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Ciencias Lingsticas: Introduccin Especfica para Anglistas Grupo A

Slides Unit 1: The origins of language.

1. The origins of language

Chewing, licking and sucking are extremely widespread mammalian activities,
which, in terms of casual observation, have obvious similarities with speech.
MacNeilage (1998) The frame/content theory of evolution of
speech production. Behavioral and Brain Science 21:499-546.

All of these actions involve movements of the mouth, so perhaps there is a

connection.

We simply dont know how language originated. All we have are interesting
speculations about the origins of spoken language.

Scholars think some type of spoken language developed between 100,000

and 50,000 years ago.

Lets see some of these speculations:

The divine source

In most religions there appears to be a divine source who provides humans

with language (God, Sarasvati, etc.)

Some experiments have been carried out to rediscover this original divine
language allow babies to grow without any language around them so that
they would spontaneously begin using the original God-given language:
o Egyptian pharaoh Psammetichus tried this with two babies, they
uttered the Phrygian word bekos (!!).
o King James IV also carried out another experiment, and the children
were reported to have started speaking Hebrew.
o Modern evidence, mainly from feral children, contradicts the results of
these types of divine-source experiments.

The natural sound source

Primitive words could have been imitations of the natural sounds which early
men and women heard around them.

That is the bow-wow theory of language origin, and in fact, there are some
onomatopoeic words in every language (words that echo natural sounds).
However, there are far too many soundless and abstract things in our world
and we use language to refer to them.

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Ciencias Lingsticas: Introduccin Especfica para Anglistas Grupo A
Slides Unit 1: The origins of language.

Original sounds could also come from natural cries of emotion (Ouch!,
Yuck!). However, these interjections are usually produced with sudden intakes
of breath whereas we normally produce spoken language on exhaled breath.

The sounds of a person or group of people involved in physical effort could

also be the source of our language. This the yo-he-ho theory of language
origin.

This theory is interesting because it places the development of language in

some social context, but it doesnt answer the question of how the first
sounds were produced. Other primates also have grunts and social calls, but
dont seem to have developed the capacity for speech.

The physical adaptation source

Perhaps we should look at the types of physical features humans possess

which may have been able to support speech production, especially those
features that are distinct from other creatures.

Skulls of gorillas and those of Neanderthal man are different.

The vocal tract of a Neanderthal suggests that some consonant-like sound

distinctions would be have been possible.

In the study of evolutionary development we find certain physical features

which appear to be relevant for speech. By themselves, these features would
not necessarily lead to speech production (in fact, they havent in other
primates) but they are good clues about the origins of our speech capacity.

Teeth, lips, mouth, larynx and pharynx

Human teeth
upright and roughly even in height (good for grind and
chewing, and also for making sounds such as f or v)

Human lips
much more intricate muscle interlacing. It results in more

flexibility to make certain sounds (b or p)

Human mouth
smaller to be opened and closed rapidly.

Human tongue
smaller, thicker and more muscular to be used to shape a

wide variety of sounds.

Human larynx
dropped to a lower position (due to our upright posture).

This created a cavity called the pharynx, above the vocal cord, which act as a
resonator for increased range and clarity of sounds.

However, one unfortunate consequence of this development is that the lower

position of the human larynx makes it much more possible for the human to
choke on pieces of food.

In evolutionary terms, there should be a big advantage in getting extra vocal

power to pay off the risk of chocking to death

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Ciencias Lingsticas: Introduccin Especfica para Anglistas Grupo A
Slides Unit 1: The origins of language.

The human brain

Human brain is unusually large relative to human body size. It
controls all these more complex physical parts.
Each hemisphere has specialized functions (lateralization). In
most humans, fine-motor movements are controlled by the left
hemisphere.
Those movements involve speaking and tool manipulation, so
perhaps there is a connection between the language-using and
the tool-using abilities of humans.
Both tool-making and speaking are complex activities that require
some sort of structural organization. We seem to have developed a
part of our brain that specializes in making the arrangements
needed to support such structured behaviours.
The genetic source
Any human baby is a living example of the physical changes
required for speech capacity: the babys brain is only a quarter of
its eventual size and the larynx is much higher in the throat.
In a few months the larynx descends, the brain develops and the
child assumes an upright posture and starts walking and talking.
This almost automatic set of developments and the complexity of
the young childs language have led to some scholars to look for
something more powerful than small physical adaptations of the
species over time as the source of language.
Are human babies born with a special capacity for language? This
is called the innateness hypothesis (linguistic abilities are
genetically encoded in our brain).