Word language is originated by

This article is about the origin of natural languages. For the origin of programming languages, see History of programming languages.

The origin of language (spoken and signed, as well as language-related technological systems such as writing), its relationship with human evolution, and its consequences have been subjects of study for centuries. Scholars wishing to study the origins of language must draw inferences from evidence such as the fossil record, archaeological evidence, contemporary language diversity, studies of language acquisition, and comparisons between human language and systems of communication existing among animals (particularly other primates). Many argue that the origins of language probably relate closely to the origins of modern human behavior, but there is little agreement about the facts and implications of this connection.

The shortage of direct, empirical evidence has caused many scholars to regard the entire topic as unsuitable for serious study; in 1866, the Linguistic Society of Paris banned any existing or future debates on the subject, a prohibition which remained influential across much of the Western world until late in the twentieth century.^[1][2] Various hypotheses have been developed about how, why, when, and where language might have emerged.^[3] Still, little more has been universally agreed upon today (as of 1996) than over a century and a half ago, when Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection provoked a surge of speculation on the topic.^[4] Since the early 1990s, however, a number of linguists, archaeologists, psychologists, anthropologists, and others have attempted to address this issue with new, modern methods.^[5]

Approaches[edit]

The origin of language can be sub-divided according to some underlying assumptions:^[6]

• «Continuity theories» build on the idea that language exhibits so much complexity that one cannot imagine it simply appearing from nothing in its final form; therefore it must have evolved from earlier pre-linguistic systems among humans’ primate ancestors.
• «Discontinuity theories» take the opposite approach—that language, as a unique trait which cannot be compared to anything found among non-humans, must have appeared fairly suddenly during the course of human evolution.
• Some theories consider language mostly as an innate faculty—largely genetically encoded.
• Other theories regard language as a mainly cultural system—learned through social interaction.

A majority of linguistic scholars as of 2023 favour continuity-based theories, but they vary in how they hypothesize language development. Among those who consider language as mostly innate, some avoid speculating about specific precursors in nonhuman primates, stressing simply that the language faculty must have evolved in the usual gradual way.^[7] Others in this intellectual camp—notably Ib Ulbæk^[6]—hold that language evolved not from primate communication but from primate cognition, which is significantly more complex.

Those who consider language as learned socially, such as Michael Tomasello, consider it developing from the cognitively controlled aspects of primate communication, these being mostly gestural as opposed to vocal.^[8][9] Where vocal precursors are concerned, many continuity theorists envisage language evolving from early human capacities for song.^{[10][11][12][13][14]}

Noam Chomsky, a proponent of discontinuity theory, argues that a single chance mutation occurred in one individual in the order of 100,000 years ago, installing the language faculty (a hypothetical component of the mid-brain) in «perfect» or «near-perfect» form.^[15]

Transcending the continuity-versus-discontinuity divide, some scholars view the emergence of language as the consequence of some kind of social transformation^[16] that, by generating unprecedented levels of public trust, liberated a genetic potential for linguistic creativity that had previously lain dormant.^[17][18][19] «Ritual/speech coevolution theory» exemplifies this approach.^[20][21] Scholars in this intellectual camp point to the fact that even chimpanzees and bonobos have latent symbolic capacities that they rarely—if ever—use in the wild.^[22] Objecting to the sudden mutation idea, these authors argue that even if a chance mutation were to install a language organ in an evolving bipedal primate, it would be adaptively useless under all known primate social conditions. A very specific social structure—one capable of upholding unusually high levels of public accountability and trust—must have evolved before or concurrently with language to make reliance on «cheap signals» (words) an evolutionarily stable strategy.

Since the emergence of language lies so far back in human prehistory, the relevant developments have left no direct historical traces; neither can comparable processes be observed today. Despite this, the emergence of new sign languages in modern times—Nicaraguan Sign Language, for example—may potentially offer insights into the developmental stages and creative processes necessarily involved.^[23] Another approach inspects early human fossils, looking for traces of physical adaptation to language use.^[24][25] In some cases, when the DNA of extinct humans can be recovered, the presence or absence of genes considered to be language-relevant—FOXP2, for example—may prove informative.^[26] Another approach, this time archaeological, involves invoking symbolic behavior (such as repeated ritual activity) that may leave an archaeological trace—such as mining and modifying ochre pigments for body-painting—while developing theoretical arguments to justify inferences from symbolism in general to language in particular.^[27][28][29]

The time range for the evolution of language or its anatomical prerequisites extends, at least in principle, from the phylogenetic divergence of Homo (2.3 to 2.4 million years ago) from Pan (5 to 6 million years ago) to the emergence of full behavioral modernity some 50,000–150,000 years ago. Few dispute that Australopithecus probably lacked vocal communication significantly more sophisticated than that of great apes in general,^[30] but scholarly opinions vary as to the developments since the appearance of Homo some 2.5 million years ago. Some scholars assume the development of primitive language-like systems (proto-language) as early as Homo habilis, while others place the development of symbolic communication only with Homo erectus (1.8 million years ago) or with Homo heidelbergensis (0.6 million years ago) and the development of language proper with Homo sapiens, currently estimated at less than 200,000 years ago.

Using statistical methods to estimate the time required to achieve the current spread and diversity in modern languages, Johanna Nichols—a linguist at the University of California, Berkeley—argued in 1998 that vocal languages must have begun diversifying in the human species at least 100,000 years ago.^[31] A further study by Q. D. Atkinson^[11] suggests that successive population bottlenecks occurred as human African ancestors migrated to other areas, leading to a decrease in genetic and phenotypic diversity. Atkinson argues that these bottlenecks also affected culture and language, suggesting that the farther away a particular language is from Africa, the fewer phonemes it contains. By way of evidence, Atkinson claims that today’s African languages tend to have relatively large numbers of phonemes, whereas languages of Oceania (the last region to be populated by humans) have relatively few. Relying heavily on Atkinson’s work, a subsequent study has explored the rate at which phonemes develop naturally, comparing this rate to some of Africa’s oldest languages. The results suggest that language first evolved around 50,000–150,000 years ago, which is around the time when modern Homo sapiens evolved.^[32] Estimates of this kind are not universally accepted, but jointly considering genetic, archaeological, palaeontological, and much other evidence indicates that language probably emerged somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa during the Middle Stone Age, roughly contemporaneous with the speciation of Homo sapiens.^[33]

Language origin hypotheses[edit]

Early speculations[edit]

I cannot doubt that language owes its origin to the imitation and modification, aided by signs and gestures, of various natural sounds, the voices of other animals, and man’s own instinctive cries.

— Charles Darwin, 1871. The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex^[34]

In 1861, historical linguist Max Müller published a list of speculative theories concerning the origins of spoken language:^[35]

• Bow-wow. The bow-wow or cuckoo theory, which Müller attributed to the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder, saw early words as imitations of the cries of beasts and birds.
• Pooh-pooh. The pooh-pooh theory saw the first words as emotional interjections and exclamations triggered by pain, pleasure, surprise, etc.
• Ding-dong. Müller suggested what he called the ding-dong theory, which states that all things have a vibrating natural resonance, echoed somehow by man in his earliest words.
• Yo-he-ho. The yo-he-ho theory claims language emerged from collective rhythmic labor, the attempt to synchronize muscular effort resulting in sounds such as heave alternating with sounds such as ho.
• Ta-ta. This did not feature in Max Müller’s list, having been proposed in 1930 by Sir Richard Paget.^[36] According to the ta-ta theory, humans made the earliest words by tongue movements that mimicked manual gestures, rendering them audible.

Most scholars today consider all such theories not so much wrong—they occasionally offer peripheral insights—as naïve and irrelevant.^[37][38] The problem with these theories is that they are so narrowly mechanistic.^{[citation needed]} They assume that once human ancestors had discovered the appropriate ingenious mechanism for linking sounds with meanings, language automatically evolved.

Medieval Muslim scholars also developed theories on the origin of language.^[39][40] Their theories were of five general types:^[41]

1. Naturalist: There is a natural relation between expressions and the things they signify. Language thus emerged from a natural human inclination to imitate the sounds of nature.
2. Conventionalist: Language is a social convention. The names of things are arbitrary inventions of humans.
3. Revelationist: Language was gifted to humans by God, and it was thus God—and not humans—who named everything.
4. Revelationist-Conventionalist: God revealed to humans a core base of language—enabling humans to communicate with each other—and then humans invented the rest of language.
5. Non-Committal: The view that conventionalist and revelationist theories are equally plausible.

Problems of reliability and deception[edit]

From the perspective of signalling theory, the main obstacle to the evolution of language-like communication in nature is not a mechanistic one. Rather, it is the fact that symbols—arbitrary associations of sounds or other perceptible forms with corresponding meanings—are unreliable and may well be false.^[42][43] As the saying goes, «words are cheap».^[44] The problem of reliability was not recognized at all by Darwin, Müller or the other early evolutionary theorists.

Animal vocal signals are, for the most part, intrinsically reliable. When a cat purrs, the signal constitutes direct evidence of the animal’s contented state. The signal is trusted, not because the cat is inclined to be honest, but because it just cannot fake that sound. Primate vocal calls may be slightly more manipulable, but they remain reliable for the same reason—because they are hard to fake.^[45] Primate social intelligence is «Machiavellian»—self-serving and unconstrained by moral scruples. Monkeys and apes often attempt to deceive each other, while at the same time remaining constantly on guard against falling victim to deception themselves.^[46][47] Paradoxically, it is theorized that primates’ resistance to deception is what blocks the evolution of their signalling systems along language-like lines. Language is ruled out because the best way to guard against being deceived is to ignore all signals except those that are instantly verifiable. Words automatically fail this test.^[20]

Words are easy to fake. Should they turn out to be lies, listeners will adapt by ignoring them in favor of hard-to-fake indices or cues. For language to work, then, listeners must be confident that those with whom they are on speaking terms are generally likely to be honest.^[48] A peculiar feature of language is «displaced reference», which means reference to topics outside the currently perceptible situation. This property prevents utterances from being corroborated in the immediate «here» and «now». For this reason, language presupposes relatively high levels of mutual trust in order to become established over time as an evolutionarily stable strategy. This stability is born of a longstanding mutual trust and is what grants language its authority. A theory of the origins of language must therefore explain why humans could begin trusting cheap signals in ways that other animals apparently cannot (see signalling theory).

The «mother tongues» hypothesis[edit]

The «mother tongues» hypothesis was proposed in 2004 as a possible solution to this problem.^[49] W. Tecumseh Fitch suggested that the Darwinian principle of «kin selection»^[50]—the convergence of genetic interests between relatives—might be part of the answer. Fitch suggests that languages were originally «mother tongues». If language evolved initially for communication between mothers and their own biological offspring, extending later to include adult relatives as well, the interests of speakers and listeners would have tended to coincide. Fitch argues that shared genetic interests would have led to sufficient trust and cooperation for intrinsically unreliable signals—words—to become accepted as trustworthy and so begin evolving for the first time.^[51]

Critics of this theory point out that kin selection is not unique to humans.^[52] So even if one accepts Fitch’s initial premises, the extension of the posited «mother tongue» networks from close relatives to more distant relatives remains unexplained.^[52] Fitch argues, however, that the extended period of physical immaturity of human infants and the postnatal growth of the human brain give the human-infant relationship a different and more extended period of intergenerational dependency than that found in any other species.^[49]

The «obligatory reciprocal altruism» hypothesis[edit]

Ib Ulbæk^[6] invokes another standard Darwinian principle—»reciprocal altruism»^[53]—to explain the unusually high levels of intentional honesty necessary for language to evolve. «Reciprocal altruism» can be expressed as the principle that if you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. In linguistic terms, it would mean that if you speak truthfully to me, I’ll speak truthfully to you. Ordinary Darwinian reciprocal altruism, Ulbæk points out, is a relationship established between frequently interacting individuals. For language to prevail across an entire community, however, the necessary reciprocity would have needed to be enforced universally instead of being left to individual choice. Ulbæk concludes that for language to evolve, society as a whole must have been subject to moral regulation.

Critics point out that this theory fails to explain when, how, why or by whom «obligatory reciprocal altruism» could possibly have been enforced.^[21] Various proposals have been offered to remedy this defect.^[21] A further criticism is that language does not work on the basis of reciprocal altruism anyway. Humans in conversational groups do not withhold information to all except listeners likely to offer valuable information in return. On the contrary, they seem to want to advertise to the world their access to socially relevant information, broadcasting that information without expectation of reciprocity to anyone who will listen.^[54]

The gossip and grooming hypothesis[edit]

Gossip, according to Robin Dunbar in his book Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language, does for group-living humans what manual grooming does for other primates—it allows individuals to service their relationships and so maintain their alliances on the basis of the principle: if you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Dunbar argues that as humans began living in increasingly larger social groups, the task of manually grooming all one’s friends and acquaintances became so time-consuming as to be unaffordable.^[55] In response to this problem, humans developed «a cheap and ultra-efficient form of grooming»—vocal grooming. To keep allies happy, one now needs only to «groom» them with low-cost vocal sounds, servicing multiple allies simultaneously while keeping both hands free for other tasks. Vocal grooming then evolved gradually into vocal language—initially in the form of «gossip».^[55] Dunbar’s hypothesis seems to be supported by the fact that the structure of language shows adaptations to the function of narration in general.^[56]

Critics of this theory point out that the very efficiency of «vocal grooming»—the fact that words are so cheap—would have undermined its capacity to signal commitment of the kind conveyed by time-consuming and costly manual grooming.^[57] A further criticism is that the theory does nothing to explain the crucial transition from vocal grooming—the production of pleasing but meaningless sounds—to the cognitive complexities of syntactical speech.

Ritual/speech coevolution[edit]

The ritual/speech coevolution theory was originally proposed by social anthropologist Roy Rappaport^[17] before being elaborated by anthropologists such as Chris Knight,^[20] Jerome Lewis,^[58] Nick Enfield,^[59] Camilla Power^[48] and Ian Watts.^[29] Cognitive scientist and robotics engineer Luc Steels^[60] is another prominent supporter of this general approach, as is biological anthropologist and neuroscientist Terrence Deacon.^[61]

These scholars argue that there can be no such thing as a «theory of the origins of language». This is because language is not a separate adaptation but an internal aspect of something much wider—namely, human symbolic culture as a whole.^[19] Attempts to explain language independently of this wider context have failed, say these scientists, because they are addressing a problem with no solution. Language would not work outside a specific array of social mechanisms and institutions. For example, it would not work for a nonhuman ape communicating with others in the wild. Not even the cleverest nonhuman ape could make language work under such conditions.

Lie and alternative, inherent in language … pose problems to any society whose structure is founded on language, which is to say all human societies. I have therefore argued that if there are to be words at all it is necessary to establish The Word, and that The Word is established by the invariance of liturgy.

— Roy Rappaport^[62]

Advocates of this school of thought point out that words are cheap. Should an especially clever nonhuman ape, or even a group of articulate nonhuman apes, try to use words in the wild, they would carry no conviction. The primate vocalizations that do carry conviction—those they actually use—are unlike words, in that they are emotionally expressive, intrinsically meaningful, and reliable because they are relatively costly and hard to fake.

Language consists of contrasts whose cost is essentially zero. As pure social conventions, signals of this kind cannot evolve in a Darwinian social world—they are a theoretical impossibility.^[42] Being intrinsically unreliable, language works only if one can build up a reputation for trustworthiness within a certain kind of society—namely, one where symbolic cultural facts (sometimes called «institutional facts») can be established and maintained through collective social endorsement.^[63] In any hunter-gatherer society, the basic mechanism for establishing trust in symbolic cultural facts is collective ritual.^[64] Therefore, the task facing researchers into the origins of language is more multidisciplinary than is usually supposed. It involves addressing the evolutionary emergence of human symbolic culture as a whole, with language an important but subsidiary component.

Critics of the theory include Noam Chomsky, who terms it the «non-existence» hypothesis—a denial of the very existence of language as an object of study for natural science.^[65] Chomsky’s own theory is that language emerged in an instant and in perfect form,^[66] prompting his critics in turn, to retort that only something that does not exist—a theoretical construct or convenient scientific fiction—could possibly emerge in such a miraculous way.^[18] The controversy remains unresolved.

Tool resiliency, grammar and language production[edit]

Acheulean tool use began during the Lower Paleolithic approximately 1.75 million years ago. Studies focusing on the lateralization of Acheulean tool production and language production have noted similar areas of blood flow when engaging in these activities separately; this theory suggests that the brain functions needed for the production of tools across generations is consistent with the brain systems required for producing language. Researchers used functional transcranial Doppler ultrasonography (fTDC) and had participants perform activities related to the creation of tools using the same methods during the Lower Paleolithic as well as a task designed specifically for word generation.^[67] The purpose of this test was to focus on the planning aspect of Acheulean tool making and cued word generation in language (an example of cued word generation would be someone giving you a random letter and then you list all words beginning with that letter that you can think of). Theories of language developing alongside tool use has been theorized by multiple individuals,^[68][69][70] however until recently there has been little empirical data to support these hypotheses. Focusing on the results of the study performed by Uomini et al. evidence for the usage of the same brain areas has been found when looking at cued word generation and Achuelean tool use. The relationship between tool use and language production is found in working and planning memory respectively and was found to be similar across a variety of participants furthering evidence that these areas of the brain are shared.^[67] This evidence lends credibility to the theory that language developed alongside tool use in the Lower Paleolithic.

Humanistic theory[edit]

The humanistic tradition considers language as a human invention. Renaissance philosopher Antoine Arnauld gave a detailed description of his idea of the origin of language in Port-Royal Grammar. According to Arnauld, people are social and rational by nature, and this urged them to create language as a means to communicate their ideas to others. Language construction would have occurred through a slow and gradual process.^[71] In later theory, especially in functional linguistics, the primacy of communication is emphasised over psychological needs.^[72]

The exact way language evolved is however not considered as vital to the study of languages. Structural linguist Ferdinand de Saussure abandoned evolutionary linguistics after having come to the firm conclusion that it would not be able to provide any further revolutionary insight after the completion of the major works in historical linguistics by the end of the 19th century. Saussure was particularly sceptical of the attempts of August Schleicher and other Darwinian linguists to access prehistorical languages through series of reconstructions of proto-languages.^[73]

Saussure’s solution to the problem of language evolution involves dividing theoretical linguistics in two. Evolutionary and historical linguistics are renamed as diachronic linguistics. It is the study of language change, but it has only limited explanatory power due to the inadequacy of all of the reliable research material that could ever be made available. Synchronic linguistics, in contrast, aims to widen scientists’ understanding of language through a study of a given contemporary or historical language stage as a system in its own right.^[74]

Although Saussure paid much focus to diachronic linguistics, later structuralists who equated structuralism with the synchronic analysis were sometimes criticised of ahistoricism. According to structural anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, language and meaning—in opposition to «knowledge, which develops slowly and progressively»—must have appeared in an instant.^[75]

Structuralism, as first introduced to sociology by Émile Durkheim, is nonetheless a type of humanistic evolutionary theory which explains diversification as necessitated by growing complexity.^[76] There was a shift of focus to functional explanation after Saussure’s death. Functional structuralists including the Prague Circle linguists and André Martinet explained the growth and maintenance of structures as being necessitated by their functions.^[72] For example, novel technologies make it necessary for people to invent new words, but these may lose their function and be forgotten as the technologies are eventually replaced by more modern ones.

