Wittgenstein and the Animal Origins of Linguistic Communication

Abstract Wittgenstein's notorious sample of a ‘complete primitive language’ ( viz . the builders’ game of the Philosophical Investigations ) is often thought to be closer in kind to animal forms of communication than human language. Indeed, it has been criticised on precisely these grounds. But such debates make little sense if we take seriously Wittgenstein's idea that language is a family resemblance concept. So, rather than argue that the builders’ game ‘really is a language’ (or not), I propose to turn the debate on its head and welcome the comparison. By changing our perspective in this way, I suggest that we can see that the learning of language is crucially dependent on forms of communication that are animal in nature. I then discuss how these lessons might shed light on empirical research into both the ontogenetic and phylogenetic origins of linguistic communication.