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John C Hauk

American Public University System

ENGL 235 Introduction to Linguistics

Professor David Becker

June 11, 2023

The Development of Human Language

Given mankind’s 6-million-year history on planet Earth, it has only been in the past

200,000 years that Homo Sapiens went from harnessing the power of fire to becoming a space

exploring civilization. In between these pivotal moments, mankind has developed art, science,

technology, music and even harnessed the power of the atom, but the greatest achievement that

mankind developed that helped make all these achievements, developments, and discoveries

possible is what we rarely think about in our daily lives, and that is the tool of language.

With all the species of animal that have evolved on Earth, humans seem to be the only

species that has developed both a spoken and written language. If we turn to our closest relatives

today, the Primates, we see that their form of communication is a series of calls, vocalizations,

and body language. Assuming that our ancestors were similar in behavior, we can look to the

Primates and see that our ancestors used similar behaviors to communicate to others in their

group. According to Anne McCabe, “this set of calls and gestures were used to manipulate the
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behavior of others; for example, one call might get others to dash up into the trees at the sight of

a ground predator approaching, and another call might get others to dash down in the case of an

air predator” (pg.232). Going forward, specific anatomical and evolutionary changes made

possible the development of language.

One of the more profound evolutionary changes that occurred were the physical changes

to the pharynx, larynx, and palate. The changes that occurred gave rise to the ability to make a

larger array of sounds, more than our distant evolutionary cousins could produce. This, in

combination with a larger brain, allowed mankind to develop language. A larger brain allowed

for more processing of information and control of vocal cords, lips, and tongue. Different

positions of these anatomical features allowed for various sounds and vocalizations to be

produced, and the combination of anatomical changes helped develop these sounds into a

complex communication system. When we compare both the communication system of primates

and humans, we see that in language development, one system is closed, and one system is open.

As with primates and great apes, their communication system is closed; a closed communication

system is a system in which no new meaning can be created. Humans, and by extension, our

ancestors, were developing an open communication system: a system by which new meaning to

communication can be made. It is this leeway of an open system that allowed us to assign

meaning to the various vocalizations we developed.

Considering modern linguistic theory, we can theorize how vocalizations became

language. Phonemes, or “any of the abstract units of the phonetic system of a language that

correspond to a set of similar speech sounds (such as the velar \k\ of cool and the palatal \k\

of keel) which are perceived to be a single distinctive sound in the language” (Merriam-Webster,

n.d.). Simple vocalizations became simple sounds, which then developed into morphemes or “the
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smallest unit of meaning in language” (McCabe, 172). Given a long enough timeline, these

combine to make words and thus a spoken language. There is no consensus on how all these

changes developed into spoken language. Some linguists theorize that it developed all in one

leap; that all meaning and expression of the environment around them via a combination of

various sounds occurred in a short period of time. Others believe that it occurred in a series of

steps. “Other researchers suspect that the special properties of language evolved in stages,

perhaps over some millions of years, through a succession of hominid lines. In an early stage,

sounds would have been used to name a wide range of objects and actions in the environment,

and individuals would be able to invent new vocabulary items to talk about new things. To

achieve a large vocabulary, an important advance would have been the ability to 'digitize' signals

into sequences of discrete speech sounds - consonants and vowels - rather than unstructured

calls. This would require changes in the way the brain controls the vocal tract and possibly in the

way the brain interprets auditory signals (although the latter is again subject to considerable

dispute) (Jackendoff, 2006).

Although spoken language, and its beginnings are difficult to research and define, past

civilizations did leave evidence of previous lost languages that can give us clues into language

development. One of the oldest known languages that was recorded were of the Sumerian

peoples, now modern-day Iraq. The Archeology Institute of America states that “The script—not

itself a language—was used by scribes of multiple cultures over that time to write a number of

languages other than Sumerian, most notably Akkadian, a Semitic language that was the lingua

franca of the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires” (2016). It was not until later that the Sumerians,

and Mesopotamians started to write down their lexicon, or their language, on stone tablets. It is
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from these simple stone tablets we see how mankind’s earliest languages were formed and

developed over time.

Lastly, we must consider how culture and civilization helped create language. As

civilizations grew, so did their culture, and as such, their language. Words and phrases were

needed to be able to describe the world around them, communicate information on science,

creation myths, and even strategizing of war. Similar to today’s culture where new words are

added to the lexicons of numerous languages around the world to keep up with a changing world,

ancient cultures faced similar circumstances. As the world around them changed, and as they

learned new scientific and technological truths, words and phrases were needed to describe them.

There are numerous theories that try to reinforce this premise, but the more controversial among

them is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. “The central idea of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is that

language functions, not simply as a device for reporting experience, but also, and more

significantly, as a way of defining experience for its speakers” (Scholtz et.al, 2022). The main

premise of the hypothesis is that language affects how we see and think about the world. In

essence, language helps us think and describe reality.

In conclusion, Human Language Development has a rich and storied history, from our

ancestors hundreds of thousands of years ago to today. Looking at ancient languages and culture

and by comparing over the 7000 known languages around the world, linguists trace back in

history how various languages developed. By doing so, we can see how mankind developed

language itself.
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Works Cited

McCabe, Anne, “Introduction to Linguistics and Language Studies”, Equinox Publishing Ltd,

2011. ProQuest eBook

Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=1164297.

Jackendoff, Ray, “How Did Language Begin?”, Linguistic Society of America,

https://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/how-did-language-begin, accessed on 06-

June-2023

“Phoneme”, Merriam-Webster Dictionary, https://www.merriam-

webster.com/dictionary/phoneme, accessed on 05-June-2023

“The World’s Oldest Writing”, Archeology, Archeological Institute of America, May 2016,

https://www.archaeology.org/issues/213-1605/features/4326-cuneiform-the-world-s-

oldest-writing

Scholz, Barbara C., Francis Jeffry Pelletier, Geoffrey K. Pullum, and Ryan Nefdt, "Philosophy of

Linguistics", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2022 Edition), Edward N.

Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2022/entries/linguistics