as a layperson, i have a hunch that language first developed as a defense mechanism against predators, and continued (perhaps more rapidly) with the proliferation of hunting weapons and methods.
an article/thesis from last year claims to have decoded gibbon vocalizations for distinct predators, as well as what the predators were doing [1].
and a while back i remember reading a theory that consumption of animal-based protein increased the brain size of early humans.
barring a monolith [2] my guess is that crude hunting tools provided more brain food for less work which, in turn, led to the development of more sophisticated tools and hunting methods.
so if the presence of predators caused early humans to develop simple words and grammar, perhaps a better-fueled brain, as well as the desire to teach and learn better tool development/use and hunting methods, expanded and improved this early grammar into something that could be used to communicate (e.g.) abstractions.
as a layperson, this process would seem to involve more than the mutation of one gene (e.g. FOXP_{2}), it would seem to involve lots of stuff: chemicals related to fear, stress, changes in diet, group dynamics, and so forth.
You're probably on to something there. Hundreds of millions of years of evolution for finding food and avoiding predators. At best: a few thousand for managing linguistic skills. (or possibly hundreds of thousands, when it comes to our ancestor's pre-linguistic abilities).
The paper says that Hunter Gatherers existed well before 70,000 years ago, but this genetic mutation enabled the invention of recursive language, particularly spatial preposition. This enabled more abstract communication and planning, so for instance, Romulus and Remus on their first Buffalo hunt, dug a pit and covered it with branches in a location where the buffalo would naturally run to, when chased. They trapped far more buffalo than the typical zero or at most one - of traditional chase and spear method - ie they were far more successful than anyone before them. The benefit of this enhanced collaboration far outweighed the cost of slower brain development in children, so the mutation rapidly spread and dominated.
About why language gave us an evolutionary advantage, there’s another hypothesis than the informational/hunting one (and it has much more explaining and predicting power in my opinion), the Dunbar’s one:
Dunbar's suggestion],"then, is that language evolved as a 'cheap form of social grooming, so enabling the ancestral humans to maintain the cohesion of the unusually large groups demanded by the particular conditions they faced at the time."
"In other words, did language evolve tofacilitate the exchange of technological infor-mation (with gossip as an idle by-product), ordid it evolve to facilitate the exchange of socialinformation (with the exchange of technologicalinformation as a useful by-product)?"
The book Adam's Tongue: How Humans Made Language, How Language Made Humans makes a cogent argument for my position. It examines carefully the difference between Animal Communication Systems and our own, in all the variety primitive humanity could devise.
If dolphins had a human-like facility for language, I imagine some captive dolphins would have figured out (probably through a discussion among themselves) that humans also have language, and that it would be greatly beneficial if they could communicate with humans. With both parties sharing this goal, I don't think it would take long.
On the other hand, I don't suppose human language emerged fully-formed (I don't think there is much evidence for Chomsky's views on this), and these pre- or proto-language skills may provide a lot of insight into its evolution.
If you believe that speech is a survival skill (which I would think most people believe) then anything that increases its prevalence or effectiveness would be evolutionarily selected for, right? We’re talking a 300-500+ Ky period, probably almost 2X that (depending upon the speech capabilities of our hominid ancestors), so plenty of time for evolutionary pressure to apply.
Lots of animals use tools. Only humans have technology. By that I mean the ability to learn and disseminate knowledge of tool use. Once you have that then genetic evolution gives way to the evolution of knowledge, which can be far more rapid.
Language is a meta-technology, a technology that facilitates transmission of other technologies, as well as itself. I suspect that language had its origins at the same time as humanity's tool use transitioned from serendipitous accident to learned technology. From there language and humanity's technological both rapidly evolved together in a self-reinforcing complementary positive feedback spiral.
I've heard it suggested that language made the big difference. We bummed around for 998 million years, not able to improve our lot much - but somehow, 2 million years ago we developed language, and after that we were able to rapidly improve (and even co-evolve with our improvements - I've heard that the invention of the baby sling allowed our brains to grow larger than without it).
That's a surprisingly good overview of research into animal language.
I don't find it surprising at all that animals like birds, and especially primates, can learn rudimentary human language. It's reasonable to assume they label things in their natural setting. In a social species, there would be an evolutionary advantage for one member to be able to describe, for example, that they just found a new banana tree.
We're not special enough for language to have developed from scratch in homo sapiens. Our expressive language had to have come from simpler roots in other species.
The thing about the bird making and using tools was new to me, however. I had only heard of primates using tools before.
