ELT 201 ORIGINS OF LANGUAGE UNIT ONE

The Origins Of Language

By age four. most humans have developed an ability to communicate through oral language. By
age six or seven. most humans can comprehend, as well as express, written thoughts. These
unique abilities of communicating through a native language clearly separate humans from all
animals. The obvious question then arises. where did we obtain this distinctive trait? Organic
evolution has proven unable to elucidate the origin of language and communication. Knowing
how benecial this ability is to humans, one would wonder why this skill has not evolved in
other species. Materialistic science is insufcient at explaining not only how speech came about,
but also why we have so many different languages. Linguistic research, combined with
neurological studies, has determined that human speech is highly dependent on a neuronal
network located in specic sites within the brain. This intricate arrangement of neurons, and the
anatomical components necessary for speech, cannot be reduced in such a way that one could
produce a transitional form of communication. This unit discusses the true origin of speech
and language, and the anatomical and physiological requirements. The evidence conclusively
implies that humans were created with the unique ability to employ speech for communication.

n 1994, an article appeared in Time magazine titled How man began. Within that article
V

If was the following bold assertion: No single, essential difference separates human beings
from other animals. Yet, in what is obviously a contradiction to such a statement, all
evolutionists admit that communication via speech is uniquely humanso much so that it often
is used as the singular, and most important, dividing line between humans and animals. In his
book, Eve Spoke, evolutionist Philip Lieberman admitted:

Speech is so essential to our concept of intelligence that its possession is virtually equated with
being human. Animals who talk are human, because what sets us apart from other animals is the
gift of speech.

In The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Evolution, editors Jones, Martin, and Pilbeam
conceded that there are no nonhuman languages, and then went on to observe that language
is an adaptation unique to humans, and yet the nature of its uniqueness and its biological basis
are notoriously difcult to dene. In his book, The Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolution of
Language and the Brain, Terrance Deacon noted:

In this context, then, consider the case of human language. It is one of the most distinctive
behavioral adaptations on the planet. Languages evolved in only one species, in only one way,
without precedent, except in the most general sense. And the differences between languages and
all other natural modes of communicating are vast.

What events transpired that have allowed humans to speak, while animals remain silent? If we
are to believe the evolutionary teaching currently taking place in colleges and universities around
the world, speech evolved as a natural process over time. Yet no one is quite sure how, and there
are no known animals that are in a transition phase from non-speaking to speaking. In fact, in
 ELT ZOI ORIGINS OF LANGUAGE

the Atlas ofLangziages. this remarkable admission can be found1N0 lar'iguageless community
has ever been found. This represents no small problem for evohnon'.

Chewing, licking and sucking are extremely widespread mammlian activities. which, in term
ofcasual observation, have obvious similarities with speech "MnVell'age (1998)

We dont usually think of speaking as similar to chewinghcking and sucking, but, like
speaking, all of these actions involve movements of the mouth,~r>ngue and lips m7 some kind' of
controlled way. So. perhaps this connection is not as improbible as it rst sounds. It rs' an
example of the type of observation that can lead to interesting geculations about the on'gim of
spoken language. They remain, however, speculations, not facs We simply dont know how
language originated. We suspect that some type of spoken hngmf developed between 100,000
and 50,000 years ago, well before written language (about 5,0)0 years ago). Yet, among the
traces of earlier periods of life on earth, we never nd any rlirectevidence or artitiacts" relating' to
the speech of our distant ancestors that might tell us how Imguge was back in the early stages.
Perhaps because of this absence of direct physical evidence, there has been no shortage of
speculation about the origins of human speech. In this chqater,we will conSid'the men'ts of
some of those speculations.

