SEARCHING FOR THE ORIGINS OF HUMAN LANGUAGE
Searching for the Origins of Language
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University of Maryland Global Campus
WRTG 391: Advance Research Writing
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Introduction
Language is a ubiquitous feature of our lives. As such it may not seem to stand out as a
particularly remarkable characteristic of being human, unless one considers what the human
animal would be like without an ability to comprehend and use language. In fact, it could be
argued that human language is one of the few traits which completely distinguishes human
behavior from that of other animals, as so much of our success depends upon our manipulation
of complex, language-based, communication. Language involves combining and recombining
concepts. You use language in an internal language of thought. It can be used for communication
through either speech, signing, or writing. However, in the context of linguistics, writing is
considered an externalization which builds upon language, but is not itself language. The
capacity for language, rather than the way it is externalized is the issue which has inspired the
deepest curiosity. Although over the past seventy years many scientists have studied other
animals’ communication systems in the search for insight into the origins of human language, it
is cognition which now seems to hold the key to understanding its evolution. This literature
review explores how the field expanded from theories about the nature of language, its
relationship with animals’ communication systems and animal cognitive skills, to hypotheses
about both why and how our ancestors developed a fully formed capacity for language.
What is the Definition of Language?
When people developed an interest in how human language evolved, they began to study
animal communication systems. But to compare animal communication systems to human
language they first had to have a clear understanding of the features that defined language.
Although people have been analyzing language and describing its grammar for centuries, the
modern field of linguistics developed only in the last century. Researchers looked to this
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emerging field, and to the work of Noam Chomsky in particular, for help in defining the
essentials of human communication (Jackendoff & Pinker, 2005).
Human language is comprised of certain core elements which are present, be it in the use
of speech or sign language: phonology (sound/spatial-temporal quality); semantics (symbols with
meaning, like words); grammar (the particular rules of a given language); and syntax (a subset of
grammar, e.g. more general rules referring to sentence structure) (Suzuki, et al. 2019; Jackendoff
& Pinker, 2005). When considering syntax, Suzuki et al. suggest three criteria for compositional
syntax: 1. That the meaning of individual signals, and combinations thereof reflect a context; 2.
That the meaning of a combination of words is only understood because the component parts are
meaningful; 3. And further, that the precise order of the signals (i.e. words in a sentence) can
determine the meaning (2019). With this kind of analysis, researchers could determine if animal
communication systems had these important characteristics of human language.
What is Unique About Human Language?
Some researchers came to the opinion that there is another essential aspect of human
language which is not only characteristic but unique. Bolhuis et al. (2014) locate this uniqueness
in a cognitive ability to combine mental representations, then recursively re-combine these to
create mental representations of almost infinitely complex ideas—they call this ability “merge.”
They claim that merging concepts recursively is the core of human grammar, and that this is an
innate and uniquely human capacity. The merge concept suggests that these combinations are
inherently pairwise: taking n elements, placing them into pairs, and recombining those in nearly
infinite compositions.
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A competing if similar theory is termed “Unification” (Jackendoff & Pinker, 2005).
Based partly on considerations of the nature of idioms, Jackendoff and Pinker propose that a
binary rearrangement of similar elements is inadequate to explain the richness of human
language. Bolhuis et al. present no explanation for idioms where Jackendoff and Pinker insist
that no explanation of human language can ignore sentences which are consistent with proper
grammatical usage, but have an actual meaning which is different from their literal meaning (e.g.
‘Bite the bullet’). The merge theory assumes that all sentences are comprised of smaller elements
for which we have mental representations. The Unification theory proposes that mental
representations are much more flexible, even for an entire sentence, which would be the case for
an idiom like ‘Stick ‘em up.’ Humans can think non-linguistically, but a large portion of our
stream of consciousness and mental life is in the form of language.
The similarity in both the Unification and merge theories is that we compose sentences
by recombining elements. It is these processing characteristics which researchers generally agree
most fully typify the core of human language. Therefore, these features are what were looked for
as a basis for comparison in animal communication systems, as well as in the cognitive
capabilities of animals.
Potential Insights into the Evolution of Human Language?
Just as clearer definitions about human language developed in the latter half of the 20th
century represented a major inflection point in answering questions about the evolution of human
language; further understanding whether language is primarily a behavior or a cognitive function
and therefore how investigations into its evolution should be pursued has been an ongoing debate
which represent a second inflection point.
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Animal Communication Systems
Clearly animals communicate too. When researchers first began investigating the question of
the evolution of human language they looked mainly to our closest genetic relatives, the great
apes, and to birdsong, as the most complex observed example of animal communication.
