Language Evolution

Foundations of Syntax
Lecture 5
A Brief History of Our Species
• About 7.5 mya hominims split of from the branch which developed into modern day
chimpanzees and bonobos.
• About 3 mya the first of the homo genus emerged in Africa
• Homo habilis (2.4 – 1.4 mya) – first tool users, probably direct ancestor of Homo sapiens
• Homo rudolfensis (1.9 mya)
• Homo erectus (1.8 – 0.4 mya) – first fully committed biped, larger body/brain, long lasting
(600,000 years), first to spread out of Africa
• About 0.4 mya Homo neanderthalensis emerged and became extinct about 0.04 mya
• thus it was contemporaneous with Homo sapiens
• they evolved in Europe and south-west and central Asia (homo sapiens evolved in Africa)
• Another possible genus contemporaneous with Homo sapiens were the Denisovans
in north-east Asia. Others include Homo Floresiensis and Homo naledi.
• About 0.3 mya Homo sapiens made their entrance. They are the only surviving
member of the genus. They are the only ones we know to have developed language.
 Difficulties for language evolution
research
• The lack of fossil evidence.
• nothing in the vocal tract is bone, so nothing gets fossilised
• cranial size indicates brain size, but that is no evidence for language
• Evidence for use of tools, art and culture (burial customs, eating, hunting and
agricultural habits) may give support for abstract thinking and high intelligence.
But is it only circumstantial evidence for the presence of language.
• thinking and intelligence exist independently of language.
• The first writing appeared only 5500 years ago, so this is the oldest evidence we
have. But obviously language was present many thousands of years earlier than
this.
• Given that no other animal has developed language, the study of animal
behaviour is not likely to tell us much about how language developed in humans.
When did language first appear?
• Hard to say, but here are some considerations
• No other existent species besides Homo sapiens demonstrates language,
which suggests it is an extremely rare occurrence.
• so it is likely that language originated with Homo sapiens and not within other hominins
• All Homo sapiens have language and any human child can learn any human
language in the right environment. This must mean that language had
developed in the species before its first diversification (120,000 years ago).
• so language developed some time between 300,000 and 120,000 years ago
Language and Evolutionary Theory
• Darwin’s original theory:
• species evolve via a series of small modifications over a long time
• for a modification to be successful, it has to bestow some biological
advantage over what it originated from
• better survival abilities
• better reproductive abilities
• This is problematic for an account of the evolution of language.
• What biological advantage does having a language bestow that would not be
present for a species which does not have language? (Wallace 1871)
• What small steps are there between not having language and having
language?
• The fact that no other species has language suggests that its evolution was
not a small step, but a big leap!
Theories of Evolution
• Darwin (1871): The ‘Caruso’ Theory (La-la theory)
• Like birds, female humans chose mates on their ability to sing. Thus
the development of the vocal apparatus was an advantage.
• At the same time, the brain size increased and allowed for the
development of internal language based thought
• The combination of developed vocal apparatus and thought lead to
the development of spoken language.
• Problems
• Why did females develop language?
• Why did only humans develop language? Darwin’s conditions for
language development would predict that something similar should
have happened elsewhere
• Did language develop from singing, or did singing develop from
language?
Other Older Theories
• Bow Wow Theory: Language developed from imitation of sounds (onomatopoeia).
• Ding-dong Theory: Language forms resemble the things they represent (round
things are represented by round oral forms).
• Pooh-Pooh Theory: Language developed out of sounds humans make
involuntarily, such as ‘ouch’.
• Ta-ta Theory: Language developed as vocal imitation of gestures (‘bye-bye’
imitating repeated hand waves).
• Yo-He-Ho Theory: Language developed out of grunts which accompany heavy
work.

• All of these are discredited and they all seem to assume that accounting for
language evolution is just accounting for words. But other animal communication
systems have words, so none of them address the real issue.
Continuity Theories
• Darwin’s original theory of evolution supposed gradual adaptation
over many years along a deterministic path
• e.g. the development of the eye in vertibrates:
• Many theories of language evolution try to apply the same ideas
• Language developed over a long period by a series of small
steps from something more basic than language itself
(gestures, grunts, warning calls, social calls (bird song).
• But no theory has yet managed to explain the big jump
from these basic communicative behaviours to a
recursive language system.
• The original assumption has also been shown to be not
always correct:
• evolution can happen in spontaneous large jumps
• the evolutionary path is not so deterministic and is governed by
chance, especially if we are dealing with small populations: not
so much survival of the fittest, but survival of the luckiest
• not all developments are the best solution to a problem
• not all advantageous developments prevail in the species
Discontinuity Theory
• It is more likely that language developed in Homo sapiens as a one off
statistically improbable event and which had the luck to survive.
• This accounts for:
• why no other species has managed to do it
• why there is no evidence for continuity (different animals with different
abilities approaching possession of a language)
• It is made more believable if what developed is itself very simple,
which would require a small genetic change:
• a recursive rule of combination
• If this was added to pre-existing abilities (warning calls, social
behaviour, ability to think – all of which exist in other animal
populations), then we have language.
Arguments against discontinuity
• Darwin wouldn’t agree!
• Darwin was not always correct.
• How could language evolve in just one person, if no one else had it?
• Language is not a system of communication by definition, it is mainly an internal
thing and does not need to be externalised in order to exist. And it didn’t need to
be externalised to be passed on (that’s just a matter of reproduction).
• It might have helped that one individually to think better, but it was mainly down
to luck that the mutation was passed on.
• There is absolutely no evidence that language started with just one
person.
• There isn’t very much evidence of anything in this field, but this is the best guess
we have at the moment.
• If language development has a biological basis, there is no other way for it to
develop. It would be miraculous for it to develop in multiple individuals
independently.
Conclusion
• Despite problems for the study of language evolution, there are some
conclusions we can reach:
• Language evolved as a biological organ in Homo sapiens between
300,000 and 120,000 years ago.
• The development itself was a small biological mutation which caused
a huge leap in the species.
• The advantages it bestowed originally were not great, but by luck it
survived and was passed on.
• It is therefore such an unlikely thing to have happened that it only
happened once, which is why only humans have language.