Chomsky’s single-step theory[edit]

According to Noam Chomsky’s single-mutation theory, the emergence of language resembled the formation of a crystal; with digital infinity as the seed crystal in a super-saturated primate brain, on the verge of blossoming into the human mind, by physical law, once evolution added a single small but crucial keystone.^[77][66] Thus, in this theory, language appeared rather suddenly within the history of human evolution. Chomsky, writing with computational linguist and computer scientist Robert C. Berwick, suggests that this scenario is completely compatible with modern biology. They note that «none of the recent accounts of human language evolution seem to have completely grasped the shift from conventional Darwinism to its fully stochastic modern version—specifically, that there are stochastic effects not only due to sampling like directionless drift, but also due to directed stochastic variation in fitness, migration, and heritability—indeed, all the «forces» that affect individual or gene frequencies … All this can affect evolutionary outcomes—outcomes that as far as we can make out are not brought out in recent books on the evolution of language, yet would arise immediately in the case of any new genetic or individual innovation, precisely the kind of scenario likely to be in play when talking about language’s emergence.»

Citing evolutionary geneticist Svante Pääbo, they concur that a substantial difference must have occurred to differentiate Homo sapiens from Neanderthals to «prompt the relentless spread of our species, who had never crossed open water, up and out of Africa and then on across the entire planet in just a few tens of thousands of years. … What we do not see is any kind of ‘gradualism’ in new tool technologies or innovations like fire, shelters, or figurative art.» Berwick and Chomsky therefore suggest language emerged approximately between 200,000 years ago and 60,000 years ago (between the appearance of the first anatomically modern humans in southern Africa and the last exodus from Africa respectively). «That leaves us with about 130,000 years, or approximately 5,000–6,000 generations of time for evolutionary change. This is not ‘overnight in one generation’ as some have (incorrectly) inferred—but neither is it on the scale of geological eons. It’s time enough—within the ballpark for what Nilsson and Pelger (1994) estimated as the time required for the full evolution of a vertebrate eye from a single cell, even without the invocation of any ‘evo-devo’ effects.»^[78]

The single-mutation theory of language evolution has been directly questioned on different grounds. A formal analysis of the probability of such a mutation taking place and going to fixation in the species has concluded that such a scenario is unlikely, with multiple mutations with more moderate fitness effects being more probable.^[79] Another criticism has questioned the logic of the argument for single mutation and puts forward that from the formal simplicity of Merge, the capacity Berwick and Chomsky deem the core property of human language that emerged suddenly, one cannot derive the (number of) evolutionary steps that led to it.^[80]

The Romulus and Remus hypothesis[edit]

The Romulus and Remus hypothesis, proposed by neuroscientist Andrey Vyshedskiy, seeks to address the question as to why the modern speech apparatus originated over 500,000 years before the earliest signs of modern human imagination. This hypothesis proposes that there were two phases that led to modern recursive language. The phenomenon of recursion occurs across multiple linguistic domains, arguably most prominently in syntax and morphology. Thus, by nesting a structure such as a sentence or a word within themselves, it enables the generation of potentially (countably) infinite new variations of that structure. For example, the base sentence [Peter likes apples.] can be nested in irrealis clauses to produce [[Mary said [Peter likes apples.]], [Paul believed [Mary said [Peter likes apples.]]] and so forth.^[81]

The first phase includes the slow development of non-recursive language with a large vocabulary along with the modern speech apparatus, which includes changes to the hyoid bone, increased voluntary control of the muscles of the diaphragm, the evolution of the FOXP2 gene, as well as other changes by 600,000 years ago.^[82] Then, the second phase was a rapid Chomskian single step, consisting of three distinct events that happened in quick succession around 70,000 years ago and allowed the shift from non-recursive to recursive language in early hominins.

1. A genetic mutation that slowed down the prefrontal synthesis (PFS) critical period of at least two children that lived together.
2. This allowed these children to create recursive elements of language such as spatial prepositions.
3. Then this merged with their parents’ non-recursive language to create recursive language.^[83]

It is not enough for children to have a modern prefrontal cortex (PFC) to allow the development of PFS; the children must also be mentally stimulated and have recursive elements already in their language to acquire PFS. Since their parents would not have invented these elements yet, the children would have had to do it themselves, which is a common occurrence among young children that live together, in a process called cryptophasia.^[84] This means that delayed PFC development would have allowed more time to acquire PFS and develop recursive elements.

Delayed PFC development also comes with negative consequences, such as a longer period of reliance on one’s parents to survive and lower survival rates. For modern language to have occurred, PFC delay had to have an immense survival benefit in later life, such as PFS ability. This suggests that the mutation that caused PFC delay and the development of recursive language and PFS occurred simultaneously, which lines up with evidence of a genetic bottleneck around 70,000 years ago.^[85] This could have been the result of a few individuals who developed PFS and recursive language which gave them significant competitive advantage over all other humans at the time.^[83]

Gestural theory[edit]

The gestural theory states that human language developed from gestures that were used for simple communication.

Two types of evidence support this theory.

1. Gestural language and vocal language depend on similar neural systems. The regions on the cortex that are responsible for mouth and hand movements border each other.
2. Nonhuman primates can use gestures or symbols for at least primitive communication, and some of their gestures resemble those of humans, such as the «begging posture», with the hands stretched out, which humans share with chimpanzees.^[86][87]

Research has found strong support for the idea that verbal language and sign language depend on similar neural structures. Patients who used sign language, and who suffered from a left-hemisphere lesion, showed the same disorders with their sign language as vocal patients did with their oral language.^[88] Other researchers found that the same left-hemisphere brain regions were active during sign language as during the use of vocal or written language.^[89]

Primate gesture is at least partially genetic: different nonhuman apes will perform gestures characteristic of their species, even if they have never seen another ape perform that gesture. For example, gorillas beat their breasts. This shows that gestures are an intrinsic and important part of primate communication, which supports the idea that language evolved from gesture.^[90]

Further evidence suggests that gesture and language are linked. In humans, manually gesturing has an effect on concurrent vocalizations, thus creating certain natural vocal associations of manual efforts. Chimpanzees move their mouths when performing fine motor tasks. These mechanisms may have played an evolutionary role in enabling the development of intentional vocal communication as a supplement to gestural communication. Voice modulation could have been prompted by preexisting manual actions.^[90]

From infancy, gestures both supplement and predict speech.^[91][92] This addresses the idea that gestures quickly change in humans from a sole means of communication (from a very young age) to a supplemental and predictive behavior that is used despite the ability to communicate verbally. This too serves as a parallel to the idea that gestures developed first and language subsequently built upon it.

Two possible scenarios have been proposed for the development of language,^[93] one of which supports the gestural theory:

1. Language developed from the calls of human ancestors.
2. Language was derived from gesture.

The first perspective that language evolved from the calls of human ancestors seems logical because both humans and animals make sounds or cries. One evolutionary reason to refute this is that, anatomically, the centre that controls calls in monkeys and other animals is located in a completely different part of the brain than in humans. In monkeys, this centre is located in the depths of the brain related to emotions. In the human system, it is located in an area unrelated to emotion. Humans can communicate simply to communicate—without emotions. So, anatomically, this scenario does not work.^[93] This suggests that language was derived from gesture^[94](humans communicated by gesture first and sound was attached later).

The important question for gestural theories is why there was a shift to vocalization. Various explanations have been proposed:

1. Human ancestors started to use more and more tools, meaning that their hands were occupied and could no longer be used for gesturing.^[95]
2. Manual gesturing requires that speakers and listeners be visible to one another. In many situations, they might need to communicate, even without visual contact—for example after nightfall or when foliage obstructs visibility.
3. A composite hypothesis holds that early language took the form of part gestural and part vocal mimesis (imitative ‘song-and-dance’), combining modalities because all signals (like those of nonhuman apes and monkeys) still needed to be costly in order to be intrinsically convincing. In that event, each multi-media display would have needed not just to disambiguate an intended meaning but also to inspire confidence in the signal’s reliability. The suggestion is that only once community-wide contractual understandings had come into force^[96] could trust in communicative intentions be automatically assumed, at last allowing Homo sapiens to shift to a more efficient default format. Since vocal distinctive features (sound contrasts) are ideal for this purpose, it was only at this point—when intrinsically persuasive body-language was no longer required to convey each message—that the decisive shift from manual gesture to the current primary reliance on spoken language occurred.^[18][20][97]

A comparable hypothesis states that in ‘articulate’ language, gesture and vocalisation are intrinsically linked, as language evolved from equally intrinsically linked dance and song.^[14]

Humans still use manual and facial gestures when they speak, especially when people meet who have no language in common.^[98] There are also a great number of sign languages still in existence, commonly associated with deaf communities. These sign languages are equal in complexity, sophistication, and expressive power, to any oral language.^[99] The cognitive functions are similar and the parts of the brain used are similar. The main difference is that the «phonemes» are produced on the outside of the body, articulated with hands, body, and facial expression, rather than inside the body articulated with tongue, teeth, lips, and breathing.^[100] (Compare the motor theory of speech perception.)

It is suggested that nature has allotted psychological representations to all gestures, including vocal gestures. Animals have no intellectual purpose. Hence animals of the same species from different continents can communicate psychologically without learning any sign language. In the case of humans, in addition to the gestures, the vocal gestures are arbitrarily converted into the intellectual sense. This arbitrariness depends on biological, psychological, and intellectual needs and capabilities, which differ from place to place, creating language differences.^[101]

Critics of gestural theory note that it is difficult to name serious reasons why the initial pitch-based vocal communication (which is present in primates) would be abandoned in favor of the much less effective non-vocal, gestural communication.^[102] However, Michael Corballis has pointed out that it is supposed that primate vocal communication (such as alarm calls) cannot be controlled consciously, unlike hand movement, and thus it is not credible as precursor to human language; primate vocalization is rather homologous to and continued in involuntary reflexes (connected with basic human emotions) such as screams or laughter (the fact that these can be faked does not disprove the fact that genuine involuntary responses to fear or surprise exist).^[94] Also, gesture is not generally less effective, and depending on the situation can even be advantageous, for example in a loud environment or where it is important to be silent, such as on a hunt. Other challenges to the «gesture-first» theory have been presented by researchers in psycholinguistics, including David McNeill.^[103]

Tool-use associated sound in the evolution of language[edit]

Proponents of the motor theory of language evolution have primarily focused on the visual domain and communication through observation of movements. The Tool-use sound hypothesis suggests that the production and perception of sound also contributed substantially, particularly incidental sound of locomotion (ISOL) and tool-use sound (TUS). Human bipedalism resulted in rhythmic and more predictable ISOL. That may have stimulated the evolution of musical abilities, auditory working memory, and abilities to produce complex vocalizations, and to mimic natural sounds.^[105] Since the human brain proficiently extracts information about objects and events from the sounds they produce, TUS, and mimicry of TUS, might have achieved an iconic function. The prevalence of sound symbolism in many extant languages supports this idea. Self-produced TUS activates multimodal brain processing (motor neurons, hearing, proprioception, touch, vision), and TUS stimulates primate audiovisual mirror neurons, which is likely to stimulate the development of association chains. Tool use and auditory gestures involve motor-processing of the forelimbs, which is associated with the evolution of vertebrate vocal communication. The production, perception, and mimicry of TUS may have resulted in a limited number of vocalizations or protowords that were associated with tool use. A new way to communicate about tools, especially when out of sight, would have had selective advantage. A gradual change in acoustic properties, meaning, or both could have resulted in arbitrariness and an expanded repertoire of words. Humans have been increasingly exposed to TUS over millions of years, coinciding with the period during which spoken language evolved.

Mirror neurons and language origins[edit]

In humans, functional MRI studies have reported finding areas homologous to the monkey mirror neuron system in the inferior frontal cortex, close to Broca’s area, one of the language regions of the brain. This has led to suggestions that human language evolved from a gesture performance/understanding system implemented in mirror neurons. Mirror neurons have been said to have the potential to provide a mechanism for action-understanding, imitation-learning, and the simulation of other people’s behavior.^[106] This hypothesis is supported by some cytoarchitectonic homologies between monkey premotor area F5 and human Broca’s area.^[107]

Rates of vocabulary expansion link to the ability of children to vocally mirror non-words and so to acquire the new word pronunciations. Such speech repetition occurs automatically, quickly^[108] and separately in the brain to speech perception.^[109][110] Moreover, such vocal imitation can occur without comprehension such as in speech shadowing^[111] and echolalia.^[107][112] Further evidence for this link comes from a recent study in which the brain activity of two participants was measured using fMRI while they were gesturing words to each other using hand gestures with a game of charades—a modality that some have suggested might represent the evolutionary precursor of human language. Analysis of the data using Granger Causality revealed that the mirror-neuron system of the observer indeed reflects the pattern of activity of in the motor system of the sender, supporting the idea that the motor concept associated with the words is indeed transmitted from one brain to another using the mirror system.^[113]

Not all linguists agree with the above arguments, however. In particular, supporters of Noam Chomsky argue against the possibility that the mirror neuron system can play any role in the hierarchical recursive structures essential to syntax.^[114]

Putting-down-the-baby theory[edit]

According to Dean Falk’s «putting-down-the-baby» theory, vocal interactions between early hominid mothers and infants began a sequence of events that led, eventually, to human ancestors’ earliest words.^[115] The basic idea is that evolving human mothers, unlike their counterparts in other primates, could not move around and forage with their infants clinging onto their backs. Loss of fur in the human case left infants with no means of clinging on. Frequently, therefore, mothers had to put their babies down. As a result, these babies needed to be reassured that they were not being abandoned. Mothers responded by developing ‘motherese’—an infant-directed communicative system embracing facial expressions, body language, touching, patting, caressing, laughter, tickling and emotionally expressive contact calls. The argument is that language developed out of this interaction.^[115]

In The Mental and Social Life of Babies, psychologist Kenneth Kaye noted that no usable adult language could have evolved without interactive communication between very young children and adults. «No symbolic system could have survived from one generation to the next if it could not have been easily acquired by young children under their normal conditions of social life.»^[116]

From-where-to-what theory[edit]

The «from where to what» model is a language evolution model that is derived primarily from the organization of language processing in the brain into two structures: the auditory dorsal stream and the auditory ventral stream.^[117][118] It hypothesizes seven stages of language evolution (see illustration). Speech originated for the purpose of exchanging contact calls between mothers and their offspring to find one another in the event they became separated (illustration part 1). The contact calls could be modified with intonations in order to express either a higher or lower level of distress (illustration part 2). The use of two types of contact calls enabled the first question-answer conversation. In this scenario, the child would emit a low-level distress call to express a desire to interact with an object, and the mother would respond with either another low-level distress call (to express approval of the interaction) or a high-level distress call (to express disapproval) (illustration part 3). Over time, the improved use of intonations and vocal control led to the invention of unique calls (phonemes) associated with distinct objects (illustration part 4). At first, children learned the calls (phonemes) from their parents by imitating their lip-movements (illustration part 5). Eventually, infants were able to encode into long-term memory all the calls (phonemes). Consequentially, mimicry via lip-reading was limited to infancy and older children learned new calls through mimicry without lip-reading (illustration part 6). Once individuals became capable of producing a sequence of calls, this allowed multi-syllabic words, which increased the size of their vocabulary (illustration part 7). The use of words, composed of sequences of syllables, provided the infra structure for communicating with sequences of words (i.e., sentences).

The theory’s name is derived from the two auditory streams, which are both found in the brains of humans and other primates. The auditory ventral stream is responsible for sound recognition, and so it is referred to as the auditory what stream.^{[119][120][121]} In primates, the auditory dorsal stream is responsible for sound localization, and thus it is called the auditory where stream. Only in humans (in the left hemisphere), is it also responsible for other processes associated with language use and acquisition, such as speech repetition and production, integration of phonemes with their lip movements, perception and production of intonations, phonological long-term memory (long-term memory storage of the sounds of words), and phonological working memory (the temporary storage of the sounds of words).^{[122][123][124][125][126][127][128][129]} Some evidence also indicates a role in recognising others by their voices.^[130][131] The emergence of each of these functions in the auditory dorsal stream represents an intermediate stage in the evolution of language.

A contact call origin for human language is consistent with animal studies, as like human language, contact call discrimination in monkeys is lateralised to the left hemisphere.^[132][133] Mice with knock-out to language related genes (such as FOXP2 and SRPX2) also resulted in the pups no longer emitting contact calls when separated from their mothers.^[134][135] Supporting this model is also its ability to explain unique human phenomena, such as the use of intonations when converting words into commands and questions, the tendency of infants to mimic vocalisations during the first year of life (and its disappearance later on) and the protruding and visible human lips, which are not found in other apes. This theory could be considered an elaboration of the putting-down-the-baby theory of language evolution.

Grammaticalisation theory[edit]

«Grammaticalisation» is a continuous historical process in which free-standing words develop into grammatical appendages, while these in turn become ever more specialised and grammatical. An initially «incorrect» usage, in becoming accepted, leads to unforeseen consequences, triggering knock-on effects and extended sequences of change. Paradoxically, grammar evolves because, in the final analysis, humans care less about grammatical niceties than about making themselves understood.^[136] If this is how grammar evolves today, according to this school of thought, similar principles at work can be legitimately inferred among distant human ancestors, when grammar itself was first being established.^{[137][138][139]}

In order to reconstruct the evolutionary transition from early language to languages with complex grammars, it is necessary to know which hypothetical sequences are plausible and which are not. In order to convey abstract ideas, the first recourse of speakers is to fall back on immediately recognizable concrete imagery, very often deploying metaphors rooted in shared bodily experience.^[140] A familiar example is the use of concrete terms such as «belly» or «back» to convey abstract meanings such as «inside» or «behind». Equally metaphorical is the strategy of representing temporal patterns on the model of spatial ones. For example, English speakers might say «It is going to rain», modelled on «I am going to London.» This can be abbreviated colloquially to «It’s gonna rain.» Even when in a hurry, English speakers do not say «I’m gonna London»—the contraction is restricted to the job of specifying tense. From such examples it can be seen why grammaticalisation is consistently unidirectional—from concrete to abstract meaning, not the other way around.^[137]

Grammaticalisation theorists picture early language as simple, perhaps consisting only of nouns.^[139]p. 111 Even under that extreme theoretical assumption, however, it is difficult to imagine what would realistically have prevented people from using, say, «spear» as if it were a verb («Spear that pig!»). People might have used their nouns as verbs or their verbs as nouns as occasion demanded. In short, while a noun-only language might seem theoretically possible, grammaticalisation theory indicates that it cannot have remained fixed in that state for any length of time.^[137][141]

Creativity drives grammatical change.^[141] This presupposes a certain attitude on the part of listeners. Instead of punishing deviations from accepted usage, listeners must prioritise imaginative mind-reading. Imaginative creativity—emitting a leopard alarm when no leopard was present, for example—is not the kind of behaviour which, say, vervet monkeys would appreciate or reward.^[142] Creativity and reliability are incompatible demands; for «Machiavellian» primates as for animals generally, the overriding pressure is to demonstrate reliability.^[143] If humans escape these constraints, it is because in their case, listeners are primarily interested in mental states.