Everyone who has heard birdsong can recognize that it consists of different notes, combined in
different orders, and one might imagine that it is used for communication rather than expending
energy for no purpose. Writing of chick-a-dee birdsong, Hailman observed that “the staggering
variety of call-types created from combinations of note-types and their repetitions is not likely to
be haphazard variation” (1985, p. 1). In 1985 there were very high hopes for finding close
analogies between human and animal communication as suggested by the title The ‘chick-a-dee’
calls of Parus atricapillus: A recombinant system of animal communication compared with
written English (Hailman).
However, the study of animal communication systems did not provide clear answers quickly
and work continues today. In their paper Suzuki et al. give a brief overview of the current state of
the field (2019). They describe observations which suggest that various species may combine
predator warning calls with contact calls. The significant point is that two calls with consistently
observed responses (i.e. meanings) may be combined in a different context to provoke an entirely
different response. For instance, paired meanings in putty-nosed monkeys are given as a possible
example of idiomatic usage (Suzuki et al., 2019, p. 5). However, this may simply be a
recombination of two sounds, each with a meaning, where the combined sound has a third
meaning such as in the German word Kühlschrank—kühl meaning cool, and Schrank meaning
cupboard, which in combination means refrigerator. There is not evidence in animal
communication of anything approaching a sentence.
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A different research path was to try to teach language to our closest genetic relatives (chimps,
gorillas, and bonobos). They were either taught to sign or to touch a symbolic interface, as it was
clear that they could not mimic sounds. While people enthused over early results, showing that
apes could learn hundred of signs, combinations were another matter. In fact, one of the more
impressive outcomes was announced in 1977, when a chimpanzee named Washoe saw a swan in
the park and signed ‘Water + Bird’ (Suzuki et al., 2019). However, given that there were never
repeated examples of this kind of spontaneous generation of a combination of words/signs to
indicate a concept it is not clear that Washoe’s communication even rose to the level of the
putty-nosed monkey’s Kühlschrank.
Cognitive Insights into the Evolution of Human Language
The research program in the latter half of the previous century attempting to teach great apes
human language highlighted the simplicity of great ape signaling behavior, but this stands in
great contrast to ongoing research showing the sophistication of great ape cognitive capacities.
Tecumseh Fitch points out that “animal signals do not equal animal concepts” (2019, p. 4). In
fact, there is now clear evidence that many species have considerable cognitive sophistication.
Dolphins for example can demonstrate in their behavioral responses that they are able to interpret
complex sentences with grammatical order, as well as concepts like ‘same’ and ‘different’
(Tecumseh Fitch, 2019). Yet they have never been successfully trained to communicate in a way
which could be viewed as even roughly translating to the system of grammar and semantics that
underlies human language.
Many animals display evidence of highly complex mental representations, intricate concepts,
tool use, social relationships, planning for the future, and mental maps of their environment
(Tecumseh Fitch, 2019). There is always skepticism about recognizing whether animals have any
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cognitive capacity because they cannot directly tell us. However, researchers are conducting
more subtle experiments to reveal animal cognition. Tecumseh Fitch (2019) describes evidence
that some animals even have a theory of mind, which does not begin to develop in humans until
about age 3-5. This ability to consider the mental state of other actors and what information they
have can be deduced from the fact that many animals will wait to hide something desirable until
a competitor is not looking, or that they can recognize themselves in a mirror. Another example
of social cognitive sophistication was illustrated in experiments conducted by Martin et al.
(2014). They demonstrated that in certain strategy games which require guessing what your
partner is likely to do, pairs of chimps performed better than pairs of humans.
A different cognitive capacity is the perception of sequencing which is critical in syntactic
structure. Jensen et al. (2019) designed an experiment on sequence perception which also
showed that it was not simply rewards that governed the monkeys ability to make cognitive
inferences like, if a is to the left of b, and b is to the left of c, then it follows that a is to the left of
c. Illustrative of trends in the field, Jensen’s senior coauthor, Herbert Terrace, famously lead a
project in the 1970s attempting to teach language to a chimpanzee subject whom they playfully
named, Nim Chimpsky (Terrace et al., 1979). Clearly in the intervening decades Terrace shifted
his focus from animal communication to animal cognition as a central means of insight into the
evolution of human language.
Studies about animal communication like, those done with Nim Chimpsky, clearly showed
that chimpanzees are not good vocal mimics, but the fact that they were able to learn hundreds of
signs, indicated that they are excellent gestural mimics. Mirror neurons are nerve cells that fire
either when you do a motion, or you see someone else perform a motion you recognize. Arbib
(2017) points out that the presence of mirror neurons in primates and their ability to learn,
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mimic, and refine hand motions could represent an important evolutionary link toward language
with our closest genetic relatives. Going even further, in a review Tecumseh Fitch (2017) argues
using evidence from various animal behavior studies, that great ape cognitive sophistication
reaches a level where it supplies all the elements necessary for language to evolve.