[In response to responder: Actually I think developing complex language with something like this would be relatively easy. With human language we can't just show a series of events with our words, people need to experience the things with us and then we develop common words to describe them again later. With their system of communication it seems that they could describe pretty much anything they'd find notable and also easily abstract things by just making their clicks less specific or by blending a few specific examples as a form of abstraction. Actually I'd bet on blending first, maybe even a literal superposition of all the possibilities or several of them. Also they might be able to communicate by acting things out physically while they are sounding things out. The combination could be pretty powerful for expression.]
I thought it was understood that vocal language grew out of sign language used by hominid hunting groups?
It seems to me that "action selection and the sequence of actions" reaches it's zenith in pre-linguistic animals in hunting. It would be the most complex sequence of actions any animal attempts? (Building a nest, say, is complicated but static: the nest materials are not actively attempting to avoid being made into nests. Mating behaviors are instinctive and stereotypical. Only hunting is open ended?)
According to the Atlantic, Kolodny's thesis is that toolbuilding laid the groundwork for the development of language.
How about other human behaviors such as group activities requiring coordination and planning, or language as a means to invoke and control specific emotions in others?
Certainly activities such as building encampments, changing encampments, delegation of tasks, coordination during hunting and gathering, all these also required sequenced actions.
Fast forward to the present, and toolmakers are generally below the topmost pinnacle of society; MIT's endowment is only 13 billion compared to Harvard's 35 billion (humor intended).
Dogs and chimps seem to enjoy hearing, learning, being influenced, and being told what to do via language, yet aren't capable of speaking it. Surely pre-modern humans were the same, leaving open a huge selective advantage for the development of vocal/language skills.
Evolution. Animals suddenly gain all sorts of competencies when the competitive pressure is on. Most animals already have linguistic ability, I don't think human language is all that special. We can do all sorts of fancy things with our brains that seem to defy explanation through the simple mechanics of evolution, but communicating the state of your brain to another of your species, that feels like basic stuff to me.
Very likely. You may be interested in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_language ("The results suggest that language first evolved around 350,000-150,000 years ago, which is around the time when modern Homo sapiens evolved") an https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_modernity ("Howiesons Poort, Blombos, and other South African archaeological sites, for example, show evidence of marine resource acquisition, trade, and abstract ornamentation at least by 80,000 years ago.")
Language is probably the most important point of distinction between humans and all other animals: no animal has anything quite like it. Language is intimately connected with symbolic reasoning, and enabled the social coordination and shared learning that underlays our contemporary technology and success. But where does language come from?
Researching language is very difficult, however, due to the ethical issues of researching human cognition and the difficulty of studying socially learned behaviors of WEIRD college students in contrast to hunter-gatherer infants. So you have had people trying to reason from the examples of severely brain-damaged adults, horrifically abused children, or experiments conducted by temporarily paralyzing peoples' brains.
The amazing thing about NSL is that it is a well-documented example of linguogenesis: A non-linguistic human community essentially developed a new language and developed it to a high degree of sophistication within a scant few generations. This is not merely creolization, or something that was discovered after the fact. People have been able to document the increasing sophistication of the grammar with every class.
Because we're the only ones with language. Language gave us a huge technical advantage over all of the other animals.
Typically, in species without language, it takes many generations for a "mutation"[1] to propagate across the species.
If I instinctually figure out a better way of hunting deer, which gives me an advantage over my competitors for mates, and I pass it on to my children, who pass it on to theirs, etc. eventually the new instinct will be present in most of the species.
(This is basic basic natural selection).
Language changed all of that. Now instead of waiting for offspring to carry a mutation, I can just tell people about the better way of hunting deer, they can do it, and they can tell people too.
Stuff spreads quickly. It makes humans able to evolve at a much, much, much faster rate than any other animal on the planet.
(And yes, really, humans are the only animals on the planet with language. Bird song, whale song, and tree-pheromones don't count.)
[1] In quotes because consciously iterating over a problem (like hunting deer) isn't a "mutation" in the classic sense.
an article/thesis from last year claims to have decoded gibbon vocalizations for distinct predators, as well as what the predators were doing [1].
and a while back i remember reading a theory that consumption of animal-based protein increased the brain size of early humans.
barring a monolith [2] my guess is that crude hunting tools provided more brain food for less work which, in turn, led to the development of more sophisticated tools and hunting methods.
so if the presence of predators caused early humans to develop simple words and grammar, perhaps a better-fueled brain, as well as the desire to teach and learn better tool development/use and hunting methods, expanded and improved this early grammar into something that could be used to communicate (e.g.) abstractions.
as a layperson, this process would seem to involve more than the mutation of one gene (e.g. FOXP_{2}), it would seem to involve lots of stuff: chemicals related to fear, stress, changes in diet, group dynamics, and so forth.
[1] http://search.library.wisc.edu/catalog/ocn888412908
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mM6OIlreneA
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