To focus on mental states is to accept fictions—inhabitants of the imagination—as potentially informative and interesting. An example is metaphor: a metaphor is, literally, a false statement.^[144] In Romeo and Juliet, Romeo declares «Juliet is the sun!». Juliet is a woman, not a ball of plasma in the sky, but human listeners are not (or not usually) pedants insistent on point-by-point factual accuracy. They want to know what the speaker has in mind. Grammaticalisation is essentially based on metaphor. To outlaw its use would be to stop grammar from evolving and, by the same token, to exclude all possibility of expressing abstract thought.^[140][145]

A criticism of all this is that while grammaticalisation theory might explain language change today, it does not satisfactorily address the really difficult challenge—explaining the initial transition from primate-style communication to language as it is known today. Rather, the theory assumes that language already exists. As Bernd Heine and Tania Kuteva acknowledge: «Grammaticalisation requires a linguistic system that is used regularly and frequently within a community of speakers and is passed on from one group of speakers to another».^[139] Outside modern humans, such conditions do not prevail.

Evolution-progression model[edit]

Human language is used for self-expression; however, expression displays different stages. The consciousness of self and feelings represents the stage immediately prior to the external, phonetic expression of feelings in the form of sound, i.e., language. Intelligent animals such as dolphins, Eurasian magpies, and chimpanzees live in communities, wherein they assign themselves roles for group survival and show emotions such as sympathy.^[146] When such animals view their reflection (mirror test), they recognise themselves and exhibit self-consciousness.^[147] Notably, humans evolved in a quite different environment than that of these animals. Human survival became easier with the development of tools, shelter, and fire, thus facilitating further advancement of social interaction, self-expression, and tool-making, as for hunting and gathering.^[148] The increasing brain size allowed advanced provisioning and tools and the technological advances during the Palaeolithic era that built upon the previous evolutionary innovations of bipedalism and hand versatility allowed the development of human language.^{[citation needed]}

Self-domesticated ape theory[edit]

According to a study investigating the song differences between white-rumped munias and its domesticated counterpart (Bengalese finch), the wild munias use a highly stereotyped song sequence, whereas the domesticated ones sing a highly unconstrained song. In wild finches, song syntax is subject to female preference—sexual selection—and remains relatively fixed. However, in the Bengalese finch, natural selection is replaced by breeding, in this case for colourful plumage, and thus, decoupled from selective pressures, stereotyped song syntax is allowed to drift. It is replaced, supposedly within 1000 generations, by a variable and learned sequence. Wild finches, moreover, are thought incapable of learning song sequences from other finches.^[149] In the field of bird vocalisation, brains capable of producing only an innate song have very simple neural pathways: the primary forebrain motor centre, called the robust nucleus of arcopallium, connects to midbrain vocal outputs, which in turn project to brainstem motor nuclei. By contrast, in brains capable of learning songs, the arcopallium receives input from numerous additional forebrain regions, including those involved in learning and social experience. Control over song generation has become less constrained, more distributed, and more flexible.^[149]

One way to think about human evolution is that humans are self-domesticated apes. Just as domestication relaxed selection for stereotypic songs in the finches—mate choice was supplanted by choices made by the aesthetic sensibilities of bird breeders and their customers—so might human cultural domestication have relaxed selection on many of their primate behavioural traits, allowing old pathways to degenerate and reconfigure. Given the highly indeterminate way that mammalian brains develop—they basically construct themselves «bottom up», with one set of neuronal interactions preparing for the next round of interactions—degraded pathways would tend to seek out and find new opportunities for synaptic hookups. Such inherited de-differentiations of brain pathways might have contributed to the functional complexity that characterises human language. And, as exemplified by the finches, such de-differentiations can occur in very rapid time-frames.^[150]

Speech and language for communication[edit]

A distinction can be drawn between speech and language. Language is not necessarily spoken: it might alternatively be written or signed. Speech is among a number of different methods of encoding and transmitting linguistic information, albeit arguably the most natural one.^[151]

Some scholars, such as Noam Chomsky, view language as an initially cognitive development, its «externalisation» to serve communicative purposes occurring later in human evolution. According to one such school of thought, the key feature distinguishing human language is recursion,^[152] (in this context, the iterative embedding of phrases within phrases). Other scholars—notably Daniel Everett—deny that recursion is universal, citing certain languages (e.g. Pirahã) which allegedly lack this feature.^[153]

The ability to ask questions is considered by some^{[like whom?]} to distinguish language from non-human systems of communication.^[154] Some captive primates (notably bonobos and chimpanzees), having learned to use rudimentary signing to communicate with their human trainers, proved able to respond correctly to complex questions and requests. Yet they failed to ask even the simplest questions themselves.^[155] Conversely, human children are able to ask their first questions (using only question intonation) at the babbling period of their development, long before they start using syntactic structures. Although babies from different cultures acquire native languages from their social environment, all languages of the world without exception—tonal, non-tonal, intonational and accented—use similar rising «question intonation» for yes–no questions.^[156][157] This fact is a strong evidence of the universality of question intonation. In general, according to some authors, sentence intonation/pitch is pivotal in spoken grammar and is the basic information used by children to learn the grammar of whatever language.^[14]

Cognitive development and language[edit]

Language users have high-level reference (or deixis), the ability to refer to things or states of being that are not in the immediate realm of the speaker. This ability is often related to theory of mind, or an awareness of the other as a being like the self with individual wants and intentions. According to Chomsky, Hauser and Fitch (2002), there are six main aspects of this high-level reference system:

• Theory of mind
• Capacity to acquire non-linguistic conceptual representations, such as the object/kind distinction
• Referential vocal signals
• Imitation as a rational, intentional system
• Voluntary control over signal production as evidence of intentional communication
• Number representation^[152]

Theory of mind[edit]

Simon Baron-Cohen (1999) argues that theory of mind must have preceded language use, based on evidence of use of the following characteristics as much as 40,000 years ago: intentional communication, repairing failed communication, teaching, intentional persuasion, intentional deception, building shared plans and goals, intentional sharing of focus or topic, and pretending. Moreover, Baron-Cohen argues that many primates show some, but not all, of these abilities.^{[citation needed]} Call and Tomasello’s research on chimpanzees supports this, in that individual chimps seem to understand that other chimps have awareness, knowledge, and intention, but do not seem to understand false beliefs. Many primates show some tendencies toward a theory of mind, but not a full one as humans have.^[158]

Ultimately, there is some consensus within the field that a theory of mind is necessary for language use. Thus, the development of a full theory of mind in humans was a necessary precursor to full language use.^[159]

Number representation[edit]

In one particular study, rats and pigeons were required to press a button a certain number of times to get food. The animals showed very accurate distinction for numbers less than four, but as the numbers increased, the error rate increased.^[152] In another, the primatologist Tetsuro Matsuzawa attempted to teach chimpanzees Arabic numerals.^[160] The difference between primates and humans in this regard was very large, as it took the chimps thousands of trials to learn 1–9, with each number requiring a similar amount of training time; yet, after learning the meaning of 1, 2 and 3 (and sometimes 4), children (after the age of 5.5 to 6) easily comprehend the value of greater integers by using a successor function (i.e. 2 is 1 greater than 1, 3 is 1 greater than 2, 4 is 1 greater than 3; once 4 is reached it seems most children suddenly understand that the value of any integer n is 1 greater than the previous integer).^[161] Put simply, other primates learn the meaning of numbers one by one, similar to their approach to other referential symbols, while children first learn an arbitrary list of symbols (1, 2, 3, 4…) and then later learn their precise meanings.^[162] These results can be seen as evidence for the application of the «open-ended generative property» of language in human numeral cognition.^[152]

Linguistic structures[edit]

Lexical-phonological principle[edit]

Hockett (1966) details a list of features regarded as essential to describing human language.^[163] In the domain of the lexical-phonological principle, two features of this list are most important:

• Productivity: users can create and understand completely novel messages.
  • New messages are freely coined by blending, analogizing from, or transforming old ones.
  • Either new or old elements are freely assigned new semantic loads by circumstances and context. This says that in every language, new idioms constantly come into existence.
• Duality (of Patterning): a large number of meaningful elements are made up of a conveniently small number of independently meaningless yet message-differentiating elements.

The sound system of a language is composed of a finite set of simple phonological items. Under the specific phonotactic rules of a given language, these items can be recombined and concatenated, giving rise to morphology and the open-ended lexicon. A key feature of language is that a simple, finite set of phonological items gives rise to an infinite lexical system wherein rules determine the form of each item, and meaning is inextricably linked with form. Phonological syntax, then, is a simple combination of pre-existing phonological units. Related to this is another essential feature of human language: lexical syntax, wherein pre-existing units are combined, giving rise to semantically novel or distinct lexical items.^{[This paragraph needs citation(s)]}

Certain elements of the lexical-phonological principle are known to exist outside of humans. While all (or nearly all) have been documented in some form in the natural world, very few coexist within the same species. Bird-song, singing nonhuman apes, and the songs of whales all display phonological syntax, combining units of sound into larger structures apparently devoid of enhanced or novel meaning. Certain other primate species do have simple phonological systems with units referring to entities in the world. However, in contrast to human systems, the units in these primates’ systems normally occur in isolation, betraying a lack of lexical syntax. There is new^[when?] evidence to suggest that Campbell’s monkeys also display lexical syntax, combining two calls (a predator alarm call with a «boom», the combination of which denotes a lessened threat of danger), however it is still unclear whether this is a lexical or a morphological phenomenon.^[164]

Pidgins and creoles[edit]

Pidgins are significantly simplified languages with only rudimentary grammar and a restricted vocabulary. In their early stage, pidgins mainly consist of nouns, verbs, and adjectives with few or no articles, prepositions, conjunctions or auxiliary verbs. Often the grammar has no fixed word order and the words have no inflection.^[165]

If contact is maintained between the groups speaking the pidgin for long periods of time, the pidgins may become more complex over many generations. If the children of one generation adopt the pidgin as their native language it develops into a creole language, which becomes fixed and acquires a more complex grammar, with fixed phonology, syntax, morphology, and syntactic embedding. The syntax and morphology of such languages may often have local innovations not obviously derived from any of the parent languages.

Studies of creole languages around the world have suggested that they display remarkable similarities in grammar^{[citation needed]} and are developed uniformly from pidgins in a single generation. These similarities are apparent even when creoles do not have any common language origins. In addition, creoles are similar, despite being developed in isolation from each other. Syntactic similarities include subject–verb–object word order. Even when creoles are derived from languages with a different word order they often develop the SVO word order. Creoles tend to have similar usage patterns for definite and indefinite articles, and similar movement rules for phrase structures even when the parent languages do not.^[165]

Evolutionary timeline[edit]

Primate communication[edit]

Field primatologists can give useful insights into great ape communication in the wild.^[30] An important^{[according to whom?]} finding is that nonhuman primates, including the other great apes, produce calls that are graded, as opposed to categorically differentiated, with listeners striving to evaluate subtle gradations in signallers’ emotional and bodily states. Nonhuman apes seemingly find it extremely difficult to produce vocalisations in the absence of the corresponding emotional states.^[45] In captivity, nonhuman apes have been taught rudimentary forms of sign language or have been persuaded to use lexigrams—symbols that do not graphically resemble the corresponding words—on computer keyboards. Some nonhuman apes, such as Kanzi, have been able to learn and use hundreds of lexigrams.^[166][167]

The Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas in the primate brain are responsible for controlling the muscles of the face, tongue, mouth, and larynx, as well as recognizing sounds. Primates are known to make «vocal calls», and these calls are generated by circuits in the brainstem and limbic system.^[168]

In the wild, the communication of vervet monkeys has been the most extensively studied.^[165] They are known to make up to ten different vocalizations. Many of these are used to warn other members of the group about approaching predators. They include a «leopard call», a «snake call», and an «eagle call».^[169] Each call triggers a different defensive strategy in the monkeys who hear the call and scientists were able to elicit predictable responses from the monkeys using loudspeakers and prerecorded sounds. Other vocalisations may be used for identification. If an infant monkey calls, its mother turns toward it, but other vervet mothers turn instead toward that infant’s mother to see what she will do.^[170][171]

Similarly, researchers have demonstrated that chimpanzees (in captivity) use different «words» in reference to different foods. They recorded vocalisations that chimps made in reference, for example, to grapes, and then other chimps pointed at pictures of grapes when they heard the recorded sound.^[172][173]

Ardipithecus ramidus[edit]

A study published in HOMO: Journal of Comparative Human Biology in 2017 claims that Ardipithecus ramidus, a hominin dated at approximately 4.5Ma, shows the first evidence of an anatomical shift in the hominin lineage suggestive of increased vocal capability.^[174] This study compared the skull of A. ramidus with 29 chimpanzee skulls of different ages and found that in numerous features A. ramidus clustered with the infant and juvenile measures as opposed to the adult measures. Significantly,^{[according to whom?]} such affinity with the shape dimensions of infant and juvenile chimpanzee skull architecture, it was argued, may have resulted in greater vocal capability. This assertion was based on the notion that the chimpanzee vocal tract ratios that prevent speech are a result of growth factors associated with puberty—growth factors absent in A. ramidus ontogeny. A. ramidus was also found to have a degree of cervical lordosis more conducive to vocal modulation when compared with chimpanzees as well as cranial base architecture suggestive of increased vocal capability.

What was significant in this study^{[according to whom?]} was the observation that the changes in skull architecture that correlate with reduced aggression are the same changes necessary for the evolution of early hominin vocal ability. In integrating data on anatomical correlates of primate mating and social systems with studies of skull and vocal tract architecture that facilitate speech production, the authors argue that paleoanthropologists to date^[when?] have failed to understand the important relationship between early hominin social evolution and language capacity.

While the skull of A. ramidus, according to the authors, lacks the anatomical impediments to speech evident in chimpanzees, it is unclear what the vocal capabilities of this early hominin were. While they suggest A. ramidus—based on similar vocal tract ratios—may have had vocal capabilities equivalent to a modern human infant or very young child, they concede this is obviously a debatable and speculative hypothesis. However, they do claim that changes in skull architecture through processes of social selection were a necessary prerequisite for language evolution. As they write:

We propose that as a result of paedomorphic morphogenesis of the cranial base and craniofacial morphology Ar. ramidus would have not been limited in terms of the mechanical components of speech production as chimpanzees and bonobos are. It is possible that Ar. ramidus had vocal capability approximating that of chimpanzees and bonobos, with its idiosyncratic skull morphology not resulting in any significant advances in speech capability. In this sense the anatomical features analysed in this essay would have been exapted in later more voluble species of hominin. However, given the selective advantages of pro-social vocal synchrony, we suggest the species would have developed significantly more complex vocal abilities than chimpanzees and bonobos.^[174]

Early Homo[edit]

Anatomically, some scholars believe that features of bipedalism developed in the australopithecines around 3.5 million years ago. Around this time, these structural developments within the skull led to a more prominently L-shaped vocal tract.^{[175][page needed]} In order to generate the sounds modern homo sapiens are capable of making, such as vowels, it is vital that Early Homo populations must have a specifically shaped voice track and a lower sitting larynx.^[176] Opposing research previously suggested that Neanderthals were physically incapable of creating the full range of vocals seen in modern humans due to the differences in larynx placement. Establishing distinct larynx positions through fossil remains of Homo sapiens and Neanderthals would support this theory; however, modern research has revealed that the hyoid bone was indistinguishable from the two populations. Though research has shown a lower sitting larynx is important to producing speech, another theory states it may not be as important as once thought.^[177] Cataldo, Migliano, & Vinicius (2018) stated that speech may have emerged due to an increase in trade and communication between different groups. Another view by Cataldo states that speech was evolved to enable tool-making by the Neanderthals.^[178]

Archaic Homo sapiens[edit]

Steven Mithen proposed the term Hmmmmm for the pre-linguistic system of communication posited to have been used by archaic Homo, beginning with Homo ergaster and reaching the highest sophistication in the Middle Pleistocene with Homo heidelbergensis and Homo neanderthalensis. Hmmmmm is an acronym for holistic (non-compositional), manipulative (utterances are commands or suggestions, not descriptive statements), multi-modal (acoustic as well as gestural and facial), musical, and mimetic.^[179]

Homo erectus

Evidence for Homo erectus potentially using language comes in the form of Acheulean tool usage. The use of abstract thought in the formation of Acheulean hand axes coincides with the symbol creation necessary for simple language.^[180] Recent language theories present recursion as the unique facet of human language and theory of mind.^[181][182] However, breaking down language into its symbolic parts: separating meaning from the requirements of grammar, it becomes possible to see that language does not depend on either recursion or grammar. This can be evidenced by the Pirahã language users in Brazil that have no myth or creation stories, no numbers and no colors within their language.^[183] This is to highlight that even though grammar may have been unavailable, use of foresight, planning and symbolic thought can be evidence of language as early as one million years ago with Homo erectus.

Homo heidelbergensis[edit]

Homo heidelbergensis was a close relative (most probably a migratory descendant) of Homo ergaster. Some researchers believe this species to be the first hominin to make controlled vocalisations, possibly mimicking animal vocalisations,^[179] and that as Homo heidelbergensis developed more sophisticated culture, proceeded from this point and possibly developed an early form of symbolic language.