The Div." :e Source

In the biblical tradition, God created Adam and whatsoever Adan called every h'nn'g creature,
that was the name thereof. Alternatively, following a Hindu tradition, languzg came from
Sarasvati, wife of Brahma, creator of the universe. In most religims', there appears to be a drv'ine
source who provides humans with language. In an attempt to rediscover this ongmaJl divine
language, a few experiments have been carried out, with rathe conflicting resuhs. The basic
hypothesis seems to have been that, if human infants were allowed to grow up wnhout hearing
any language around them, then they would spontaneously begn using the original God-given
language. An Egyptian pharaoh named Psammetichus tried theexperiment with two nevtbom
babies more than 2,500 years ago. After two years in the comparg of goats and amine shepherd,
the children were reported to have spontaneously uttered, mot anEgyptian word but sometlu'ng
that was identied as the Phrygian word bekos, meaning breaf. The pharaoh concluded that
Phrygian, an older language spoken in a part of what is modern Turkey, must he the original
language. That seems very unlikely. The children may not havepicked up this wrrd from any
human source. but as several commentators have pointed out, hey must have heard what the
goats were saying. (First remove the -kos ending, which was adled in the Greek version of the
story, then pronounce be- as you would the English word bai mout -d at the enlean you hear
a goat?) King James the Fourth of Scotland carried out a sun'iar experiment arund the year
1500 and the children were reported to have started spealm'g Hebrew. It is unfortunate that all
other cases of children who have been discovered living in rs'olathu, without cogrrmm" into contact
with human speech, tend not to conrm the results of these types-of divine-source experiments.
Very young children living without access to human langusge intheir early years grew up with
no language at all. If human language did emanate from a dime source, we have no way of
reconstructing that original language, especially given the eventsm' a city called BabeL because
the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth,as drscribed in the book of Genesis
(1 I: 9).
ELT 201 ORIGINS OF LANGUAGE UNIT ONE

The Natural Sound Source

A quite different view of the beginnings of language is based on the concept of natural sounds.
The suggestion is that primitive words could have been imitations of the natural sounds which
early men and women heard around them.When an object ew by, making a CAWCAW
sound, the early human tried to imitate the sound and used it to refer to the thing associated with
the sound. And when another ying creature made a COO-COO sound, that natural sound was
adopted to refer to that kind of object. 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.
In English, in addition to cuckoo, we have splash, bang, boom, rattle, buzz, hiss, screech, and
forms such as bow-wow. In fact, this type of view has been called the bow-wow theory of
language origin. While it is true that a number of words in any language are onomatopoeic
(echoing natural sounds), it is hard to see how most of the soundless as well as abstract things in
our world could have been referred to in a language that simply echoed natural sounds. We
might also be rather skeptical about a view that seems to assume that a language is only a set of
words used as names for things. It has also been suggested that 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], 00h], Wow! or Yuck!, are usually produced with sudden intakes of breath, which is the
opposite of ordinary talk. We normally produce spoken language on exhaled breath. Basically,
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. One other natural sound proposal has come to be known as 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 had to
be coordinated. So, a group of early humans might develop a set of grunts, groans and curses that
were used when they were lifting and carrying large bits of trees or lifeless hairy mammoths. The
appeal of this theory is that it places the developmentof human language in some social context.
Human sounds, however, they were produced, must have had some principled use within the
social life of early human groups. This is an important idea that may relate to the uses of
humanly produced sounds. It does not, however, answer our question regarding the origins of the
sounds produced. Apes and other primates have 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, which
may have been able to support speech production. We can start with the observation that, at some
early stage, our ancestors made a very signicant 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. The reconstructed vocal tract of a Neanderthal
suggests that some consonant like sound distinctions would have been possible. We have to wait
until about 35,000 years ago for features in reconstructions of fossilized skeletal structures that
begin to resemble those of modern humans. In the study of evolutionary development, there are
 ELTZO] ORIGINS OF LANGUAGE LNl
r 0qu

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 would not necessarily lead to speech production, but they are good clues that a creature
possessing such features probably has the capacity for speech.

The Brains Language CentersCreated by God

In contemplating how language arose, evolutionists frequently link the development of the brain
to the appearance of languages. But when one considers that more than 6,000 languages exist, it
is incomprehensible to suggest that the invention of language could be viewed as some sort of
simple, clear-cut addition to human physiology made possible by an enlarged brain unique to
Homo sapiens. Terrance Deacon commented on the intricacy of evolving a language when he
wrote :

For a language feature to have such an impact on brain evolution that all members of the species
come to share it, it must remain invariable across even the most drastic language change
possible [emphasis in original).
Pm a r\ lumu)
Mulm Mun.-

/7h\

\dn-ian-"s

//. ,, .i-ui

V
i if m

as}

l Brocas Area I \Vbrnickes Area

I Receives impulse tiom\\"euu'cke's I The meal-CombIngmarallow.)
:Xlc'- and COHVEL'I'S it into motor unders tan ding of spoken and \v'u':'.e::
commands. language,
Damage: disrupts speaking I I: is the part that enables a person to
Person can understand language in terprel language. so damage to :izis pair
V, . causes the eison to become unaware oflzis
\ ords mav not be propeilv touned P , . .
' om: speech and :ne speech 0t otnei's.
Speech is slow and slurred. I Sometimes the pe: son can spealat clearly. but
I Patients ma." 3 {mm-Med because the words that are put together make no sense.
they lmow that somerlu'ng is wrong. This way of .spealu'ng has been called "word
salad" because it appears that rlze words are
all mixed up like the vegetablesiz: 3 salad.
I Might use com.plete:.onsense words.
I Often not aware of their problem.

