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How Did Language Evolved Article

There are two main theories about how language evolved in humans. The adaptation theory proposes that language developed through natural selection as a way for early humans to communicate and better survive threats like predators and harsh environments. The other theory is that language was an exapted byproduct of evolutionary processes like increased brain and cognitive development, rather than a direct adaptation. While the theories differ on whether language was directly selected for or emerged indirectly, most researchers agree that both natural selection and exaptation likely played a role, with language first arising as a byproduct of brain evolution and then becoming more refined through adaptive processes.

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101 views

How Did Language Evolved Article

There are two main theories about how language evolved in humans. The adaptation theory proposes that language developed through natural selection as a way for early humans to communicate and better survive threats like predators and harsh environments. The other theory is that language was an exapted byproduct of evolutionary processes like increased brain and cognitive development, rather than a direct adaptation. While the theories differ on whether language was directly selected for or emerged indirectly, most researchers agree that both natural selection and exaptation likely played a role, with language first arising as a byproduct of brain evolution and then becoming more refined through adaptive processes.

Uploaded by

Zara Nur
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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How did language evolve?

By: Charles W. Bryant

This caveman gets by with a little help from his friends.

This caveman gets by with a little help from his friends.

PAUL HARRIS/GETTY IMAGES

Animals may not be able to form words, but they can certainly communicate. Birds use songs and calls,
and other animals use a combination of sounds and movements to communicate. Primates have an
advanced system of communication that includes vocalization, hand gestures and body language. But
even primates stop short of what man has been able to achieve -- spoken language. Our ability to form a
limitless number of thoughts into spoken word is one of the things that separates us from our less
evolved cousins. While we know that language first appeared among Homo sapiens somewhere
between 30,000 and 100,000 years ago, the secret to how language evolved is still unknown, and
mainstream theories fall into two distinctly different camps.

One widely held theory is that language came about as an evolutionary adaptation, which is when a
population undergoes a change in process over time to better survive. That's where the idea of natural
selection comes into play, which is the notion that the specific physical traits of a population make that
population more likely to survive its environment -- think the turtle and its shell. The idea here is that
language was created to help humans survive. Why? One, humans needed to communicate with each
other in order to hunt, farm and defend themselves successfully from the surrounding harsh
environment. Being able to communicate using language gave the human species a distinct survival
advantage. And two, language was needed for social interaction, according to those who subscribe to
the adaptation theory.

In their paper "Natural Language and Natural Selection," researchers Steven Pinker and Paul Bloom
theorize that a series of calls or gestures evolved over time into combinations, giving us complex
communication, or language. As things became more complicated around them, humans needed a more
complex system to convey information to one another. Think of it like this: Early man sees a group of
deer he wants to hunt. He grunts a sound to his hunting partner that means "deer are nearby." One day,
a storm comes in and the hunter notices that thunder scares the deer away. As a result, the hunter goes
hungry until the storm passes. Over time, the same hunter also learns to recognize the warning signs for
bad weather -- dark skies and increased wind. Early man realizes that when the sky darkens and the
wind picks up, he needs to tell his hunting partner to speed up the pursuit of the deer. Therefore, he
comes up with a series of grunts that reference both the deer and the bad weather. That series of grunts
was the beginning of an evolutionary adaptation that eventually became language. As humans learned
more about how to best survive, they developed a need to communicate these survival methods to their
population. And that's the adaptation theory in a nutshell.
Evolution, Adaptation and Language

The other competing theory, posed by linguist Noam Chomsky and evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay
Gould, is that language evolved as a result of other evolutionary processes, essentially making it a
byproduct of evolution and not a specific adaptation. The idea that language was a spandrel, a term
coined by Gould, flew in the face of natural selection. In fact, Gould and Chomsky pose the theory that
many human behaviors are spandrels. These various spandrels came about because of a process Darwin
called "pre-adaptation," which is now known as exaptation. This is the idea that a species uses an
adaptation for a purpose other than what it was initially meant for. One example is the theory that bird
feathers were an adaptation for keeping the bird warm, and were only later used for flying. Chomsky
and Gould hypothesize that language may have evolved simply because the physical structure of the
brain evolved, or because cognitive structures that were used for things like tool making or rule learning
were also good for complex communication. This falls in line with the theory that as our brains became
larger, our cognitive functions increased.

Of course, researchers can't even agree on what constitutes language among early man. Some consider
the proto-language of Homo halibis the first real language. Others say it can be chalked up to Homo
erectus, while most believe that what we understand as modern language came from Homo sapiens.
We do know that Homo habilis is responsible for bringing tools onto the scene, about 2.3 million years
ago. This has led some to believe that the cognitive function of Homo halibis was much more advanced
than his predecessor, Australopithecus. According to research, the temporal, parietal and occipital lobes
of the brain were physically connected for the first time with Homo halibis. That area of the brain is
known now as Wernicke's area, and it has a lot to do with language production. This supports Chomsky
and Gold's theory that our brains physically adapted to be able to make tools, and language then arose
because of this adaptation.

For those of you who think both camps present pretty good arguments, there's good news: They aren't
mutually exclusive. While science now shows us that it's likely there already were neural structures in
place that allowed language to evolve, meaning it was likely exapted, that doesn't necessarily explain
language in full, with all of its complexities. Stringing words together into sentences and the notion of
grammar in language may have a lot to do with natural selection. So perhaps language was originally
exapted, but was refined through Darwinian selection. Surely a Homo sapien with more advanced
communication skills would have some kind of evolutionary advantage over his single-word grunting
cousin. But that more refined Homo sapien wouldn't even have the opportunity to speak his first
sentence if his brain hadn't evolved to allow him to make a primitive hammer

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