surmise this by  studying the complicated grammar and words of  tribal languages spoken even to this day. This feature is also shared by Sanskrit, Greek and Finnish languages. The word  'colour', for example, originally meant 'red", the colour of  blood. It was only later that yellow, blue, green etc. also came to be called 'colours'. The transition  from specialised  to general language also meant a trend towards abstraction. This led to the use of symbols. Very soon man had  to let one word stand for many different things. We have already mentioned above,  the examples of  'animal', 'tree' and  'colour'. Similarly, verbal symbolisation also came to be used for feelings, emotions and  ideas.