The present contribution aims at offering an exposition and a critical evaluation of the philosophical-anthropological theory of the origin of language developed by the American philosopher Susanne K. Langer (1895-1985). Langer’s theory traces human language and, in particular, its denotative and communicative functions, back to the expressive vocal utterances of the pre-human beings from which humanity would have derived. In her inquiry, Langer refers in particular to the article “The festal origin of the human speech” (1891-92), written by the psychologist J. Donovan. In his study, Donovan outlines a possible scenario of the birth of language out from pre-linguistic utterances: the spontaneous gatherings that hominids would have dedicated to emotionally relevant events and objects (the death of a conspecific, a killed predator or enemy). Langer refers to Donovan’s study (which she considers as a sort of fecund thought experiment) in order to highlight some basic anthropological, evolutionary, and semiotic requisites that a plausible theory on the origin of language has to fulfil. Langer’s own proposal for such a theory bases on the assumption that the functions of language (expression, denotation, communication) are separately conveyed by the different elements of the ritual situation: collective vocalizations, the festal objects themselves, and the inner images that individuals retain of the ritual experience.