Homo neanderthalensis[edit]

The discovery in 1989 of the (Neanderthal) Kebara 2 hyoid bone suggests that Neanderthals may have been anatomically capable of producing sounds similar to modern humans.^[184][185] The hypoglossal nerve, which passes through the hypoglossal canal, controls the movements of the tongue, which may have enabled voicing for size exaggeration (see size exaggeration hypothesis below) or may reflect speech abilities.^{[25][186][187][188][189][190]}

However, although Neanderthals may have been anatomically able to speak, Richard G. Klein in 2004 doubted that they possessed a fully modern language. He largely bases his doubts on the fossil record of archaic humans and their stone tool kit. Bart de Boer in 2017 acknowledges this ambiguity of a universally accepted Neanderthal vocal tract; however, he notes the similarities in the thoracic vertebral canal, potential air sacs, and hyoid bones between modern humans and Neanderthals to suggest the presence of complex speech.^[191] For two million years following the emergence of Homo habilis, the stone tool technology of hominins changed very little. Klein, who has worked extensively on ancient stone tools, describes the crude stone tool kit of archaic humans as impossible to break down into categories based on their function, and reports that Neanderthals seem to have had little concern for the final aesthetic form of their tools. Klein argues that the Neanderthal brain may have not reached the level of complexity required for modern speech, even if the physical apparatus for speech production was well-developed.^[192][193] The issue of the Neanderthal’s level of cultural and technological sophistication remains a controversial one.^{[citation needed]}

Based on computer simulations used to evaluate that evolution of language that resulted in showing three stages in the evolution of syntax, Neanderthals are thought to have been in stage 2, showing they had something more evolved than proto-language but not quite as complex as the language of modern humans.^[194]

Some researchers, applying auditory bioengineering models to computerised tomography scans of Neanderthal skulls, have asserted that Neanderthals had auditory capacity very similar to that of anatomically modern humans.^[195] These researchers claim that this finding implies that «Neanderthals evolved the auditory capacities to support a vocal communication system as efficient as modern human speech.»^[195]

Homo sapiens[edit]

Anatomically modern humans begin to appear in the fossil record in Ethiopia some 200,000 years ago.^[196] Although there is still much debate as to whether behavioural modernity emerged in Africa at around the same time, a growing number of archaeologists nowadays^[when?] invoke the southern African Middle Stone Age use of red ochre pigments—for example at Blombos Cave—as evidence that modern anatomy and behaviour co-evolved.^[197] These archaeologists argue strongly that if modern humans at this early stage were using red ochre pigments for ritual and symbolic purposes, they probably had symbolic language as well.^[27]

According to the recent African origins hypothesis, from around 60,000 – 50,000 years ago^[198] a group of humans left Africa and began migrating to occupy the rest of the world, carrying language and symbolic culture with them.^[199]

The descended larynx[edit]

The larynx or voice box is an organ in the neck housing the vocal folds, which are responsible for phonation. In humans, the larynx is descended. The human species is not unique in this respect: goats, dogs, pigs and tamarins lower the larynx temporarily, to emit loud calls.^[200] Several deer species have a permanently lowered larynx, which may be lowered still further by males during their roaring displays.^[201] Lions, jaguars, cheetahs and domestic cats also do this.^[202] However, laryngeal descent in nonhumans (according to Philip Lieberman) is not accompanied by descent of the hyoid; hence the tongue remains horizontal in the oral cavity, preventing it from acting as a pharyngeal articulator.^[203]

Larynx
Anatomy of the larynx, anterolateral view
Anatomical terminology [edit on Wikidata]

Despite all this, scholars remain divided as to how «special» the human vocal tract really is. It has been shown that the larynx does descend to some extent during development in chimpanzees, followed by hyoidal descent.^[204] As against this, Philip Lieberman points out that only humans have evolved permanent and substantial laryngeal descent in association with hyoidal descent, resulting in a curved tongue and two-tube vocal tract with 1:1 proportions. He argues that Neanderthals and early anatomically modern humans could not have possessed supralaryngeal vocal tracts capable of producing «fully human speech».^[205] Uniquely in the human case, simple contact between the epiglottis and velum is no longer possible, disrupting the normal mammalian separation of the respiratory and digestive tracts during swallowing. Since this entails substantial costs—increasing the risk of choking while swallowing food—we are forced to ask what benefits might have outweighed those costs. The obvious benefit—so it is claimed—must have been speech. But this idea has been vigorously contested. One objection is that humans are in fact not seriously at risk of choking on food: medical statistics indicate that accidents of this kind are extremely rare.^[206] Another objection is that in the view of most scholars, speech as it is known emerged relatively late in human evolution, roughly contemporaneously with the emergence of Homo sapiens.^[32] A development as complex as the reconfiguration of the human vocal tract would have required much more time, implying an early date of origin. This discrepancy in timescales undermines the idea that human vocal flexibility was initially driven by selection pressures for speech, thus not excluding that it was selected for e.g. improved singing ability.

The size exaggeration hypothesis[edit]

To lower the larynx is to increase the length of the vocal tract, in turn lowering formant frequencies so that the voice sounds «deeper»—giving an impression of greater size. John Ohala argues that the function of the lowered larynx in humans, especially males, is probably to enhance threat displays rather than speech itself.^[207] Ohala points out that if the lowered larynx were an adaptation for speech, adult human males would be expected to be better adapted in this respect than adult females, whose larynx is considerably less low. However, females outperform males in verbal tests,^[208] falsifying this whole line of reasoning.

W. Tecumseh Fitch likewise argues that this was the original selective advantage of laryngeal lowering in the human species. Although (according to Fitch) the initial lowering of the larynx in humans had nothing to do with speech, the increased range of possible formant patterns was subsequently co-opted for speech. Size exaggeration remains the sole function of the extreme laryngeal descent observed in male deer. Consistent with the size exaggeration hypothesis, a second descent of the larynx occurs at puberty in humans, although only in males. In response to the objection that the larynx is descended in human females, Fitch suggests that mothers vocalizing to protect their infants would also have benefited from this ability.^[209]

Phonemic diversity[edit]

In 2011, Quentin Atkinson published a survey of phonemes from 500 different languages as well as language families and compared their phonemic diversity by region, number of speakers and distance from Africa. The survey revealed that African languages had the largest number of phonemes, and Oceania and South America had the smallest number. After allowing for the number of speakers, the phonemic diversity was compared to over 2000 possible origin locations. Atkinson’s «best fit» model is that language originated in central and southern Africa between 80,000 and 160,000 years ago. This predates the hypothesized southern coastal peopling of Arabia, India, southeast Asia, and Australia. It would also mean that the origin of language occurred at the same time as the emergence of symbolic culture.^[11]

History[edit]

In religion and mythology[edit]

The search for the origin of language has a long history in mythology. Most mythologies do not credit humans with the invention of language but speak of a divine language predating human language. Mystical languages used to communicate with animals or spirits, such as the language of the birds, are also common, and were of particular interest during the Renaissance.

Vāc is the Hindu goddess of speech, or «speech personified». As Brahman’s «sacred utterance», she has a cosmological role as the «Mother of the Vedas». The Aztecs’ story maintains that only a man, Coxcox, and a woman, Xochiquetzal, survived a flood, having floated on a piece of bark. They found themselves on land and had many children who were at first born unable to speak, but subsequently, upon the arrival of a dove, were endowed with language, although each one was given a different speech such that they could not understand one another.^[210]

In the Old Testament, the Book of Genesis (11) says that God prevented the Tower of Babel from being completed through a miracle that made its construction workers start speaking different languages. After this, they migrated to other regions, grouped together according to which of the newly created languages they spoke, explaining the origins of languages and nations outside of the Fertile Crescent.^[211]

Historical experiments[edit]

History contains a number of anecdotes about people who attempted to discover the origin of language by experiment. The first such tale was told by Herodotus (Histories 2.2). He relates that Pharaoh Psammetichus (probably Psammetichus I, 7th century BC) had two children raised by a shepherd, with the instructions that no one should speak to them, but that the shepherd should feed and care for them while listening to determine their first words. When one of the children cried «bekos» with outstretched arms the shepherd concluded that the word was Phrygian, because that was the sound of the Phrygian word for «bread». From this, Psammetichus concluded that the first language was Phrygian. King James V of Scotland is said to have tried a similar experiment; his children were supposed to have spoken Hebrew.^[212]

Both the medieval monarch Frederick II and Akbar are said to have tried similar experiments; the children involved in these experiments did not speak. The current situation of deaf people also points into this direction.^{[clarification needed]}

History of research[edit]

Modern linguistics did not begin until the late 18th century, and the Romantic or animist theses of Johann Gottfried Herder and Johann Christoph Adelung remained influential well into the 19th century. The question of language origin seemed inaccessible to methodical approaches, and in 1866 the Linguistic Society of Paris famously banned all discussion of the origin of language, deeming it to be an unanswerable problem. An increasingly systematic approach to historical linguistics developed in the course of the 19th century, reaching its culmination in the Neogrammarian school of Karl Brugmann and others.^{[citation needed]}

However, scholarly interest in the question of the origin of language has only gradually been rekindled^{[colloquialism]} from the 1950s on (and then controversially) with ideas such as universal grammar, mass comparison and glottochronology.^{[citation needed]}

The «origin of language» as a subject in its own right emerged from studies in neurolinguistics, psycholinguistics and human evolution. The Linguistic Bibliography introduced «Origin of language» as a separate heading in 1988, as a sub-topic of psycholinguistics. Dedicated research institutes of evolutionary linguistics are a recent phenomenon, emerging only in the 1990s.^[213]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

• Origin of Language – Givens, David B.
• Behavioral and Biological Origins of Modern Humans – Klein, Richard G.
• The Origin of Language – Vajda, Edward
• First Language Acquisition – Vajda, Edward
• Speaking in Tongues: The History of Language Archived 21 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine
• Decoding Chomsky: Science and revolutionary politics – Chris Knight

1.  The Divine Source

In most religions, it is believed that language is a God-given gift to human species. In Christianity, God gave Adam the kingdom of all animals in the Garden of Eden and the first thing Adam did was to name these animals. That is how language started according to religious sources. Today people speak many different languages rather than only one language because ancient humans became too proud and they tried to build the Tower of Babel in order to reach God. So, God punished them by separating their languages.

People tried to discover the original divine language which was spoken by our most ancient ancestors. They assumed that if a child was brought up without hearing any language, the first word the child would utter would be in this divine language.

2. The Natural Sound Source

• ‘The “Bow-bow” Theory’

All languages have sounds that mimic the natural sounds. These are called onomatopoeic words. Some examples from Turkish are şırıl şırıl, hav hav, miyav, lıkır lıkır, etc. One belief is that human languages originated from these onomatopoeic words that mimic the sounds of entities or actions to which they refer. Thus, for example, miyav originally would be a word to refer to cats.

• ‘ The “Pooh-pooh” Theory’

According to this assumption language originated with the use of sounds that reflect emotions such as pain, fear, hunger, surprise, and the sounds of laughter and crying, etc. Some examples of these sounds are üf, ayyy, yaa, vay, etc. However, these sounds of emotion do not necessarily exist in the vocabulary of human language. Therefore, it is not plausible to assume that sounds of emotion are the basis for human language.
 

• ‘The “Yo-heave-ho” Theory’

According to this proposal, early human beings used some sounds when they were doing some collaborative work. For example, when they were lifting a huge animal that they hunted, they used sounds to do their task for physical coordination and to reach their message to their friends that they share the burden of their job. It is claimed that these sounds eventually turned out into a language.

3. The Oral-Gesture Source

People use some nonverbal communication when they speak. For example, we wave hands to say good-bye; we nod our heads to show our approval or to mean ‘yes’, we produce a sound by our tongue when we mean ‘no’. The oral-gesture source suggests that language started with the gestures that we use by our mouth and other speech organs.

4. Glossogenetics

Our ancestors became bipedal (standing and walking on their two legs) about 3.5 million years ago. When these humans could stand on their two legs, their larynx (a speech organ behind Adam’s apple in the human throat) changed in a way to allow humans to produce vowel and consonant sounds in human languages. Human language developed as a result of this evolutionary change.

5. Physiological Adaptation

Unlike human beings, no other species can use language because other animals have a very different physiology than human beings. Modern human beings have vocal tract for speaking. Human mouth is small, which makes it easier to open and close for fast speech production. Human teeth are in upright position and are regular in size, which allows us to produce sounds such as, f and v. Human mouth has a complicated muscle system, which allows us to produce various vowels. Our tongue can move backwards, forwards, up and down. This allows us to produce various speech sounds. In fact without these speech organs, human beings could not have spoken.

In addition, to these changes, human brain has gone through a number of changes, it became much bigger and specialized for language.

Researchers have claimed that human beings adapted all these physiological changes throughout their history and these changes caused the emergence of human language.

Interactions and Transactions

Human language has two functions: Interactional and transactional. The interactional function pertains to our contact with other people socially and expressing our emotions. For example, we greet people, we ask them how they are, we chat about weather, we show our friendliness and hostility either by using gestures or by means of language. We also use language to transmit knowledge, skills, and information. For example, we give lectures, we give recipes about how to cook spinach, we talk about how to build houses, we talk about news, etc. This is known as the transactional function of language.

The transactional function of language can only be transferred by means of language. In other words, we can not educate our children by using our gestures, we can not transmit knowledge about our past by only using body movements.

According to some scholars, the reason why we, human beings, have developed human language is to be able to record our knowledge and pass it to other generations and to share knowledge and information with other people. In other words, the transactional function of language is a motivation for its origin. It is also considered to be the motivation for the eventual development of the writing systems.

Activity  – ORIGINS OF LANGUAGE

Activity 1

Divine Source

1. How does the language comes from?
2. How did language start according to Christianity?
3. Nowadays, why do people speak many different languages?
4. What kind of experiment did an Egyptian pharaoh do around 600 BC.?

Oral-Gesture Source

1. What does this source sugests?

2. How is the connection between physical and oral gestures?

3.- Name at least 3 organs for the oral gesture

4.- Provide an example of the Oral-Gesture theory

5.- What is the proposal of Sir Richard Paget (1930)?

Glossogenetics

1.- Glossogenetics is focused on _________________________________________________________________ (Complete)

2.- Human ancestors made the transition to _________________________________________________________________ (Complete)

3.- What is the main change seen in Neanderthal?

Physiological Adaptation

1.- What were the changes needed for humans to be able to speak?

2.- The term “voice box”, what does it refer to?

3.- What makes human brain unique?

Interactions and Transactions

1.- What is the Interactional function?

2.- What is the Transactional function?

Activity 2

Describe in your own words which theory best describes the Origin of Language. Support your answer with facts, quotes, opinions, etc.

(To check your answers, please go to home and check the link: Activities Keyword)

*You may require checking other sources

The origin of language is the emergence of language in the human species. This is a highly controversial topic, empirical evidence being so limited that many regard it as unsuitable for serious scholars. In 1866, the Linguistic Society of Paris went so far as to ban debates on the subject — a prohibition which remained influential across much of the western world until late in the twentieth century.^[1] Today, there are numerous hypotheses about how, why, when and where language might first have emerged — almost as many hypotheses as there are researchers in the field.^[2] To an outsider, it might seem that there is hardly more agreement today than there was a hundred years ago, when Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection provoked a rash of armchair speculations on the topic.^[3] Since the early 1990s, however, a growing number of professional linguists, archaeologists, psychologists, anthropologists and others have attempted to address with new methods what they are beginning to consider ‘the hardest problem in science’.^[4]

Theories about the origin of language can be divided according to their underlying assumptions. ‘Continuity theories’ are based on the idea that language is so complex that one cannot imagine it simply appearing from nothing in its final form: it must have evolved from earlier pre-linguistic systems among our primate ancestors. ‘Discontinuity theories’ are based on the opposite idea — that language is so unique a trait that it cannot be compared to anything found among non-humans and must therefore have appeared fairly suddenly during the course of human evolution. Another contrast is between theories that see language mostly as an innate faculty that is largely genetically encoded, and those that see it as a system that is mainly cultural — that is, learned through social interaction.^[5]

Origin of language

Noam Chomksy
Born	7 December 1928

Currently the only prominent discontinuity theorist is Noam Chomsky. When pressed to explain language’s origins, Chomsky replies that we cannot know: ‘To tell a fairy story about it, it is almost as if there was some higher primate wandering around a long time ago and some random mutation took place, maybe after some strange cosmic ray shower, and it reorganized the brain, implanting a language organ in an otherwise primate brain’. While cautioning against accepting this literally, Chomsky insists that ‘it may be closer to reality than many other fairy tales that are told about evolutionary processes, including language’.^[6]

There is a long history of study of origin of language, asking how it arose from calls of apes and so forth. That investigation in my view is a complete waste of time, because language is based on an entirely different principle than any animal communication system.

— Noam Chomsky, 1988. Language and Problems of Knowledge.^[7]

More recently, Chomsky has gone further in arguing that a single chance mutation really did occur in one individual, triggering the ‘instantaneous’ emergence of language in ‘perfect’ or ‘near-perfect’ form.^[8][9]

Continuity based theories are currently held by a majority of scholars, but they vary in how they envision this development. Among those who see language as being mostly innate, some — notably Steven Pinker^[10] — avoid speculating about specific precursors in nonhuman primates, stressing simply that the language faculty must have evolved in the usual gradualistic way.^[11] Others in this intellectual camp — notably Ib Ulbaek^[12] — hold that language evolved not from primate communication but from primate cognition, which is significantly more complex. Those who see language as a socially learned tool of communication, such as Michael Tomasello, envisage it developing from those aspects of primate communication which are cognitively controlled, these being mostly gestural as opposed to vocal.^[13][14] Where vocal precursors are concerned, many continuity theorists envisage language evolving from early human capacities for song.^[15][16]

Transcending the continuity-versus-discontinuity divide are those who view the emergence of language as the consequence of some kind of social transformation^[17] which, by generating unprecedented levels of public trust, liberated a genetic potential for linguistic creativity that had previously lain dormant.^[18][19][20] ‘Ritual/speech coevolution theory’ is an example of this approach.^[21][22] Scholars in this intellectual camp point to the fact that even chimpanzees and bonobos have latent symbolic capacities which, in the wild, are rarely if ever used.^[23]

Because the emergence of language is located so far back in human prehistory, the relevant developments have left no direct historical traces; nor can comparable processes be observed today. Despite this, the emergence of new sign languages in modern times — Nicaraguan Sign Language, for example — might potentially offer insights into the developmental stages and creative processes necessarily involved.^[24] Another approach has been to inspect early human fossils, looking for traces of physical adaptation to language use.^[25][26] In some cases, when the DNA of extinct humans can be recovered, the presence or absence of supposedly language-relevant genes — FOXP2 is an example — might prove informative.^[27] Another approach, this time archeological, is to invoke symbolic behaviour (such as repeated ritual activity) which may potentially leave an archaeological trace — the mining and modification of ochre pigments for use in body-painting, for example — while developing theoretical arguments to justify inferences from symbolism in general to language in particular.^[28][29][30]

The time range for the evolution of language and/or its anatomical prerequisites extends, at least in principle, from the phylogenetic divergence of Homo (2.3 to 2.4 million years ago) from Pan (5 to 6 million years ago) to the emergence of full behavioral modernity some 150,000 — 50,000 years ago. It is mostly undisputed that pre-human australopithecines did not have communication systems significantly different from those found in great apes in general,^[31] but scholarly opinions vary as to the developments since the appearance of Homo some 2.5 million years ago. Some scholars assume the development of primitive language-like systems (proto-language) as early as Homo habilis, while others place the development of primitive symbolic communication only with Homo erectus (1.8 million years ago) or Homo heidelbergensis (0.6 million years ago) and the development of language proper with Homo sapiens less than 100,000 years ago.

