The 'Tola' language spoken in The Origin was created for the film. It is loosely based on Basque.
Filmed in November of 2020, premiered at a the BFI London Film Festival, on 6 October 2022. It was subsequently shown at a few more festivals, but didn't go into wide release until February of 2024.
In a 2024 interview with Rue Morgue, Andrew Cumming detailed how the spoken language of the film came about: "When we first pitched the film to people, the first question was, 'Do they talk?' Yeah, they talk. They are not grunting. Then, of course, the second question is, 'What are they saying?' For the longest time I thought we'll do it in English, because I was worried about turning people off the film. I was worried about the impact that subtitles can have on your bottom line, you know? Because you want people to see your debut. You don't just wanna make something and have your parents say, 'Well done kid, you proved us wrong.' So, I resisted it for a while until I realized that when you decide you're gonna make a prehistoric set film, you have to jump in with both feet. There are no half-measures.
I realized that I would be a lazy director if I did not commit fully. Once I made that decision and Oliver Kassman backed me and Ruth Greenberg backed me as well, we engaged with Dr. Daniel Andersson, who's an academic and linguist, and we sent him the challenge. Taking some Basque from the Spanish, Sanskrit, Arabic, and just trying to create a mother tongue that could have potentially given birth to all these languages. He disappeared with the script for three or four weeks and came back with this fully formed beautiful tongue. It takes a few times to be able to pronounce it, but once you're there, we just realized this is gonna work. This feels like a real language. The cast agreed and committed to it fully. I think it makes the difference."