Origin of language
The origin of language concerns the onset in prehistory of human language -- whether gestural or spoken. There are numerous hypotheses about how, why, when and where it happened, but all are speculative because the relevant developments occurred so early in human prehistory and have left no direct historical traces; nor are comparable processes observable today.[1][2]
The time range in question extends from the phylogenetic separation of Homo (2.3 to 2.4 million years ago) and Pan (5 to 6 million years ago) to the emergence of full behavioral modernity some 50,000 years ago.
The evolution of spoken human language requires the development of the vocal tract used for speech production and the cognitive abilities required to understand and produce linguistic utterances. Some debate surrounds the time line, sequence and order of developments associated with this.
It is mostly undisputed that pre-human australopithecines did not have communication systems significantly different from those found in great apes in general,[citation needed] 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.
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[edit] History
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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.[3] Both the medieval monarch Frederick II and Akbar are said to have tried similar experiments; the children involved in these experiments did not speak.[4]
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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.
The control capabilities of human tongue should also be considered. As a result of higher intelligence, the human brain can control its organs and peripherals more precisely. Therefore, the tongue is more creative to curve, bend, stop and throw the soundwaves produced by larynx.
[edit] Language origin hypotheses
[edit] 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.
- 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.
- 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.[5]
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.[6] Other researchers found that the same left-hemisphere brain regions were active during sign language as during the use of vocal or written language.[7]
The important question for gestural theories is why there was a shift to vocalization. There are three likely explanations:
- Our ancestors started to use more and more tools, meaning that their hands were occupied and could not be used for gesturing.
- 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.
- 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.[8] 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