Using statistical methods to estimate the time required to achieve the current spread and diversity in modern languages today, Johanna Nichols — a linguist at the University of California, Berkeley — argues that vocal language must have arisen in our species at least 100,000 years ago.^[32] This finding is independently supported by genetic, archaeological, palaeontological and much other evidence suggesting that language probably emerged somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa during the Middle Stone Age, roughly contemporaneous with the speciation of Homo sapiens.^[33]

Linguists agree that there are no existing «primitive» languages: all modern human populations speak languages of at least roughly comparable complexity and expressive power.^[34] However, the twentieth century doctrine that the world’s spoken languages are and always were identical and invariant in complexity is no longer accepted: much recent scholarship has explored how linguistic complexity varies between and within languages over historical time.^[35]

Evolutionary timeline

Primate language

Field primatologists can give us useful insights into great ape communication in the wild.^[36] The main finding is that non-human primates, including the great apes, produce calls which are graded as opposed to categorically differentiated, with listeners striving to evaluate subtle gradations in signallers’ emotional and bodily states.^[37] The anatomical structure of their larynxes does not enable apes to make many of the sounds that modern humans do. In captivity, apes have been taught rudimentary sign language and the use of lexigrams—symbols that do not graphically resemble their corresponding words—on computer keyboards. Some apes, such as Kanzi, have been able to learn and use hundreds of lexigrams.

The Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas in the primate brain are responsible for controlling the muscles of the face, tongue, mouth, and larynx, as well as recognizing sounds. Primates are known to make «vocal calls,» and these calls are generated by circuits in the brainstem and limbic system.^[38] Howewer, modern brain scans of chattering chimpanzees prove that they use Brocas area to chatter ^[39] and there is evidence that monkeys hearing monkey chatter use the same brain regions as humans hearing speech.^[40]

In the wild, the communication of vervet monkeys has been the most extensively studied.^[41] They are known to make up to ten different vocalizations. Many of these are used to warn other members of the group about approaching predators. They include a «leopard call», a «snake call», and an «eagle call». Each call triggers a different defensive strategy in the monkeys that hear the call and scientists were able to elicit predictable responses from the monkeys using loudspeakers and prerecorded sounds. Other vocalizations may be used for identification. If an infant monkey calls, its mother turns toward it, but other vervet mothers turn instead toward that infant’s mother to see what she will do.^[42]

Similarly, researchers have demonstrated that chimpanzees (in captivity) use different «words» in reference to different foods. They recorded vocalizations that chimps made in reference, for example, to grapes, and then other chimps pointed at pictures of grapes when they heard the recorded sound.

Early Homo

Regarding articulation, there is considerable speculation about the language capabilities of early Homo (2.5 to 0.8 million years ago). Anatomically, some scholars believe features of bipedalism which developed in australopithecines around 3.5 million years ago would have brought changes to the skull, allowing for a more L-shaped vocal tract. The shape of the tract and a larynx positioned relatively low in the neck are necessary prerequisites for many of the sounds humans make, particularly vowels. Other scholars believe that, based on the position of the larynx, not even Neanderthals had the anatomy necessary to produce the full range of sounds modern humans make.^[43][44] Still another view considers the lowering of the larynx irrelevant to the development of speech.^[45]

The term proto-language, as defined by linguist Derek Bickerton, is a primitive form of communication lacking:

• a fully developed syntax
• tense, aspect, auxiliary verbs, etc.
• a closed-class (i.e. non-lexical) vocabulary

That is, a stage in the evolution of language somewhere between great ape language and fully developed modern human language. Bickerton (2009) places the first emergence of such a proto-language with the earliest appearance of Homo, and associates its appearance with the pressure of behavioral adaptation to the niche construction of scavenging faced by Homo habilis.^[46]

Anatomical features such as the L-shaped vocal tract have been continuously evolving, as opposed to appearing suddenly.^[47] Hence it is most likely that Homo habilis and Homo erectus during the Lower Pleistocene had some form of communication intermediate between that of modern humans and that of other primates.^[48]

Archaic Homo sapiens

Steven Mithen proposed the term Hmmmmm for the pre-linguistic system of communication used by archaic Homo, beginning with Homo ergaster and reaching the highest sophistification in the Middle Pleistocene with Homo heidelbergensis and Homo neanderthalensis. Hmmmmm is an acronym for holistic (non-compositional), manipulative (utterances are commands or suggestions, not descriptive statements), multi-modal (acoustic as well as gestural and mimetic), musical, and memetic.^[49]

Homo heidelbergensis

H. heidelbergensis was a close relative (most probably a migratory descendant) of Homo ergaster. H. ergaster is thought to be the first hominid to vocalize,^[50] and that as H. heidelbergensis developed more sophisticated culture proceeded from this point and possibly developed an early form of symbolic language.

Homo neanderthalensis

The discovery in 2007 of a Neanderthal hyoid bone suggests that Neanderthals may have been anatomically capable of producing sounds similar to modern humans. The hypoglossal nerve, which passes through the canal, controls the movements of the tongue and its size is said to reflect speech abilities. Hominids who lived earlier than 300,000 years ago had hypoglossal canals more akin to those of chimpanzees than of humans.^[51][52][53]

However, although Neanderthals may have been anatomically able to speak, Richard G. Klein in 2004 doubted that they possessed a fully modern language. He largely bases his doubts on the fossil record of archaic humans and their stone tool kit. For 2 million years following the emergence of Homo habilis, the stone tool technology of hominids changed very little. Klein, who has worked extensively on ancient stone tools, describes the crude stone tool kit of archaic humans as impossible to break down into categories based on their function, and reports that Neanderthals seem to have had little concern for the final form of their tools. Klein argues that the Neanderthal brain may have not reached the level of complexity required for modern speech, even if the physical apparatus for speech production was well-developed.^[54][55] The issue of the Neanderthal’s level of cultural and technological sophistication remains a controversial one.

Homo sapiens

Anatomically modern humans first appear in the fossil record 195,000 years ago in Ethiopia. But while they were modern anatomically, the archaeological evidence available leaves little indication that they behaved any differently from the earlier Homo heidelbergensis. They retained the same Acheulean stone tools and hunted less efficiently than did modern humans of the Late Pleistocene.^[56] The transition to the more sophisticated Mousterian takes place only about 120,000 years ago, and is shared by both H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis.

The development of fully modern behavior in H. sapiens, not shared by H. neanderthalensis or any other variety of Homo, is dated to some 70,000 to 50,000 years ago.

The development of more sophisticated tools, for the first time constructed out of more than one material (e.g. bone or antler) and sortable into different categories of function (such as projectile points, engraving tools, knife blades, and drilling and piercing tools) are often taken as proof for the presence of fully developed language, assumed to be necessary for the teaching of the processes of manufacture to offspring.^[54][57]

The greatest step^{[dubious – discuss]} in language evolution would have been the progression from primitive, pidgin-like communication to a creole-like language with all the grammar and syntax of modern languages.^[41]

Some scholars believe that this step could only have been accomplished with some biological change to the brain, such as a mutation. It has been suggested that a gene such as FOXP2 may have undergone a mutation allowing humans to communicate.^{[dubious – discuss]} However, recent genetic studies have shown that Neandertals shared the same FOXP2 allele with H. sapiens.^[58] It hence does not have a mutation unique to H. sapiens. Instead, it indicates this genetic change predates the Neandertal — H. sapiens split.

There is still considerable debate as to whether language developed gradually over thousands of years or whether it appeared suddenly.

The Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas of the primate brain also appear in the human brain, the first area being involved in many cognitive and perceptual tasks, the latter lending to language skills. The same circuits discussed in the primates’ brain stem and limbic system control non-verbal sounds in humans (laughing, crying, etc.), which suggests that the human language center is a modification of neural circuits common to all primates. This modification and its skill for linguistic communication seem to be unique to humans, which implies that the language organ derived after the human lineage split from the primate (chimps and bonobos) lineage. Plainly stated, spoken language is a modification of the larynx that is unique to humans.^[38]

According to the Out of Africa hypothesis, around 50,000 years ago^[59] a group of humans left Africa and proceeded to inhabit the rest of the world, including Australia and the Americas, which had never been populated by archaic hominids. Some scientists^[60] believe that Homo sapiens did not leave Africa before that, because they had not yet attained modern cognition and language, and consequently lacked the skills or the numbers required to migrate. However, given the fact that Homo erectus managed to leave the continent much earlier (without extensive use of language, sophisticated tools, nor anatomical modernity), the reasons why anatomically modern humans remained in Africa for such a long period remain unclear.

Language origin hypotheses

Early evolutionist speculations

I cannot doubt that language owes its origin to the imitation and modification, aided by signs and gestures, of various natural sounds, the voices of other animals, and man’s own instinctive cries.

— Charles Darwin, 1871. The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex.^[61]

In 1861, historical linguist Max Müller published a list of speculative theories concerning the origins of spoken language:^[62]

• Bow-wow. The bow-wow or cuckoo theory, which Müller attributed to the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder, saw early words as imitations of the cries of beasts and birds.
• Pooh-pooh. The Pooh-Pooh theory saw the first words as emotional interjections and exclamations triggered by pain, pleasure, surprise and so on.
• Ding-dong. Müller himself suggested what he termed the Ding-Dong theory, according to which all things have a vibrating natural resonance, echoed somehow by man in his earliest words.
• Yo-he-ho. The yo-he-ho theory saw language emerging out of collective rhythmic labour, the attempt to synchronise muscular effort resulting in sounds such as heave alternating with sounds such as ho.
• Ta-ta. This did not feature in Max Müller’s list, having been proposed in 1930 by Sir Richard Paget.^[63] According to the ta-ta theory, the earliest words were produced by tongue movements which mimicked manual gestures, rendering them audible.

Most scholars today consider all such theories not so much wrong — they occasionally offer peripheral insights —as comically naïve and irrelevant.^[64][65]

Problems of reliability and deception

From the perspective of modern Darwinian science, the main obstacle to the evolution of language-like communication in nature is the fact that symbols — social conventions — are unreliable and may well be false.^[66] As the saying goes, ‘words are cheap.’^[67] The problem of reliability was not recognised at all by Darwin, Müller or the other early evolutionist theorists.

Animal vocal signals are for the most part intrinsically reliable. When a cat purrs, the signal constitutes direct evidence of the animal’s contented state. We can ‘trust’ the signal not because the cat is honest, but because it just can’t fake that sound. Primate vocal calls may be slightly more manipulable, but they remain reliable because hard to fake.^[68] Primate social intelligence is ‘Machiavellian’, which means self-serving and unconstrained by moral scruples. Monkeys and apes often attempt to deceive one another, while at the same time constantly on guard against falling victim to deception themselves.^[69] Paradoxically, it is precisely primates’ resistance to the very possibility of being deceived which blocks the evolution of their signalling systems along language-like lines. Language is ruled out because the best way to guard against being deceived is to ignore all signals except those whose reliability can be instantly checked out. Words automatically fail this test.^[70]

Words are easy to fake. If they frequently turned out to be lies, listeners would adapt by ignoring them. For language to work, then, listeners must be confident that speakers will generally be honest.^[71] A peculiar feature of language is ‘displaced reference’, which means reference to topics outside the currently perceptible situation. This property prevents utterances from being corroborated in the immediate ‘here’ and ‘now’. Language, for that reason, presupposes unusual levels of trust. A theory of its origins must therefore explain why humans could begin trusting one another in ways that other animals apparently cannot.

a) The ‘mother tongues’ hypothesis

The ‘mother tongues’ hypothesis was proposed in 2004 as a possible solution to this problem.^[72] W. Tecumseh Fitch suggested that the Darwinian principle of ‘kin selection’^[73] — the convergence of genetic interests between relatives — might be part of the answer. Fitch suggests that languages were originally ‘mother tongues’. If language evolved initially for communication between mothers and their own biological offspring, extending later to include adult relatives as well, the interests of speakers and listeners would have tended to coincide. Fitch argues that shared genetic interests would have led to sufficient trust and cooperation for intrinsically unreliable signals — words — to become accepted as trustworthy and so begin evolving for the first time.

Critics of this theory point out that kin selection is not unique to humans. Ape mothers also share genes with their offspring, as do all animals, so why is it only humans who speak? Furthermore, it is difficult to believe that early humans restricted linguistic communication to genetic kin: the incest taboo must have forced men and women to interact and communicate with non-kin. So even if we accept Fitch’s initial premises, the extension of the posited ‘mother tongue’ networks from relatives to non-relatives remains unexplained.

b) The ‘obligatory reciprocal altruism’ hypothesis

Ib Ulbaek^[74] invokes another standard Darwinian principle — ‘reciprocal altruism’^[75] — to explain the unusually high levels of intentional honesty necessary for language to evolve. ‘Reciprocal altruism’ can be expressed as the principle that if you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. In linguistic terms, it would mean that if you speak truthfully to me, I’ll speak truthfully to you. Ordinary Darwinian reciprocal altruism, Ulbaek points out, is a relationship established between frequently interacting individuals. For language to prevail across an entire community, however, the necessary reciprocity would have needed to be enforced universally instead of being left to individual choice. Ulbaek concludes that for language to evolve, early society as a whole must have been subject to moral regulation.

Critics point out that this theory fails to explain when, how, why or by whom ‘obligatory reciprocal altruism’ could possibly have been enforced. Various proposals have been offered to remedy this defect.^[76] A further criticism is that language doesn’t work on the basis of reciprocal altruism anyway. Humans in conversational groups don’t withhold information to all except listeners likely to offer valuable information in return. On the contrary, they seem to want to advertise to the world their access to socially relevant information, broadcasting it to anyone who will listen without thought of return.^[77]

c) The gossip and grooming hypothesis

Gossip, according to Robin Dunbar, does for group-living humans what manual grooming does for other primates — it allows individuals to service their relationships and so maintain their alliances on the basis of the principle, if you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. As humans began living in larger and larger social groups, the task of manually grooming all one’s friends and acquaintances became so time-consuming as to be unaffordable. In response to this problem, humans invented ‘a cheap and ultra-efficient form of grooming’ — vocal grooming. To keep your allies happy, you now needed only to ‘groom’ them with low-cost vocal sounds, servicing multiple allies simultaneously while keeping both hands free for other tasks. Vocal grooming then evolved gradually into spoken language — initially in the form of ‘gossip’.^[78]

Critics of this theory point out that the very efficiency of ‘vocal grooming’ — the fact that words are so cheap — would have undermined its capacity to signal commitment of the kind conveyed by time-consuming and costly manual grooming.^[79] A further criticism is that the theory does nothing to explain the crucial transition from vocal grooming — the production of pleasing but meaningless sounds — to the cognitive complexities of syntactical speech.

d) Ritual/speech coevolution

The ritual/speech coevolution theory was originally proposed by the distinguished social anthropologist Roy Rappaport^[80] before being elaborated by anthropologists such as Chris Knight,^[81] Jerome Lewis,^[82] Nick Enfield,^[83] Camilla Power^[84] and Ian Watts.^[85] Cognitive scientist and robotics engineer Luc Steels^[86] is another prominent supporter of this approach.

These scholars argue that there can be no such thing as a ‘theory of the origins of language’. This is because language is not a separate adaptation but an internal aspect of something much wider — namely, human symbolic culture as a whole.^[87] Attempts to explain language independently of this wider context have spectacularly failed, say these scientists, because they are addressing a problem which has no solution. Can we imagine a historian attempting to explain the emergence of credit cards independently of the wider system of which they are a part? Using a credit card makes sense only if you have a bank account institutionally recognised within a certain kind of advanced capitalist society — one in which electronic communications technology and digital computers have already been invented and fraud can be detected and prevented. In much the same way, language would not work outside a specific array of social mechanisms and institutions. For example, it would not work for an ape communicating with other apes in the wild. Not even the cleverest ape could make language work under such conditions.

Lie and alternative, inherent in language…pose problems to any society whose structure is founded on language, which is to say all human societies. I have therefore argued that if there are to be words at all it is necessary to establish The Word, and that The Word is established by the invariance of liturgy.

— Roy Rappaport, 1979. Ecology, Meaning and Religion, pp. 210-11.^[88]

Advocates of this school of thought point out that words are cheap. As digital hallucinations, they are intrinsically unreliable. Should an especially clever ape — or even a group of articulate apes — try to use words in the wild, they would carry no conviction. The primate vocalisations which do carry conviction — those which are actually used — are quite unlike words in being emotionally expressive, intrinsically meaningful and reliable in that they are relatively costly and hard-to-fake.

Language consists of digital contrasts whose cost is essentially zero. As pure social conventions, signals of this kind cannot evolve in a Darwinian social world — they are a theoretical impossibility.^[89] Being intrinsically unreliable, language works only if you can build up a reputation for trustworthiness within a certain kind of society — namely, one in which symbolic cultural facts (sometimes termed ‘institutional facts’) can be established and maintained through collective social endorsement.^[90] In any hunter-gatherer society, the basic mechanism for establishing trust in symbolic cultural facts is collective ritual.^[91] Therefore, the task facing researchers into the origins of language is more multidisciplinary than is usually supposed. It involves addressing the evolutionary emergence of human symbolic culture as a whole, with language an important but subsidiary component.

Critics of the theory include Noam Chomsky, who terms it the ‘non-existence’ hypothesis — a denial of the very existence of language as an object of study for natural science.^[92] Chomsky’s own theory is that language emerged in an instant and in perfect form,^[93], prompting his critics in turn to retort that only something which did not exist — a theoretical construct or convenient social fiction — could possibly emerge in such a miraculous way.^[94] The controversy remains unresolved.

Gestural theory

The gestural theory states that human language developed from gestures that were used for simple communication.

Two types of evidence support this theory.

