Language and schizophrenia: a common origin?

Today, the latest hypothesis, formulated by Timothy J. Crow, of the Department of Psychiatry of Oxford University, claims that language has a common origin with schizophrenia. This hypothesis deserves attention, even if it is presented by its author with inconclusive and easily debatable arguments, as rightly pointed out by Michael C. Corballis, who is, in turn, author of the gestural theory of the origin of language. Although the two hypothesis are contradictory, there is nevertheless, a relationship between them so close that we can assume a third integrative position. The advantage of an integrated theory would be considerable, because language, in its passage from gesture to the word, would be characterized as the main thrust of the human body towards the achievement of a coherant plan of humanity and it would ensure a better understanding of the schizophrenic pathology, regarded as a regression of the human being to a condition of lack of development, in which the word is meaningless. It may seem strange, but if the hypothesis of Crow would be confirmed by more sophisticated and refined empirical research, a better knowledge of the origin of schizophrenia would be more decisive for its identification and, as such, for its therapeutic treatment. In fact, if the schizophrenic pathology has a mental nature, its expression is indeed material and it is percieved by individuals as a linguistic disorder. Thus, working on the language of the schizophrenic patient, it could represent a significant step in the identification of a system of care for the schizophrenic pathology; and it could be developed in a series of indications, as the beginning of a system of treatment and certainly useful care, to try out in the development of specific protocols for the treatment of the syndrome. This could, in fact, ensure that the reconstruction of mental coherence, the same order that is lacking in a schizophrenic subject, and which expects to be rebuilt in order to give way to a new life project.