What Drove the Evolution of Human Language?
Once there was better clarity about exactly what defines human language and whether it
is best observed as a cognitive process, it became possible to ask what selective forces drove its
evolution. Dunbar (2017) hypothesizes that human language evolved specifically to facilitate the
social interactions necessary for humans to form larger social groups. Dunbar analyzed data
showing primate species that live in larger groups have larger neocortical surface areas and
spend more time engaged in the mutual grooming (2017, p. 209). Primates who live in large
groups ensure their stability by forming alliances using these behaviors, but this system of
mutual grooming requires a considerable investment of time. The implication Dunbar (2017)
drew is that for group sizes typical of early humans, maintaining social cohesion by grooming
would have demanded more than twelve hours a day (longer than there is daylight most places).
Clearly humans would have needed something to allow bonding with more than one potential
ally at a time to support stability in groups as large as they did. Being able to gossip and bond
using language fit the bill, especially since it could be done at night.
Another researcher, Donald (2017) proposes a quite different alternative, namely that
early humans developed a protolanguage to think about tools, and perhaps communicate about
them in gestures. Using paleo genetic analysis and records of human tool construction, Donald
(2017) reconstructed the gradual emergence of complex tools made early in human history and
finds that the “…archeological evidence suggests strongly that human ancestors were skilled
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[tool makers] long before they were articulate” (p. 205). The cognitive capacity required for
making complex multi-part tools, and passing the knowledge along, provided the impetus for
tool-making and language to co-evolve.
How Did Human Language Evolve?
The issue of exactly how speech developed is addressed in some detail by Dunbar (2017)
and Donald (2017). Donald proposes that there must have been a stepwise co-evolution from
protolanguage and moderately complex tools to fully developed language embedded in a
complex culture of tool-makers (2017). Donald emphasizes the connections between cognitive
skills necessary for complex tool-making and language: working memory, episodic memory,
sequencing, and hierarchical analysis. He proposes multiple stages for development from a
gestural “mimetic” protolanguage, after which the eventual evolution language would have only
needed cultural drivers as the underlying cognitive capacity necessary would have already been
developed through tool-making. Basically by the time early humans could make bows and
arrows the cognitive capacity existed for fully human language to develop.
Dunbar (2017) discusses evidence pointing to the development of voluntary breath
control needed for speech. He explains that the breath control for speech requires such an
enlarged thoracic nerve that the thoracic spine was modified to accommodate it (Dunbar, 2017).
Consequently, the fossil records show which hominids had breath control. He also considered the
issue of how the steps on the road to language would have been rewarded. He suggests that
laughter would have been the first rewarding vocal bonding signal (Dunbar, 2017, p. 210).
Implied is that it is both rewarding and pro-social even in modern humans. He then speculates
that music or chanting may have played the next a role, citing examples of modern humans using
songs without meaningful words to bond while working together (Dunbar, 2017). The final
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stage, developing language sophisticated enough to discuss events and individuals, is not as
elaborated. But Dunbar (2017) does note that in modern workplaces a large part of verbal
communication is not about work but instead centers around social chatter, and gossip about
mutual acquaintances, or famous people.
Conclusion
Despite the discovery of complex cognition in animals, especially primates, the most
unique attribute of human language, the process of recombining mental representations, has yet
to be conclusively demonstrated in animals. Tecumseh Fitch (2019) emphasizes how important it
would be to discover whether the merge process is present in animal cognition, saying that it is
crucial to “…explore in detail animals’ abilities to combine concepts. To the extent that they can
do so in a flexible, hierarchical manner, I think we can see the germs of the recursive symbolic
system that underlies human linguistic concepts” (p. 6). Semantics (i.e. meaningful concepts) are
clearly present in animals and can include sophisticated understandings of social relationships
(Tecumseh Fitch, 2017). The question of whether these concepts can be recombined in a way
which resembles recursive syntax is less clear. If the recursive ability which underlies syntax
could be found in the cognitive systems of animals, then animals may have something closer to a
language of thought than we are currently able to demonstrate. Given the direction that research
has previously gone and its current projections, it seems unlikely that the study of animal
communication systems alone will provide the breakthrough insights into the origins of human
language.
Tecumseh Fitch suggests that human language may have had multiple evolutionary
forces which drove it (2017). The advantage gained by being able to construct complex tools
may have been the force that led to the emergence a hierarchical language of thought, merge,
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perhaps first expressed in gestures. But Fitch contends that this does not preclude and could in
fact complement Dunbar’s ideas about the advantages of bonding in large social groups (2017).
Hominids could have also been using drumming and chanting-like sounds first, then music to
bond, leading eventually to something like words. From a proposed universal grammar to a range
of ideas about how language began, progress in our understanding of how human language
evolved continues.
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