1. Gestural language and vocal language depend on similar neural systems. The regions on the cortex that are responsible for mouth and hand movements border each other.
2. Nonhuman primates can use gestures or symbols for at least primitive communication, and some of their gestures resemble those of humans, such as the «begging posture», with the hands stretched out, which humans share with chimpanzees.^[95]

Research has found strong support for the idea that verbal language and sign language depend on similar neural structures. Patients who used sign language, and who suffered from a left-hemisphere lesion, showed the same disorders with their sign language as vocal patients did with their spoken language.^[96] Other researchers found that the same left-hemisphere brain regions were active during sign language as during the use of vocal or written language.^[97]

The important question for gestural theories is why there was a shift to vocalization. There are three likely explanations:

1. Our ancestors started to use more and more tools, meaning that their hands were occupied and could not be used for gesturing.
2. Gesturing requires that the communicating individuals can see each other. There are many situations in which individuals need to communicate even without visual contact, for instance when a predator is closing in on somebody who is up in a tree picking fruit.
3. The need to co-operate effectively with others in order to survive. A command issued by a tribal leader to ‘find’ ‘stones’ to ‘repel’ attacking ‘wolves’ would create teamwork and a much more powerful, co-ordinated response.

Humans still use hand and facial gestures when they speak, especially when people meet who have no language in common.^[98] There are also, of course, a great number of sign languages still in existence, commonly associated with Deaf communities; it is important to note that these signed languages are equal in complexity, sophistication, and expressive power, to any spoken language—the cognitive functions are similar and the parts of the brain used are similar. The main difference is that the «phonemes» are produced on the outside of the body, articulated with hands, body, and facial expression, rather than inside the body articulated with tongue, teeth, lips, and breathing.

Critics of gestural theory note that it is difficult to name serious reasons why the initial pitch-based vocal communication (which is present in primates) would be abandoned in favour of the much less effective non-vocal, gestural communication. Other challenges to the «gesture-first» theory have been presented by researchers in psycholinguistics, including David McNeill.

Self-domesticated ape theory

According to a study investigating the song differences between white-rumped Munias and its domesticated counterpart (Bengalese finch), the wild munias use a highly stereotyped song sequence, whereas the domesticated ones sing a highly unconstrained song. In wild finches, song syntax is subject to female preference — sexual selection — and remains relatively fixed. However, in the Bengalese finch, natural selection is replaced by breeding, in this case for colorful plumage. Thus decoupled from selective pressures, stereotyped song syntax is allowed to drift. It is replaced, within 1000 generations, by a variable and learned sequence. Wild finches, moreover, are incapable of learning song sequences from other finches. ^[99] In the field of bird vocalization, brains capable of producing only an innate song have very simple neural pathways: the primary forebrain motor center, called the robust nucleus of arcopallium (RA), connects to midbrain vocal outputs which in turn project to brainstem motor nuclei. By contrast, in brains capable of learning songs, the RA receives input from numerous additional forebrain regions, including those involved in learning and social experience. Control over song generation has become less constrained, more distributed, and more flexible.

When compared with other primates, whose communication system is restricted to a highly stereotypic repertoire of hoots and calls, humans have very few prespecified vocalizations, extant examples being laughter and sobbing. Moreover, these remaining innate vocalizations are generated by restricted neuronal pathways, whereas language is generated by a highly distributed system involving numerous regions of the human brain.

A salient feature of language is that while language competency is inherited, the languages themselves are transmitted via culture. Also transmitted via culture are understandings, such as technological ways of doing things, that are framed as language-based explanations. Hence one would expect a robust co-evolutionary trajectory between language competency and culture: proto-humans capable of the first, and presumably rudimentary, versions of protolanguage would have better access to cultural understandings, and cultural understandings, conveyed in protolanguages that children’s brains could readily learn, were more likely to be transmitted, thereby conferring the benefits accrued.

Hence proto-humans indubitably engaged in, and continue to engage in, what is called niche construction, creating cultural niches that provide understandings key to survival, and undergoing evolutionary changes that optimize their ability to flourish in such niches. Selection pressures that operated to sustain instincts important for survival in prior niches would be expected to relax as humans became increasingly dependent on their self-created cultural niches, while any innovations that facilitated cultural adaptation—in this case, innovations in language competency—would be expected to spread.

One useful way to think about human evolution is that we are self-domesticated apes. Just as domestication relaxed selection for stereotypic songs in the finches—mate choice was supplanted by choices made by the aesthetic sensibilities of bird breeders and their customers—so might our cultural domestication have relaxed selection on many of our primate behavioral traits, allowing old pathways to degenerate and reconfigure. Given the highly indeterminate way that mammalian brains develop—they basically construct themselves «bottom up,» with one set of neuronal interactions setting the stage for the next round of interactions—degraded pathways would tend to seek out and find new opportunities for synaptic hookups. Such inherited de-differentiations of brain pathways might have contributed to the functional complexity that characterizes human language. And, as exemplified by the finches, such de-differentiations can occur in very rapid timeframes.^[100][101]

Communication, speech and language

Many scientists make a distinction between speech and language. They believe that language (as a context for communication, and primarily as a cognitive ability to form concepts and communicate them) was developed earlier in human evolution, and speech (one of the forms of communication) was developed much later. The presence of speech (without language) is also possible in some cases of human mental retardation or learning disabilities (like Specific Language Impairment) and is also known in the animal kingdom. For instance, talking birds are able to imitate human speech with varying ability. However, this ability to mimic human sounds is very different from the acquisition of syntax. Likewise, the production of speech sounds is not necessary for language use, as evidenced by modern sign languages, which use manual symbols and facial grammar as a basis for language rather than speech. Morse coding system, and the system of the Marine Signal Flags are other forms of communication, but not necessarily language.

It has been claimed that the key feature distinguishing human language from non-human communication systems is recursion.^[102] This linguistic sense of the term recursion involves the insertion (or embedding) of phrases within phrases as exhibited in the complex sentence «(The man with the old crusty eyepatch he wore since WWII) walked to (the store that burned down before his uncle had put down the downpayment)», or the less informative «The man walked to the store which the man who walked to the store walked to». This claim is still held by many researchers, but some evidence has been proposed which calls it into question. Experimenters at the University of Chicago found that starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) can acquire a grammar with recursion.^[103] The experimenters trained starlings on a context-free, center-embedding grammar. They report that starlings were able to recognize utterances that were grammatically acceptable and reject those that were not. Moreover, Daniel Everett claims that Pirahã is a human language that does not exhibit recursion.^[104]

It has been also suggested that the key feature of human language is the ability to ask questions.^[105] Some animals (notably bonobos and chimpanzees), who learned to communicate with their human trainers (using mostly visual forms of communication), demonstrated that they have the ability to correctly respond to complex questions and requests, but they failed to ask even the simplest questions themselves. Conversely, human children are able to ask their first questions (using only question intonation) at the babbling period of their development, long before they start using syntactic structures. It is crucially important that although babies from different cultures acquire native languages from their social environment, all languages of the world without exception – tonal, non-tonal, intonational and accented – use similar rising “question intonation” for yes-no questions.^[106][107] This fact is a strong proof of the universality of question intonation. It should also be noted that arbitrary expressions of joyful excitement, regardless of the language or nationality of the speaker, generally have falling intonation and this may also be universal.

Cognitive development and language

One of the intriguing abilities that language users have is that of high-level reference, or the ability to refer to things or states of being that are not in the immediate realm of the speaker. This ability is often related to theory of mind, or an awareness of the other as a being like the self with individual wants and intentions. According to Chomsky, Hauser and Fitch (2002), there are six main aspects of this high-level reference system:

• Theory of mind
• Capacity to acquire nonlinguistic conceptual representations, such as the object/kind distinction
• Referential vocal signals
• Imitation as a rational, intentional system
• Voluntary control over signal production as evidence of intentional communication
• Number representation

Theory of mind

Simon Baron-Cohen (1999) argues that theory of mind must have preceded language use, based on evidence of use of the following characteristics as much as 40,000 years ago: intentional communication, repairing failed communication, teaching, intentional persuasion, intentional deception, building shared plans and goals, intentional sharing of focus or topic, and pretending. Moreover, Baron-Cohen argues that many primates show some, but not all, of these abilities. Call and Tomasello’s research on chimpanzees supports this, in that individual chimps seem to understand that other chimps have awareness, knowledge, and intention, but do not seem to understand false beliefs. Many primates show some tendencies toward a theory of mind, but not a full one as humans have. Ultimately, there is some consensus within the field that a theory of mind is necessary for language use. Thus, the development of a full theory of mind in humans was a necessary precursor to full language use.

Number representation

In one particular study, rats and pigeons were required to press a button a certain number of times to get food: The animals showed very accurate distinction for numbers less than four, but as the numbers increased, the error rate increased (Chomsky, Hauser & Fitch, 2002). Matsuzawa (1985) attempted to teach chimpanzees Arabic numerals. The difference between primates and humans in this regard was very large, as it took the chimps thousands of trials to learn 1-9 with each number requiring a similar amount of training time; yet, after learning the meaning of 1, 2 and 3 (and sometimes 4), children easily comprehend the value of greater integers by using a successor function (i.e. 2 is 1 greater than 1, 3 is 1 greater than 2, 4 is 1 greater than 3; once 4 is reached it seems most children have an «a-ha!» moment and understand that the value any integer n is 1 greater than the previous integer). Put simply, other primates learn the meaning of numbers one by one similar to their approach to other referential symbols while children first learn an arbitrary list of symbols (1,2,3,4…) and then later learn their precise meanings.^[108] These results can be seen as evidence for the application of the «open-ended generative property» of language in human numeral cognition.^[109]

Linguistic structures

Universal grammar

Since children are largely responsible for creolization of a pidgin, scholars such as Derek Bickerton and Noam Chomsky concluded that humans are born with a universal grammar hardwired into their brains. This universal grammar consists of a wide range of grammatical models that include all the grammatical systems of the world’s languages. The default settings of this universal grammar are represented by the similarities apparent in creole languages. These default settings are overridden during the process of language acquisition by children to match the local language. When children learn language, they first learn the creole-like features more easily than the features that conflict with creole grammar.^[41]

An issue often cited as support for the Universal grammar theory is the development of Nicaraguan Sign Language. Beginning in 1979, the recently installed Nicaraguan government initiated the country’s first widespread effort to educate deaf children. Prior to this there was no deaf community in the country. A center for special education established a program initially attended by 50 young deaf children. By 1983 the center had 400 students. The center did not have access to teaching facilities of any of the sign languages that are used around the world; consequently, the children were not taught any sign language. The language program instead emphasized spoken Spanish and lipreading, and the use of signs by teachers limited to fingerspelling (using simple signs to sign the alphabet). The program achieved little success, with most students failing to grasp the concept of Spanish words.

The first children who arrived at the center came with only a few crude gestural signs developed within their own families. However, when the children were placed together for the first time they began to build on one another’s signs. As more and younger children joined, the language became more complex. The children’s teachers, who were having limited success at communicating with their students, watched in awe as the kids began communicating amongst themselves.

Later the Nicaraguan government solicited help from Judy Kegl, an American sign-language expert at Northeastern University. As Kegl and other researchers began to analyze the language, they noticed that the younger children had taken the pidgin-like form of the older children to a higher level of complexity, with verb agreement and other conventions of grammar (but no recursion).^[110]

Lexical-phonological principle

Hockett (1966) details a list of features regarded as essential to describing human language. In the domain of the lexical-phonological principle, two features of this list are most important:

• Productivity: users can create and understand completely novel messages.
  • New messages are freely coined by blending, analogizing from, or transforming old ones.
  • Either new or old elements are freely assigned new semantic loads by circumstances and context. This says that in every language, new idioms constantly come into existence.
• Duality (of Patterning): a large number of meaningful elements are made up of a conveniently small number of independently meaningless yet message-differentiating elements.

The sound system of a language is composed of a finite set of simple phonological items. Under the specific phonotactic rules of a given language, these items can be recombined and concatenated, giving rise to morphology and the open-ended lexicon. A key feature of language is that a simple, finite set of phonological items gives rise to an infinite lexical system wherein rules determine the form of each item, and meaning is inextricably linked with form. Phonological syntax, then, is a simple combination of pre-existing phonological units. Related to this is another essential feature of human language: lexical syntax, wherein pre-existing units are combined, giving rise to semantically novel or distinct lexical items.

Certain elements of the lexical-phonological principle are known to exist outside of humans. While all (or nearly all) have been documented in some form in the natural world, very few co-exist within the same species. Birdsong, singing apes, and the songs of whales all display phonological syntax, combining units of sound into larger structures devoid of enhanced or novel meaning. Certain species of primate do have simple phonological systems with units referring to entities in the world. However, in contrast to human systems, the units in these primates’ systems normally occur in isolation, betraying a lack of lexical syntax. There is new evidence to suggest that Campbell’s monkeys also display lexical syntax, combining two calls (a predator alarm call with a «boom», the combination of which denotes a lessened threat of danger), however it is still unclear whether this is a lexical or a morphological phenomenon.

Pidgins and creoles

Pidgins are significantly simplified languages with only rudimentary grammar and a restricted vocabulary. In their early stage pidgins mainly consist of nouns, verbs, and adjectives with few or no articles, prepositions, conjunctions or auxiliary verbs. Often the grammar has no fixed word order and the words have no inflection.^[41]

If contact is maintained between the groups speaking the pidgin for long periods of time, the pidgins may become more complex over many generations. If the children of one generation adopt the pidgin as their native language it develops into a creole language, which becomes fixed and acquires a more complex grammar, with fixed phonology, syntax, morphology, and syntactic embedding. The syntax and morphology of such languages may often have local innovations not obviously derived from any of the parent languages.

Studies of creole languages around the world have suggested that they display remarkable similarities in grammar and are developed uniformly from pidgins in a single generation. These similarities are apparent even when creoles do not share any common language origins. In addition, creoles share similarities despite being developed in isolation from each other. Syntactic similarities include subject–verb–object word order. Even when creoles are derived from languages with a different word order they often develop the SVO word order. Creoles tend to have similar usage patterns for definite and indefinite articles, and similar movement rules for phrase structures even when the parent languages do not.^[41]

Biological scenarios for language evolution

All human populations possess language. This includes populations, such as the Tasmanians and the Andamanese, who may have been isolated from the Old World continents for as long as 40,000 years.

Linguistic monogenesis is the hypothesis that there was a single proto-language, sometimes called Proto-Human, from which all other vocal languages spoken by humans descend. (This does not apply to sign languages, which are known to arise independently rather frequently.)

According to the Out of Africa hypothesis, all humans alive today are descended from Mitochondrial Eve, a woman estimated to have lived in Africa some 150,000 years ago. This raises the possibility that the Proto-Human language could date to approximately that period.^[111] There are also claims of a population bottleneck, notably the Toba catastrophe theory, which postulates human population at one point some 70,000 years ago was as low as 15,000 or even 2,000 individuals.^[112] If it did indeed transpire, such a bottleneck would be an excellent candidate for the date of Proto-Human, which also illustrates the fact that Proto-Human would not necessarily date to the first emergence of language.

The multiregional hypothesis would entail that modern language evolved independently on all the continents, a proposition considered implausible by proponents of monogenesis.^[113][114]

Biological foundations for human speech

The descended larynx was formerly viewed as a structure unique to the human vocal tract and essential to the development of speech and language. However, it has been found in other species, including some aquatic mammals and large deer (e.g. Red Deer), and the larynx has been observed to descend during vocalizations in dogs, goats, and alligators. In humans, the descended larynx extends the length of the vocal tract and expands the variety of sounds humans can produce. Some scholars claim that the ubiquity of nonverbal communication in humans stands as evidence of the non-essentiality of the descended larynx to the development of language.

The descended larynx has non-linguistic functions as well, possibly exaggerating the apparent size of an animal (through vocalizations with lower than expected pitch). Thus, although it plays an important role in speech production, expanding the variety of sounds humans can produce, it may not have evolved specifically for this purpose, as has been suggested by Jeffrey Laitman, and as per Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch (2002), could be an example of preadaptation.

History

In religion and mythology

The search for the origin of language has a long history rooted in mythology. Most mythologies do not credit humans with the invention of language but speak of a divine language predating human language. Mystical languages used to communicate with animals or spirits, such as the language of the birds, are also common, and were of particular interest during the Renaissance.

Historical experiments

History contains a number of anecdotes about people who attempted to discover the origin of language by experiment. The first such tale was told by Herodotus. He relates that Pharaoh Psammetichus (probably Psammetichus I) had two children raised by deaf-mutes in order to see what language they would speak. When the children were brought before him, one of them said something that sounded to the Pharaoh like bekos, the Phrygian word for bread. From this Psammetichus concluded that the first language was Phrygian. King James V of Scotland is said to have tried a similar experiment: his children were supposed to have spoken Hebrew.^[115] Both the medieval monarch Frederick II and Akbar are said to have tried similar experiments; the children involved in these experiments did not speak.^[116]

History of research

Late 18th to early 19th century European scholarship assumed that the languages of the world reflected various stages in the development from primitive to advanced speech, culminating in the Indo-European languages, seen as the most advanced.^{[citation needed]}

Modern linguistics does not begin until the late 18th century, and the Romantic or animist theses of Johann Gottfried Herder and Johann Christoph Adelung remained influential well into the 19th century. The question of language origins seemed inaccessible to methodical approaches, and in 1866 the Linguistic Society of Paris famously banned all discussion of the origin of language, deeming it to be an unanswerable problem. An increasingly systematic approach to historical linguistics developed in the course of the 19th century, reaching its culmination in the Neogrammarian school of Karl Brugmann and others.

However, scholarly interest in the question of the origin of language has only gradually been rekindled from the 1950s on (and then controversially) with ideas such as universal grammar, mass comparison and glottochronology.

The «origin of language» as a subject in its own right emerged out of studies in neurolinguistics, psycholinguistics and human evolution. The Linguistic Bibliography introduced «Origin of language» as a separate heading in 1988, as a sub-topic of psycholinguistics. Dedicated research institutes of evolutionary linguistics are a recent phenomenon, emerging only in the 1990s.

See also

• Essay on the Origin of Languages
• Human evolution
• Language acquisition
• Symbolic culture
• Origins of society
• Man’s First Word (children’s book)
• Proto-Human language

Footnotes

References

External links

• Lieberman, Philip; McCarthy, Robert C.; Strait, David (May 2006). «The recent origin of human speech». J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 119 (5): 3441–3441. http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=JASMAN000119000005003441000004&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes. Retrieved June 2010.
• Lieberman, P. (2007). «The evolution of human speech: Its anatomical and neural bases». Current Anthropology 48 (1): 39–66. doi:10.1086/509092. http://www.cog.brown.edu/people/lieberman/pdfFiles/Lieberman%20P.%202007.%20The%20evolution%20of%20human%20speech,%20Its%20anatom.pdf.

By John McWhorter, Ph.D., Columbia University

The origin of language can be a single proto-language that slowly evolved and was transported to different parts of the world. The similar words found in languages that look completely different can be supporting evidence. Regardless of the soundness of this theory, can words evolve drastically enough to look absolutely different from their origin?

If there is one word that sounds the same in distinct languages, will it show that these languages came from the same origin? For example, can tik be the origin of words that look very different today? A subclass of linguists, who study a group of Native American languages, works on the issue. They have reconstructed many words to their protoform. These linguists are called Algonquianists, and they try to find the origin of language.

