Origins of Human

Language
Mr. Zubair Ali
Lecturer English
Department of Social Sciences and Humanities
Origins of Human Language

 As far as we know, no other species on Earth has language; only humans talk.

 Sure, many animals communicate with each other in subtle and intricate
ways.

 But we’re the only ones who gossip, take seminars, interview celebrities,
convene board meetings, recite poems, negotiate treaties, conduct marriage
ceremonies, hold criminal trials—all activities where just about the only thing
going on is talking.
Cont …

 There is no known society of Homo sapiens, past or present, in which people

don’t talk to each other.

 So, language is one of the few things about us that appears to be a true defining
trait of what it means to be human - so much so that it seems it must be part of
our very DNA.

 But what, exactly, do our genes contribute?

 One view is that language is an innate instinct, something that we are inherently
programmed to do, much as birds grow wings, elephants grow trunks.
Cont …

 In its strongest version (for example, as argued by Steven Pinker in his 1994
book The Language Instinct), this nativist view says that not only do our genes
endow us with a general capacity for language, they also lay out some of the
general structures of language, the building blocks that go into it, the mental
process of acquiring it, and so on.

 This view of language as a genetically driven instinct captures why it is that

language is not only common to all humans but also is unique to humans—no
language genes, no talking.
Cont …

 Nativist View  The view that not only are humans genetically programmed to
have a general capacity for language, particular aspects of language ability are
also genetically specified.

 But many language researchers see it differently.

 The anti-nativist view is that language is not an innate instinct but a magnificent
by-product of our impressive cognitive abilities.

 Humans alone learn language—not because we inherit a preprogrammed

language template, but because we are the superlearners of the animal
kingdom.
Cont …

 What separates us from other animals is that our brains have evolved to
become the equivalent of swift, powerful supercomputers compared with our
fellow creatures.

 Current computers can do qualitatively different things that older models

could never aspire to accomplish. This supercomputer theory is one
explanation for why we have language while squirrels and chimpanzees don’t.

 Anti-nativist view  The view that the ability of humans to learn language is
not the result of a genetically programmed 􀂳language template􀂴 but is an
aspect (or by-product) of our extensive cognitive abilities, including general
abilities of learning and memory.
Cont …

 Daniel Everett (2012), a linguist who takes a firm anti-nativist position, puts it
this way in his book Language: The Cultural Tool: Maybe language is more like
a tool invented by human beings than an innate behavior such as the dance of
honeybees or the songs of nightingales.

 What makes language universal is that it’s an incredibly useful tool for solving
certain problems that all humans have—foremost among them being how to
efficiently transmit information to each other.

 The question of how we came to have language is a huge and fascinating one.
It’s a question that has no agreed upon answer among language scientists.
Cont …

 In fact, in 1866, the Linguistic Society of Paris decreed that no papers about
the origins of language were allowed to be presented at its conferences.

 The decision was essentially a way of saying, 􀂳We’ll get nowhere talking
about language origins until we learn more about language itself, so go learn
something about language.

 In Charles Darwin’s vision of the origins of language, early humans had already
developed musical ability prior to language and were using it “to charm each
other.”
Cont …

 The origin of language is still a speculation and there is no ultimate answer to

the question.

 We suspect that some type of spoken language must have developed between
100,000 and 50,000 years ago, well before written language (about 5,000
years ago).

 Yet, among the traces of earlier periods of life on earth, we never find any
direct evidence or artifacts relating to the speech of our distant ancestors
that might tell us how language was back in the early stages.
The bow-wow Theory

 In this scenario, when different objects flew by, making a Caw-Caw or Coo-
Coo sound, the early human tried to imitate the sounds and then used them
to refer to those objects even when they weren’t present.

 The fact that all modern languages have some words with pronunciations that
seem to echo naturally occurring sounds could be used to support this theory.

 Words that sound similar to the noises they describe are examples of
onomatopoeia.
 it is true that a number of words in any language are onomatopoeic
The “pooh-pooh” Theory

 Another of Jespersen’s nicknames was the “pooh-pooh” theory, which proposed

that speech developed from the instinctive sounds people make in emotional
circumstances.

 That is, the original sounds of language may have come from natural cries of
emotion such as pain, anger and joy.

 By this route, presumably, Ouch! came to have its painful connotations.

 But Ouch! and other interjections such as Ah!, Ooh!, Phew!, Wow! or Yuck! are
usually produced with sudden intakes of breath, which is the opposite of
ordinary talk.
Cont …

 We normally produce spoken language as we breathe out, so we speak while

we exhale, not inhale.

 In other words, the expressive noises people make in emotional reactions

contain sounds that are not otherwise used in speech production and
consequently would seem to be rather unlikely candidates as source sounds
for language.
The Social Interaction Source

 Another proposal involving natural sounds was nicknamed the “yo-he-ho”

theory.

 The idea is that the sounds of a person involved in physical effort could be
the source of our language, especially when that physical effort involved
several people and the interaction had to be coordinated.

