Word.ws English Dictionary

glottogony

/ɡlɒˈtɒɡəni/

glottogony noun: the genesis of language, i. e. the emergence of a system of verbal communication from proto-linguistic or non-linguistic means of communication.

Noun

glottogony (uncountable)

  1. The genesis of language, i. e. the emergence of a system of verbal communication from proto-linguistic or non-linguistic means of communication.
  2. The study of language origins.
    • The origin of words is a question that now falls within the chapter of “glottogony”, resurrected after decades of inactivity. There are now quite a few glottogonic theories, some of which are also concerned with the origin of words as, for example, the one that argues that original words are...1995, Werner Winter, editor, On Languages and Language […] , Walter de Gruyter, →ISBN, page 19
    • The topic of glottogony has long been a taboo in linguistics, for the very good reason that it attracts boundless speculation: when Darwinism was freshly en vogue in the 1860s, linguistic debate was inundated with such proposals to the point where, in 1866, the Linguistic Society of Paris banned...2020, Philipp Roelli, editor, Handbook of Stemmatology […] , Walter de Gruyter, →ISBN

Origin of glottogony

From glotto- + -gony.

Words formed from glottogony

Questions about glottogony

What does glottogony mean?
Glottogony means the genesis of language, i. e. the emergence of a system of verbal communication from proto-linguistic or non-linguistic means of communication.
What part of speech is glottogony?
Glottogony is a noun.
How do you pronounce glottogony?
Glottogony is pronounced /ɡlɒˈtɒɡəni/.

Words near glottogony in the dictionary

  1. glottogenesis
  2. glottogenetic
  3. glottogonic
  4. glottogonist
  5. glottogonists
  6. glottogony
  7. glottogram
  8. glottograms
  9. glottograph
  10. glottographic
  11. glottographies

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: glottogony (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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