Learn more about how language develops.

The Evolution of tik

Algonquianists reconstructed the words one and finger and concluded that they come from the root tik. The supporting idea is that people count one with the finger. The other supporting idea is that some languages still use similar words. For example, in Dinka – a Sudanese language – the word for one is tok. In Turkish, the word for only, that’s kind of like one, is tek.

In Old English, tahe was the word for toe, which is similar to a finger. In Japanese, te is hand, which is also related to fingering. In an Eskimo language, the word for index finger the word is tik. Examples are numerous, and they all pose one question: do they all come from the same origin?

This is a transcript from the video series The Story of Human Language. Watch it now, on Wondrium.

Written and Spoken Language

The language dates back to roughly 150,000 years ago. However, all the linguistic evidence dates back to around 6000 years ago, when writing began. Consequently, the major history of language is discovered through guesses and written evidence that is much newer than the era that the linguists study.

Does Proto-mammal Approve Proto-language?

Ruheln uses biological evolution to explain linguistic evolution. He argues that even though most scientists agree on the existence of a Proto-Mammal that later evolved to bats, cats, and humans. No fossil of Proto-Mammal has been discovered. There is even no need to discover Proto-Mammal bones and all the other creatures before cats and bats were evolved into completely separate species.

Categorizing some species in the mammalian family does not require fossils of every step of evolution, so why does language? If the fist mammal can be reconstructed, why can the first language not be? This looks logical, but the role of the accident is ignored.

Learn more about how language changes.

Do Japanese and English Have the Same Origin?

If the Proto-Mammal argument is applicable, then Japanese and English must have the same linguistic origin. There are supporting examples like mō that means more, sō that means so, nai, which means not, Mono is a single entity and more. This can apply to many pairs of languages. Another example is Thai: fii in Thai means fire, taii in Thai means tire, and rhim in Thai means rim.

Statistically speaking, it is normal to have such accidents among the 6000 languages of the world. Does this mean there is no systematic resemblance between distinct languages?

The Global Limits

There are limits that no language breaks: no language has 16 consonants at a time or seven vowels just running after each other. Another global limit is the use of clicks in languages, even though they can add more variety to the sounds of the language. This is another argument that supporters of the Proto-World theory use to prove the single origin of all languages.

The problem is that the similarities, the tiks, the global linguistic limits, and the arguments are not enough to testify the existence of the same pattern among all languages. Without enough evidence or a universal pattern, proving the origin of languages coming to the same root gets even more difficult.

Common Questions about Origin of Language

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What was the first language? How did language begin—where and when? Until recently, a sensible linguist would likely respond to such questions with a shrug and a sigh. As Bernard Campbell states flatly in «Humankind Emerging» (Allyn & Bacon, 2005), «We simply do not know, and never will, how or when language began.»

It’s hard to imagine a cultural phenomenon that’s more important than the development of language. And yet no human attribute offers less conclusive evidence regarding its origins. The mystery, says Christine Kenneally in her book «The First Word,» lies in the nature of the spoken word:

«For all its power to wound and seduce, speech is our most ephemeral creation; it is little more than air. It exits the body as a series of puffs and dissipates quickly into the atmosphere. … there are no verbs preserved in amber, no ossified nouns, and no prehistorical shrieks forever spread-eagled in the lava that took them by surprise.»

The absence of such evidence certainly hasn’t discouraged speculation about the origins of language. Over the centuries, many theories have been put forward—and just about all of them have been challenged, discounted, and often ridiculed. Each theory accounts for only a small part of what we know about language.

Here, identified by their disparaging nicknames, are five of the oldest and most common theories of how language began.

The Bow-Wow Theory

According to this theory, language began when our ancestors started imitating the natural sounds around them. The first speech was onomatopoeic—marked by echoic words such as moo, meow, splash, cuckoo, and bang. 

What’s wrong with this theory?

Relatively few words are onomatopoeic, and these words vary from one language to another. For instance, a dog’s bark is heard as au au in Brazil, ham ham in Albania, and wang, wang in China. In addition, many onomatopoeic words are of recent origin, and not all are derived from natural sounds.

The Ding-Dong Theory

This theory, favored by Plato and Pythagoras, maintains that speech arose in response to the essential qualities of objects in the environment. The original sounds people made were supposedly in harmony with the world around them.

What’s wrong with this theory?

Apart from some rare instances of sound symbolism, there is no persuasive evidence, in any language, of an innate connection between sound and meaning.

The La-La Theory

The Danish linguist Otto Jespersen suggested that language may have developed from sounds associated with love, play, and (especially) song.

What’s wrong with this theory?

As David Crystal notes in «How Language Works» (Penguin, 2005), this theory still fails to account for «… the gap between the emotional and the rational aspects of speech expression… .»

The Pooh-Pooh Theory

This theory holds that speech began with interjections—spontaneous cries of pain («Ouch!»), surprise («Oh!»), and other emotions («Yabba dabba do!»).

What’s wrong with this theory?

No language contains very many interjections, and, Crystal points out, «the clicks, intakes of breath, and other noises which are used in this way bear little relationship to the vowels and consonants found in phonology.»

The Yo-He-Ho Theory

According to this theory, language evolved from the grunts, groans, and snorts evoked by heavy physical labor.

What’s wrong with this theory?

Though this notion may account for some of the rhythmic features of the language, it doesn’t go very far in explaining where words come from.

As Peter Farb says in «Word Play: What Happens When People Talk» (Vintage, 1993): «All these speculations have serious flaws, and none can withstand the close scrutiny of present knowledge about the structure of language and about the evolution of our species.»

But does this mean that all questions about the origin of language are unanswerable? Not necessarily. Over the past 20 years, scholars from such diverse fields as genetics, anthropology, and cognitive science have been engaged, as Kenneally says, in «a cross-discipline, multidimensional treasure hunt» to find out how language began. It is, she says, «the hardest problem in science today.»

As William James remarked, «Language is the most imperfect and expensive means yet discovered for communicating thought.»

Introduction

There have been many attempts to unearth the origin of language, but “most of these are”, says E. Sapir, “hardly more than exercises of the speculative imagination.” Of the various theories advanced to explain the origin of language, four are well-known.

1.The Bow-wow Theory

This theory by Max Muller supposes that human speech originated in man’s attempt to imitate the sounds of nature. Thus a dog might be called “bow-wow”, or a cow “moo”. There is no denying the fact that such imitation accounts for a certain number of words in the English vocabulary e.g. cuckoo, hiss, gurgle, whistle, whine, babbie, prattle, hoopoe, peewit etc. Words that have this origin are sometimes said to be onomatopoeic. This theory forms a part of the larger subject of ‘sound symbolism‘.

2. The Ding-dong Theory

Another familiar theory of the origin of language is the ‘dingdong theory’. At one stage it was upheld by Max Muller but later it was abandoned. It sought to explain the correspondence between sound and sense, by a law of nature, a mysterious law of harmony, that everything that is struck rings and rings in a peculiar way. The words ‘zigzag’ and ‘dazzle’ may be cited as examples. In the opinion of Prof. Taraporewala, the Hindi word “Jana Gana” “Jog Mog” and a larger number of the Bengali words (Dhonatyak Shobdo) may come under this head. Reduplications for the sake of emphasis, as in “a big big man’, may come under this head.

3. The Pooh pooh Theory

This theory seeks the origin of language in such involuntary exclamations or interjections of pain, surprise, wonder, disapproval, pleasure as oh! bah! pshaw! fie, and the like. As a theory of the origin of language it stands upon a very slippery ground.

4. The Gesture Theory

This holds that language originates in gesture. This theory was formulated and advanced by Wilhelm Wundt and Sir Richard Paget. The gesture-theorists opine that the primitive people communicated with one another by means of gestures made by hand, and ultimately the language-equivalents were substituted for these gestures. Sir Percy Nunn in his book Education, its Data and first Principles develops his theory in full, and Macdonald Critchley deals with it elaborately in his work, The Language of Gesture.

They seem to point out that in saying ‘I’ and ‘me’ the lips are drawn inwards as if hinting at the speaker, and in saying ‘you’ and ‘thou’ the lips are moved outwards as if hinting at the person addressed. Similarly, in saying ‘here’ and ‘there’ the lips are drawn inwards and thrown outwards respectively.

5. The yo-he-ho Theory

Noire enunciated the ‘yo-he-ho theory’. He saw the source of speech in acts of joint or common work, in which, during intense physical effort, cries or sounds partly consonantal might be emitted. Such sounds might come to be associated with the work performed and so become a symbol for it; the first words would accordingly mean something like ‘heave’ or ‘haul’.

6. The ta-ta Theory

The idea of the origin of language is the use of tongue and mouth gestures to mimic manual gestures. For example, saying ta-ta is like waving goodbye with your tongue. But most of the things we talk about do not have characteristic gestures associated with them, much less gestures you can imitate with the tongue and mouth.

7. The la-la Theory

The idea that speech emerged from the sounds of inspired playfulness, love, poetic sensibility, and song. This one is lovely, and no more or less likely than any of the others.

8. Biblical Theory

Let us peep into the Biblical account of the origin of language which is contained in the second chapter in the book of Genesis. According to this account, “the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.” Afterwards he created trees and rivers. And then “out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field….” It is an account of the birth of language in man, who is placed at the centre of the world.

9. Another theory to be mentioned was adduced over a century ago in the early days of modern linguistics. In 1823 was published in Edinburgh The History of the European Languages by Alexander Murray, D.D.  In this work he states 9 words which he calls “the foundations of language.” They were uttered at first, and probably for several generations, in an insulated manner. The circumstances of the actions were communicated by gestures and variable tunes of the voice, but actions themselves were expressed through suitable monosyllables.

10. The last theory of the origin of language was proposed some years ago by the Danish linguist, Otto Jespersen. This language expert says, ‘we must imagine primitive language as consisting (chiefly, at least) of very long words, full of difficult sounds, and sung rather than spoken’. It is the strangest of all theories, but deserves serious thought because of the learning of the author.

Also Read:

Language : Definitions, Types, Functions, Approaches

Jespersen, unlike many other linguists of his day, was not prepared to accept the view that the origin of speech is unknowable. He suggested that “there once was a time when all speech was song, or rather when these two actions were not yet differentiated ….”

According to him,

“Language was born in the courting days of mankind; the first utterances of speech I fancy to myself like something between the nightly love-lyrics of puss upon the tiles and melodious love-songs of the nightingale.”

Conclusion

All the theories noted above are only partially true and do not seem to satisfy fully the intelligentsia. As they are many, they frustrate any attempt at arriving at an acceptable and convincing solution. For the present, we may rest content with ample knowledge of the theories alone.

The origin of spoken language has stumped linguistics dating as far back as the Twenty-sixth dynasty in Egypt and the first recorded language experiment conducted by a Pharaoh named Psammetichus I. While it is widely understood that our ability to communicate through speech sets us apart from other animals, language experts, historians and scientists can only hypothesize how, where and when it all began. Some new findings may provide some real insight into this conundrum.

A recent study conducted by Quentin D. Atkinson, a biologist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, suggests two very important findings: language originated only once, and the specific place of origin may be southwestern Africa.

While most studies focus on words in order to trace the birth of modern language, Atkinson zeroed in on phonemes (the basic distinctive units of sound by which words are represented) of over 500 languages around the world. By applying mathematical methods to linguistics, Atkinson discovered that the further humans traveled from Africa, the fewer number of phonemes survived.

To put this into perspective: Many African click languages or “click consonants,” found in all three Khoisan language families, have more than 100 phonemes while the languages of Oceania, the spoken language of the Pacific Islands, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand – the latter being the furthest migration route out of Africa, have only 13. The Modern English language has approximately 45 phonemes.

Atkinson’s findings challenge a long-held belief by linguistics that the origin of spoken language only dates back some 10,000 years. Atkinson hints that if African populations began their dispersal from Africa to Asia and Europe 60,000 years ago, perhaps the spoken language had to exist around that time and, as Atkinson hints at, may have been the catalyst for their dispersion and subsequent migration.

Theories of the origin of language are first discussed from a linguistic point of
view in secular writing. Evolution had less effect on linguistics than on other
social sciences, yet history shows that secondary effects were felt. No true link
has ever been found with animal communication. The work of Noam Chomsky brought
linguists back to uniquely human origins for language, but the question is so complex
that little headway can be made without investigation of mental factors. This survey
concludes that the creative, miraculous element must be invoked, and the Bible itself
gives hints of important features in the understanding of linguistic processes.

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iStockphoto

In discussing linguistic origins, people with some biblical background will often
confuse language and languages. In such a discussion, thoughts often settle first
on the Tower of Babel. However, the Bible indicates that there were two distinct
miraculous events: the original creation of Adam as a talking and understanding
being; and the subsequent division of humanity into language groups as a judgment
on the rebellion of the descendants of Noah. This article is concerned with the
former.

But first, the question of pre-programming for language, as against a learning process,
is not strictly relevant to the question of the creation of a linguistic ability.
However, the Lockean assumption of a “clean slate” before learning went
to extremes with behaviourists like B.F. Skinner, who dominated language learning
in mid-century. The arrival of the linguist Chomsky on the scene restored a balance,
in that it favoured a pre-programming prior to learning.

This pre-programming represented the universal human linguistic gift, quite distinct
from whether someone is a “good linguist”, meaning that they are good
at learning foreign languages. All humans have a “linguistic gift”,
given, I believe, at creation, but only some can operate in more than one specific
language easily. Our English language is deficient in that we cannot in argument
terminology distinguish between these two uses of the term “linguistic gift”.
In this article I deal with the ability to speak a “mothertongue”, which
is all I am referring to, and not to the additional gift of being what popular jargon
calls a “linguist”.

It was Noam Chomsky who restored interest in human universal ability to speak coherently,
and he restored the balance by criticising the “empty slate” stance
of Skinner and others, saying that this was insufficient to account for all the
facts. It is significant that Chomsky, though an agnostic, still regarded human
language as “miraculous”, distinguishing humans from animals. To that
extent he departed from some evolutionist assumptions. Naturally, a human exposed
to a specific language would not speak coherently, so there must be an environmental
catalyst. It is not true that feral children have no programmed ability to understand
any future language to which they would become exposed, as will be seen by reference
to evidence later in this article. It may be, of course, that if a feral child managed
to reach adulthood without ever contacting a language environment, such an ability
might have atrophied by the time of post-puberty, as hypothesised by some of the
Chomsky school.

But my chief aim in this article is to exult in the wonder of the signs of God’s
creative gift, as witnessed in the human mind.

Most secular writers have avoided the question during most of the twentieth century.
This attitude can be traced to the changed interests of linguists consequent on
the seminal work of Ferdinand de Saussure, especially the proposition that “states
of language” are far more significant to linguists than the history of language.¹ His terms were “synchronic”
(non-historical) as opposed to “diachronic” (historical) studies.

This was a reaction against the nineteenth century preoccupation with what used
to be called “philology”, in which etymology and the establishment of
boundaries between language families were key ingredients. The pendulum is slowly
swinging back to the study of language in history, partly through interest in the
way pidgins and Creoles come about, and in language change.

From animals to humans?

As regards the origin of language per se, it should be noted that when
evolution was first applied to linguistics, early attempts at linking human language
to animal communication were the chief subjects of debate. How could chattering
ape-folk transform a needs-motivated set of habits into the phonological complexity
we now call language? The animals can on their own terms communicate, but not in
the positive sense of reading the communicator’s mind or intentions, though
in those days “mind” was itself a taboo word. Most animal cries relate
to distress, belonging to the pack, mating approaches or antagonism.

After Darwin, most evolutionist linguists made the assumption that the Babel event
recorded in Scripture never really took place, or if it did, not in a miraculous
manner.² One might say that,
while evolutionists reject a literal Genesis anyway, in terms of emphasis:

• evolutionist linguists reject the Babel account
• evolutionist geologists reject the Noahic Flood account
• evolutionist biologists reject the account up to the creation of humans
• evolutionist astronomers reject Genesis 1:1–16

For example, Gamkrelidze and Ivanov claim that linguists can work backwards in the
way that microbiologists try to go back to understand the evolution of life. Linguists
have, they say, “reconstructed the vocabulary and syntax of the postulated
Indo-European protolanguage with increasing confidence and insight”.³ I would agree about the confidence,
but I’m not so sure about the insight! Study of the phonology, grammar and
lexis of ancient languages can do no more than associate diverse languages, or very
broadly identify language families. Study of vocabulary usually includes semantics,
through which it is hoped to understand non-linguistic features of ancient societies
and so assist anthropologists.

Shevoroshkin argued that language reflects a people’s social and practical
concerns and that this would be an improvement on conventional archaeology, which
cannot “speak” to us.⁴
In trying to reduce the number of distinct language families (and so avoid the miracle
of Babel), Shevoroshkin introduced the label “Nostratic” for the “reconstruction”
of a protolanguage linking five or six major language families. He focused on pronouns,
body parts and major features of the environment. But this is extremely speculative,
and depends on the researcher’s individual semantic interpretations.

However, the problem is that we have no absolute information to tell us how word
meanings had changed before the arrival of dictionaries, and even when lexicons
are available

1. they have to be dated from extra-linguistic artefacts and
2. other than obvious labelling, which is rare in ancient times, the exact meanings
   of words and expressions are still relatively inaccessible.

Lewin argued that

“unlike biological species, languages change at an astonishing rate, as anyone
who has struggled with Chaucer will attest. As a result, most historical linguists
agree that going back more than 5,000 to 7,000 years is a futile enterprise.”⁵

Even during the evolution-dominated years, leading linguists, wishing to move away
from nineteenth century naiveté, have steadfastly refused to investigate
possible links with animal communication. The best-known linguist of the twentieth
century, Noam Chomsky, though an evolutionist, has consistently maintained that
there is no connection;⁶
and that, as Descartes (not surprisingly) insisted long before him,⁷ language is “species-specific”,⁸ and must have originated in humanity through
some genetic input. To this extent, trans-speciate evolution seldom came into the
picture in linguistics.