gure.1. Left hemisphere of human brain with language centersBrocas area and Wcrnickes area
ghlighted.
'ELT 201 ORIGINS OF LANGUAGE UNIT ONE

The complexity underlying speech rst revealed itself in patients who were suffering various
communication problems. Researchers began noticing analogous responses among patients with
similar injuries. The ancient Greeks noticed that brain damage could cause the loss of the ability
to speak (a condition known as aphasia). Centuries later, in 1836, Marc Dax described a group
of patients that could not speak normally. Dax reported that all of these patients experienced
damage to the left hemisphere of their brain. In 1861. Paul Broca described a patient who could
utter only a single wordtan. When this patient died, Broca examined his brain and observed
signicant damage to the left frontal cortex, which has since become known anatomically as
Brocas area (see Figure 2). While patients with damage to Bracas area can understand
language, they generally are unable to produce speech because words are not formed properly,
thus slurring their speech.

& .
Figure 2. Carl Wernicke Paul Broca

In 1876, Carl Wernicke discovered that language problems also could result from damage to
another section of the brain. This area, later termed Wernickes area, is located in the posterior
part of the temporal lobe (Figure l). Damage to llernicke 5 area results in a loss ofthe ability to
understand language. Thus, patients can continue to speak, but the words are put together in
such a way that they make no sense. Interestingly, in most people (approximately 97%) both
Brocas area and Wernickes area are found only in theleft hemisphere, which explains the
language decits observed in patients with brain damage to the left side of the brain.
Evolutionists freely acknowledge that:

The relationship between brain size and language is unclear. Possibly, increased social
interaction combined with tactical deception gave the. brain an initial impetus. Better
nourishment due to meat-eating may also have played a part. Then brain size and language
possibly increased together.

But, the human brain is not simply larger. The connections are vastly different as well. As
Deacon admitted: Looking more closely, we will discover that a radical re-engineering of the


ELT 20l ORIGINS OF LANGUAGE um ONE ".

\ 0

whole brain has taken place. and on a scale that is unprecedented. In order to speak a vord that
has been read, information is obtained from the eyes and travels to the visual cortex. iii-om the
primary visual cortex. information is transmitted to the posterior speech area which mc'ludes
Wernickes area). From there. information travels to Brocas area, and then to the pnmzry motor
cortex to provide the necessary muscle contractions to produce the sound. To speak a mad that
has been heard, we must invoke the primary auditory cortex, not the visual cortex. Deacon
commented on this complex neuronal networkwhich does not occur in annalswhen he
WTOIG.

Many a treatise on grammatical theory has failed to provide an adequate accountirg of the
implicit knowledge that even a four-year-old appears to possess about her newly acquired
language.

The Genetic Source

We can think of the human baby in its first few years as a living example of someof these
physical changes taking place. At birth, the babys brain is only a quarter of its eventual weight
and the larynx is much higher in the throat, allowing babies, like chimpanzees, to bmthe 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 tallm'g. This almost
automatic set of developments and the complexity of the young childs language haveled some
scholars to look for something more powerful than small physical adaptations oi the 5pm' over
time as the source of language. Even children who are born deaf (and do not develop speech)
become uent sign language users, given appropriate circumstances, very early in fe. This
seems to indicate that human offspring are born with a special capacity for langaage. as innate,
no other creature seems to have it, and it isnt tied to a specic variety of langtngge. Iszi'possible
that this language capacity is genetically hard-wired in the newborn human? A; a solmm' to the
puzzle of the origins of language, this innateness hypothesis would seem to paint to mething
in human genetics, possibly a crucial mutation, as the source. This would not has: been a
gradual change, but something that happened rather quickly. We are not sure when this'proposed
genetic change might have taken place or how it might relate to the phvs,ical adaptations
described earlier. However, as we consider this hypothesis, we nd our Speed-ations about the
origins of language moving away from fossil evidence or the physical source of basic human
sounds toward analogies with how computers work (eg. being pre-programned or mid-wired)
and concepts taken from the study of genetics. The investigation of the origins of lannaagge then
turns into a search for the special language gene that only humans possess. lfwe are md"eed the
only creatures with this special capacity for language, then will it be completely im'prssible for
any other creature to produce or understand language?