 So, a group of early humans might develop a set of hums, grunts, groans and
curses that were used when they were lifting and carrying large bits of trees
or lifeless hairy mammoths.
Cont …

 The appeal of this proposal is that it places the development of human

language in a social context.

 Early people must have lived in groups, if only because larger groups offered
better protection from attack. Groups are necessarily social organizations
and, to maintain those organizations, some form of communication is
required, even if it is just grunts and curses.

 So, human sounds, however they were produced, must have had some
principled use within the life and social interaction of early human groups.
Cont …

 It does not, however, answer our question regarding the origins of the sounds
produced. Apes and other primates live in social groups and use grunts and
social calls, but they do not seem to have developed the capacity for speech.
The Physical Adaptation Source

 Instead of looking at types of sounds as the source of human speech, we can

look at the types of physical features humans possess, especially those that
are distinct from other creatures.

 We can start with the observation that, at some early stage, our ancestors
made a very significant transition to an upright posture, with bi-pedal (on two
feet) locomotion, and a revised role for the front limbs.

 Some effects of this type of change can be seen in physical differences

between the skull of a gorilla and that of a Neanderthal man from around
60,000 years ago.
Cont …

 The reconstructed vocal tract of a Neanderthal suggests that some consonant-

like sound distinctions would have been possible.

 There are certain physical features, best thought of as partial adaptations,

which appear to be relevant for speech.

 They are streamlined versions of features found in other primates. By

themselves, such features wouldn’t guarantee speech, but they are good
clues that a creature with such features probably has the capacity for speech.
Teeth and Lips

 Human teeth are upright, not slanting outwards like those of apes, and they
are roughly even in height.

 Such characteristics are not very useful for ripping or tearing food and seem
better adapted for grinding and chewing.

 They are also very helpful in making sounds such as f or v.

 Human lips have much more intricate muscle interlacing than is found in
other primates and their resulting flexibility certainly helps in making sounds
like p, b and m
Cont …

 In fact, the b and m sounds are the most widely attested in the vocalizations
made by human infants during their first year, no matter which language their
parents are using.
Mouth and Tongue

 The human mouth is relatively small compared to other primates and can be
opened and closed rapidly.

 Humans have a shorter, thicker and more muscular tongue that can be used to
shape a wide variety of sounds inside the oral cavity.

 In addition, unlike other primates, humans can close off the airway through
the nose to create more air pressure in the mouth.
Larynx and Pharynx

 The human larynx or “voice box” (containing the vocal folds or vocal cords)
differs significantly in position from the larynx of other primates such as
monkeys.

 Other primates have almost no pharynx.

 Human larynx is capable of increased range and the sounds produced by it

have a good amount of clarity.

 Monkeys may not be able to use their larynx to produce speech sounds, but
they do not suffer from the problem of getting food stuck in their windpipe.
Cont …

 In evolutionary terms, there must have been a big advantage in getting this
extra vocal power (i.e. a larger range of sounds).
The Tool Making Source

 A development is believed to have taken place with human hands and some
believe that manual gestures may have been a forerunner of language.

 By about two million years ago, there is evidence that humans had developed
preferential right-handedness and had become capable of making stone tools.

 Tool-making, or the outcome of manipulating objects and changing them using

both hands, is evidence of a brain at work.
The Human Brain

 There was an evolutionary connection between the language-using and tool-using

abilities of humans and that both were involved in the development of the speaking
brain.

 All languages, including sign language, require the organizing and combining of
sounds or signs in specific arrangements.

 We seem to have developed a part of our brain that specializes in making these
arrangements.

 In terms of language structure, the human may have first developed a naming
ability by producing a specific and consistent noise (e.g. beer) for a specific object.
Cont …

 The crucial additional step was to bring another specific noise (e.g. good) into
combination with the first to build a complex message (beer good).

 Several thousand years of development later, humans have honed this

message-building capacity to a point where, on Saturdays, watching a football
game, they can drink a sustaining beverage and proclaim This beer is good.
The Genetic Source

 At birth, the baby’s brain is only a quarter of its eventual weight and the
larynx is much higher in the throat, allowing babies, like chimpanzees, to
breathe and drink at the same time.

 In a relatively short period of time, the larynx descends, the brain develops,
the child assumes an upright posture and starts walking and talking.

 This almost automatic set of developments and the complexity of the young
child’s language have led some scholars to look for something more powerful
than small physical adaptations of the species over time as the source of
language.
Cont …

 Even children who are born deaf (and do not develop speech) become fluent
sign language users, given appropriate circumstances, very early in life.

 This seems to indicate that human offspring are born with a special capacity for
language. It is innate, no other creature seems to have it, and it isn’t tied to a
specific variety of language.

 This innateness hypothesis would seem to point to something in human genetics,

possibly a crucial mutation, as the source.

 This would not have been a gradual change, but something that happened rather
quickly.
Cont …

 We are not sure when this proposed genetic change might have taken place or
how it might relate to the physical adaptations described earlier.

 The investigation of the origins of language then turns into a search for the
special “language gene” that only humans possess.