In fact, Chomsky insists that mid-century studies based on the evolution of language
from apes to humans only “bring out more clearly the extent to which human
language appears to be a unique phenomenon, without significant analogue in the
animal world.”⁹

Karl Popper proposed “stages” from vocal gestures used to express emotion
and onwards, but Chomsky sees no continuity in this,¹⁰ and certainly no mechanism is even suggested.
W.H. Thorpe even pointed out that from physical characteristics one might regard
birds as a more likely source for language than mammals! Nevertheless, he regarded
human language and animal communication as having three features in common: both
are “purposive”, aiming to change another’s behaviour; “syntactic”,
that is, having internal structure; and “propositional”, transmitting
information.¹¹ To a creationist,
even if such terms are appropriate, this merely indicates a common Creator. As for
Chomsky, he commented by pointing out that walking could also be said to have these
three characteristics, so that Thorpe’s propositions seem to lead nowhere.¹²

Strange labels were given to nineteenth century attempts to formulate some credible
basis for language arising from primitive communication in social contexts. Some
such were:

1. the “bow-wow” theory, suggesting that ejaculatory noises began to acquire
   specific meanings, much in the way that dogs may radiate pleasure, aggression, etc.
   through different barking styles;
2. the “ding-dong” theory, with calls for help, as in today’s world
   of sirens, triggering off messages with specific content; and
3. the “yo-heave-ho” theory, suggesting that combined labour encouraged
   comments and directions to emerge.

Still others have exhaustively examined child language in the hope of finding a
progression which might in some recapitulatory framework mirror the first human
attempts at communication.^13,14 But this theory has the
same drawbacks as those of Haeckel’s embryonic recapitulation theories, except
perhaps that we can trace no deliberate forgery in its presentation.

Chomsky insists that grammar is not learnt in the child by trial and error, or else
children could not make new grammatical sentences which they have never heard before.¹⁵ That this takes place is
shown by experiments using nonsense words and asking the child to respond to questions
which they must process.¹⁶
In connection with Columbia University’s experiments with apes, Chomsky stated
that “saying apes can acquire language because they can learn some simple
signs … is like saying humans can fly because they can jump”.¹⁷

Lenneberg studied language impairment in the 1960s and said this shows that when
recoveries occur they can be sudden, indicating a species-specific ability.¹⁸ Such recovery also depends
on having acquired language during a critical period of development in childhood.
Children unconsciously process their parents’ language in order to work out
the grammar. But “hearing is an essential part of language, because by its
very nature language has to be a shared code”.¹⁹

Linguists are agreed that a distinction must be preserved between conditioning through
learning by imitation and learning by rules applied to incoming signals. The second
of these theories of language development points strongly to a divinely bestowed
genetic gift to humans.

In this connection, Carroll was one of the first to distinguish “language
acquisition” (learning the mothertongue) from foreign or second language learning.²⁰ He asks whether first language
learning is learning at all, or whether perhaps it is rather a biological process
of growth, or as Chomsky would say, “genetic maturation” or “linguistic
competence”.²¹ Most
today would say that first language learning is a mixture of genetic maturation
and social learning.

What is remarkable (and miraculous) is that it begins spontaneously in the normal
child, and that adults do not in any formal sense “teach” language.
When they correct children it is usually on matters of truth or appropriateness.
Only a minority with interest in language will bother to correct the language itself.
Despite this, children stubbornly learn to communicate. They also react differentially
to different voices and, in bilingual societies, to different languages.

Chomsky often uses the term “creative” when referring to the ability
of the child to acquire a grammar.^22,23 He also insists that “a
description of what an organism does and a description of what it knows can be very
different things”.²⁴
Menyuk concluded that the average child gets its grammar by age three, though Chomsky
is more cautious and merely regards it as very early acquisition.²⁵

Thought and language

In addition to interests in child language, philosophers have often written articles
on the relationship between thought and language, in an attempt to unravel the mechanisms
of language production. Language is, mysteriously, at the same time both physical
and mental, and the two modes must meet somewhere. Yet in a sense, the establishment
of this relationship is both pointless and obscure. Pointless, because mere humans
cannot fathom the true depths of such a relationship, and obscure, because “thought”
is impossible to measure scientifically or even to illustrate by any adequate metaphor
or model.

Many scientists who are Christians rightly sing the praises of God when describing
the human body. Indeed, much can be said scientifically about the wonders of the
human ear. Yet this knowledge is overtly describable, whereas the link between brain-thought
and mouth-speech is much more ineffable and recondite.

What is the use of humans having a wonderful and most delicate aural system, if
you cannot link it to a brain that can understand language? Many animals, doubtless,
can be shown to have remarkable hearing, but animals cannot talk, neither can they,
in the accepted linguistic sense, understand speech. They may respond to noise and
even voice-tone, but, so far as we can discover, they do not act in any non-programmed
way, such as is characteristic of human use of language. We therefore assume that
language is unique to humans.

Some thirty years ago Chomsky referred to “the particular branch of cognitive
psychology known as linguistics”,²⁶
thus placing thought squarely in the centre of linguistic capacity. Indeed, the
use of language cannot begin to be understood until some connection is made between
processes of thought and processes of speech. That’s why language is so miraculous.
It just has to be a gift from God. The study of language is really the study of
mind, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 is a crude representation of what happens in the two stages we might call
communicating and understanding. It will be seen that this representation includes:

1. mental events,
2. physiological events, and
3. physical events,

and so incorporates the non-living world, the biological world and the world of
the invisible within the functions of the brain. In that sense, one might say “language
is everything”. Who is able to investigate such an amalgam?

Granted that early behaviourist psychologists like Watson tried to show parallels
between physical and mental phenomena, no experiment they produced was able to establish
true correlates with the processes of thought through mechanical measurements. According
to Chomsky:

“What is involved is not a matter of degree of complexity but rather of quality
of complexity. Correspondingly, there is no reason to expect that the available
technology can provide significant insight or understanding of useful achievements
[or] any significant advance in our understanding of the use or nature of language.”²⁷

Indeed, he insists that this was known in principle in the seventeenth century:

“The Cartesians tried to show that when the theory of corporeal body is sharpened
and clarified and extended to its limits, it is still incapable of accounting for
facts that are obvious to introspection and that are also confirmed by our observation
of the actions of other humans.”²⁸

There is more to it, then, than the physical, and we are hard put to it to find
anything equivalent in the animal world. This is what Chomsky calls “the creative
aspect of language use”.²⁹
Descartes wrote that normal language use is a certain sign that there is a reality
we know as “mind”, and that linguistic ability “cannot be detected
in an animal”.³⁰
In the late sixteenth century a Spanish doctor, Juan Huarte, wrote a study of human
intelligence, stating that its best evidence is language use, imparting a creative
capacity.³¹

In a trivial sense it may be argued that there is a creative element in understanding
as well as in speaking, if indeed the “matching” theories are correct.
Some linguists have argued for an internal generation of speech to match incoming
signals as part of the process of understanding. This would explain why Lashley,
as far back as 1951, performed a linguistic experiment on his audience at a conference.
To make this experiment work for the reader I have had to misspell the second word,
to give something like the effect of “hearing” the following sentence
read out, roughly as Lashley read it out from a novel:³²

“Rapid riting with his left hand proved difficult, but successful in saving
from further damage the fixtures in the capsized canoe.”³³

Lashley’s audience wrote it down as “writing”, and then by the
end of the sentence something “clicked” and they had to delete this
and substitute “righting”. This, according to Chomsky, showed that the
understanding of language is not merely a mechanical linear process but has a re-creative
element sometimes brought into play even when the language has been fully “learnt”.

If creativity is involved in understanding as much as in the production of language,
this helps us to accept the fact that we understand more than we can produce. In
both first and second language learning it is clear that in exchanges we understand
more than we produce, even in the matter of learning new sounds.

Berko and Brown record an interview with a toddler who had not yet managed to produce
the English sound represented by the letters “sh”. The interview went
something like this:

Adult: Is that your fish?
Child: Yes, my fis.
Adult: Oh, I see It’s your fis?
Child: No, not my fis. My fis.³⁴

It is obvious that the child recognised the distinction of consonants, but could
not produce the actual distinction physically.

The creative aspect of language use itself involves:

1. innovation, which is beyond mere analogy and embraces concordant analogy;
2. freedom from detectable stimulus; and
3. positive suitability to the situation in which it is used.³⁵

The famous Port-Royal Grammar summarised this threefold description by
stating:

“[human language is a] marvellous invention by which we construct from twenty-five
or thirty sounds an infinity of expressions which, having no resemblance in themselves
to what takes place in our minds, still enable us to let others know the secret
of what we conceive and of all the various mental activities that we carry out.”³⁶

Chomsky’s most common description of language is that it is “rule-governed
behaviour”. This reminds us of God’s command to humans in Genesis 1:28 to “have dominion” over the animals
and over the entire physical world. Without becoming irreverent we could say that
it is part of the “image of God” placed in humans, even though most
Christians would relate that only to what is “spiritual”. Yet it seems
that, without a conscious mind, spiritual abilities cannot properly be exercised.

George Miller claimed that

“talking and understanding language do not depend on being intelligent or
having a large brain. They depend on ‘being human’ … [a child]
acquires [language] from parents who have no idea how to explain it to him. No careful
schedule of rewards for correct or punishments for incorrect utterances is necessary.”³⁷

J.L. Austin further investigated what might be called the “power of words”.
This must not be confused with some of today’s heretical views on so-called
“faith” speaking. But it is true that we do perform mental assurance
through words.³⁸ One example
of this is the way we use ceremonies to make marriage valid, using set wordings.
Another is the way a prominent figure launches a ship saying: “I hereby name
this ship … ”

The biblical perspective

Can we learn something about the origin of language from a direct approach to Scripture?
The first example of language used in Genesis 1:3 is significant. God “says” (Hebrew
‘amar). At this stage there is no human present to hear it, though
we shall argue that its appearance in the written record means that we “hear”
it in a sense today in our own language, so it certainly has a message for us.

One spiritual message is that in God’s mouth speech is powerful and creative.
After all, God “made man’s mouth”.³⁹ Such a passage assures us that there is power
in “the Word”, the name Scripture gives to the Bible itself, and to
messages based on Scripture given by God’s true messengers. There is a whole
theology here, somewhat beyond our current concerns.

For example, why does this word ‘said’ occur so early in the piece,
before the creation of humans? Is it that, for humans to have meaning as creatures,
it was necessary for the concept of language to exist even in the Godhead? In what
sense is the Lord Jesus Christ called “the Word of God” through the
Apostle John and others?

Coming now to physical creation, the first occurrence of language where humans are
recorded as already created is in Genesis 1:28: “Then God blessed them, and God said
… ”. In Scripture “blessing” is always connected with words,
so here we have one of Austin’s “performatives”. But this also
takes us out of the mystic use the word has been acquiring in some churches at this
time, a usage which is of very doubtful validity, since “blessing” has
no necessary connection with feelings, but with an understanding of God’s
love.

God gives commands to Adam and Eve (for Eve’s creation is assumed here through
the plural “them”, even though the manner of creation is not specified
until Genesis 2:22 in the recapitulation of this one and only
creation of woman). Thus we see that God expresses His love in blessing them even
before giving them the laws for their life on the perfect Earth He has created for
them.

From Genesis 1:28 we have to assume that Adam and Eve could understand
language, for God never uses any methods purposelessly. This human pair were equipped
with a highly complex aural system, behind which was an even more complex brain
and thought system. By now we are into one of the greatest and most controversial
arguments of linguistically inclined academics. Some say with Locke that the mind
is a tabula rasa (empty tablet) on to which language impinges in childhood.⁴⁰ Others say there is a genetic
ability to understand before any meaningful language is addressed to the young child.
The Bible appears to support the latter, since

1. God’s words must not be fruitless, and
2. shortly after this we find Adam engaging in dialogue with God.⁴¹

Note that the programming is only concerned with the ability to understand and not
with any automatic responses to what is understood.

But before that we find Adam speaking unprompted before God in Genesis 2:23. He speaks poetically. And here we come up
against the nineteenth century idea that poetry is more “primitive”
than prose, for which there is surely no evidence linguistically. In fact, rhythmic
or semantically parallel utterances are obviously more advanced than plain speech.
However, we know that the idea of the “primitive savage” came from minds
like that of the unbeliever Rousseau, later to be taken up by the evolutionists.

We are not saying that Adam was pre-programmed with God’s language, because
we do not understand such things, not having been present. Adam as a functioning
adult must have had some special programming, but we cannot say to what extent this
directed his speech. He would presumably thereafter learn from his linguistic environment,
just as we do.

Scripture nowhere condemns talking to oneself. In fact, most people understand David
to be doing just that in Psalm 103:1–5. Of course, Adam’s poem could
have been addressed to Eve, and “this” may have been his original word
for “you”, in the manner of an I-not I relationship, since he had never
before seen a human being. Thus it’s not clear in Genesis 2:23 for whom Adam is speaking. Most likely it was
in thanks to God anyway, since anything the sinless Adam did in this perfect world
must have been to God’s glory. I doubt if it was mere soliloquy.

From the above we note that the Bible gives evidence of “receptive”
communication, followed by what linguists call “productive” communication.
Although this is the agreed order of things in child language development, the case
with Adam is an adult situation and should not be compared, in case we are led into
theories of physical recapitulation of events. God had, with the miracle of bodily
creation, also given Adam a miraculous gift, which we call “language”.
Thus the Bible describes no age-long practice prior to the establishment of normal
adult linguistic ability.

To complete the picture, Scripture shows a discussion between God on the one hand
and Adam and Eve on the other, indicating that by this time certain quasi-logical
elements were present in human language. We have to remember that this element,
though undoubtedly within God’s power to bestow, was not necessarily in His
perfect will at that time. After all, another voice, that of a fallen angel, had
intervened in Genesis 3:1. This intervention introduced the question form
into human thought and language.

Now the question itself is not a sinful form. God Himself is recorded as using it
on numerous occasions. But this is a far different matter from the mental and indeed
spiritual act of questioning the integrity of God’s character. Here we have
gone beyond language into morality and Divine-human relationships.

Conclusion

Returning to the physical, we see that practically all the known functions of language
are in evidence right from the creation. We can therefore say with confidence that
God created language and that language is a perfect gift, powerful but therefore
dangerous in a sinful world. Yet the wonder of the gift remains, and I am continually
amazed as I ponder the remarkable way in which such an apparently unrelated set
of events as we have in our bodies becomes a vehicle for complex and, if we allow
the Holy Spirit to teach us, uplifting thoughts.

Posted on homepage: 25 February 2011

References

1. de Saussure, E, Course in General Linguistics, in
   English, 1959, p. 102, 1916. Return to text.
2. Greenberg, J.H., a specialist in historical linguistics, is
   typical. He speaks of “the Babel legend” in “The linguistic approach”
   part of “Three approaches to language behavior”. In: Osgood,
   C.E. and Sebeok, T.A. (eds.), Psycholinguistics: A Survey of Theory and Research
   Problems, p. 16, 1965. Return to text.
3. Gamkrelidze, T.V. and Ivanov, V.V., The early history of Indo-European
   languages, Scientific American, 262(3):82–89, 1990.
   Return to text.
4. Shovoroshkin, V., Linguists have the first word, New Scientist,
   128(1722):28, 1990. Return to text.
5. Lewin, R., Ancestral voices at war, New Scientist,
   128(1722):25, 1990. Return to text.
6. Chomsky, N., Language and Mind, p. 9, 1968. Return to text.
7. Chomsky, N., Cartesian Linguistics, as cited in Chomsky,
   Ref. 6, p. 8, 1966. Return to text.
8. Chomsky, Ref. 6, p. 9. Return to text.
9. Chomsky, Ref. 6, p. 59. Return to text.
10. Chomsky, Ref. 6, p. 60 (both references).
    Return to text.
11. Chomsky, Ref. 6. Return to text.
12. Chomsky, Ref. 6, pp. 60–61. Return
    to text.
13. Lewis, M.M, Infant Speech: A Study of the Beginnings
    of Language, 1951. Return to text.
14. Black, M., The Labyrinth of Language, p. 15, 1968
    (1972 edition). Return to text.
15. Chomsky, N., Syntactic Structures, passim,
    1957. Return to text.
16. Fishbein, J. and Emans, R., A Question of Competence,
    pp. 46, 48, 54, 55, 1972. Return to text.
17. Horgan, J., Profile of Chomsky, Scientific American,
    262(5):17, 1990. Return to text.
18. Lenneberg, E., Understanding language without ability
    to speak: a case report, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology,
    LXV:419–425, 1962. Return to text.
19. Pinker, S., An instinct for language, New Scientist,
    142(1931):30, 1994. Return to text.
20. Carroll, J. B., 1960. Language development in children; in:
    Encyclopaedia of Educational Research, AD
    loc. Return to text.
21. Chomsky tends to stress maturation in psychological works,
    and competence in linguistic writing. Return to text.
22. Chomsky, Ref. 6, p. 6. Return to text.
23. Chomsky, N., Current Issues in Linguistic Theory,
    pp. 8f, 111, 1964. Return to text.
24. Chomsky, N., Formal properties of grammars; in: Nagel, E.
    et al. (eds.), Handbook of Mathematical Psychology, pp.
    328–418, 1963. Return to text.
25. Menyuk, P., A preliminary evaluation of grammatical capacity
    in children, Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 2:346–351,
    1963. Return to text.
26. Chomsky, Ref. 6, p. 1. Return to text.
27. Chomsky, Ref. 6, p. 4. Return to text.
28. Chomsky, Ref. 6, p. 5. Return to text.
29. Chomsky, Ref. 6, p. 6. Return to text.
30. Chomsky, Ref. 6, p. 6. Return to text.
31. Chomsky, Ref. 6, p. 9. Return to text.
32. Lashley, K.S., The problem of serial order in behaviour;
    in: Jeffress, L.A. (ed.), Cerebral Mechanisms in Behavior, pp. 112–136,
    1951. Return to text.
33. Most people on hearing this spoken think first of rapid writing,
    but then towards the end of the sentence have to change the whole meaning to fit
    the complete sentence. This involves a grammatical and semantic shift.
    Return to text.
34. Berko, J. and Brown, R., Psycholinguistic research methods;
    in: Mussen, .H. (ed.), Handbook of Research Methods in Child Development,
    pp. 517–557, 1960. Return to text.
35. Chomsky, Ref. 6, pp. 10–11. Return
    to text.
36. Chomsky, Ref. 6, p. 18. Return to text.
37. Miller, G.A., The Psychology of Communication, pp.
    86, 87, 1968. Return to text.
38. Austin, J.L., How to Do Things with Words, 1962,
    which is the seminal book on “performative” verbs and expressions. Return to text.
39. Exodus 4:11. Return to text.
40. John Locke (1632–1704) was the best-known Western proponent
    of the empirical idea that humans begin life with an “empty slate” on
    to which all we learn is “written” during our lifetime.
    Return to text.
41. While it is true that God spoke to the sea creatures in Genesis 1:22, there is no indication either in Scripture or
    from science that animals understand language in the way humans do. Certainly they
    may “respond”, and they may have been more sensitive before the curse
    arrived, but in any case the matter is not relevant to this discussion.
    Return to text.
42. Perhaps the only feature of child language acquisition on
    which all linguists agree is the fact that, whether in teaching or testing circumstances,
    humans always show a greater ability to understand than to produce language.
    Return to text.

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