Theories of the Origin of Language

[lpetrich]

Human language is far in advance of what every other present-day species has, with the possible exception of what dolphins may have. Efforts to teach sign language to chimpanzees has resulted in the animals learning lots of signs, but very little beyond that. They can make some two-sign combinations, but that is about it.

Various biologists and linguists have developed a sizable number of theories about its origin, and some of them have given these theories whimsical names. Here's what I've found:

• ma-ma -- attaching the easiest syllables to significant objects (?)
• ta-ta -- imitation of body movements like gestures (Sir Richard Paget 1930)
• bow-wow -- imitation of sounds (?, Max Müller 1861)
• pooh-pooh -- interjections, instinctive emotive cries (?, Max Müller 1861)
• ding-dong -- sounds and meanings corresponding, like sound symbolism (?, Max Müller 1861)
• yo-he-ho -- rhythmic chants, like when coordinating efforts in heavy work (?, Max Müller 1861)
• la-la, sing-song -- pleasant audio doodling (Otto Jespersen 1921)
• hey-you -- assertion of identity and calling to others (Géza Révész 1956)
• uh-oh -- warnings (?)
• hocus-pocus -- magical / religious acts (C. George Boeree)
• eureka -- consciously invented (?)
• watch-the-birdie -- lying (Edgar A. Sturtevant 1922)
• pop -- language popped into existence as an evolutionary byproduct (Stephen Jay Gould)

Sources:
 Origin of language
The Origins of Language - C. George Boeree
Historical Linguistics (PowerPoint)
Linguistic Hypotheses on the Origins of Language | Free Language
The Origin of Language (MSWord)
The Origin of Language : Sturtevant, E. H. : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive
The Evolution of Language

 

[lpetrich]

Here is a theory that I like. It is a version of the la-la theory.

Evolution of Language - Abstracts
The singing origin theory of speech.
Dr. John R. Skoyles

Parsimony

Logical arguments about precedence underlie important areas of science, for example, the conjecture that RNA life arose before life based upon proteins and DNA (Freeland, Knight & Landweber, 1999). Similar precedence arguments apply to why human song preceded speech. For humans to sing requires: (i) the capacity to produce and learn repetitive patterns, and (ii) the thoracic control of expirations to enable long sequences of different tones and articulations made upon a single out breath. However, speech requires at least two additional components: syntax and word vocabulary. The latter consists itself of two components: the ability to link semantics to word pronunciations (both in perception and production), and the ability to acquire words and their meaning from their presence in the talk of others. An asymmetry thus exists: while the components needed for song can independently precede those needed for speech (you can sing without words and syntax), those for speech cannot independently precede those needed for song (speech needs the breath control required for song). The evolution of biological structures, moreover, goes through stages whereby inherited modifications become increasingly complex by additions -- feathers, for example, preceded their use in flight by initially being evolved to provide thermal insulation then only became structurally adapted (elongation etc) as wing feathers. Song has many functional advantages (see below), and is a form of communication that easily mixes with speech (chants, prayers, poetry). Thus, it is a natural proto-stage which could initially arise and then further develop by elaboration into speech.

In short, the singing theory means that the component parts of language use did not have to evolve together. Thus making it easier to evolve.


How similar are the gestures of apes and human infants? More than you might suspect
Suggesting a common origin.

Monkey lip smacks provide new insights into the evolution of human speech
Many species of monkeys make lip-smack sounds in friendly situations, like mothers with their babies. But X-raying macaques as they smack their lips reveals some behind-the-scenes complexities and similarities with human speech.

Chimps can also make sounds with their lips, including lip smacks and lip buzzes. These seem to be under voluntary control and they can be learned, unlike their vocalizations, like hoots and grunts.

The missing piece of the puzzle is the origin of voluntary control of the larynx.

How human language could have evolved from birdsong: Researchers propose new theory on deep roots of human speech

"The sounds uttered by birds offer in several respects the nearest analogy to language," Charles Darwin wrote in "The Descent of Man" (1871), while contemplating how humans learned to speak. Language, he speculated, might have had its origins in singing, which "might have given rise to words expressive of various complex emotions."

Now researchers from MIT, along with a scholar from the University of Tokyo, say that Darwin was on the right path. The balance of evidence, they believe, suggests that human language is a grafting of two communication forms found elsewhere in the animal kingdom: first, the elaborate songs of birds, and second, the more utilitarian, information-bearing types of expression seen in a diversity of other animals.

I think that the birdsong bit is an analogy, and that this is a singing-before-speech theory. The idea here is that making a range of sounds evolved as singing, where the sounds would not have to carry much semantic load. Once that happened, making that range of sounds could then be used for language.

 

[rousseau]

What are we trying to discover by understanding the origin of language? In other words, what do we want to know about it's origin?

Just thinking off the cuff it seems like you could generalise quite easily:

1) Humans acquired greater brain capacity somewhere along the way of evolution
2) Those who were better at using primitive languages produced more babies
3) Capacity to use language grew over time

Even now, you can see the ability to use language embedded in our culture. Social skills are a huge selective factor, and so I would suggest that our brain capacity at some point gave us significant phenotypic variation on ability to use language, and that over time good communicators were rewarded more substantially than bad communicators.

The primitive languages likely were focused on anything that was significant in the environment: prey, predators, food, sex.. etc

 

[lpetrich]

What are we trying to discover by understanding the origin of language? In other words, what do we want to know about it's origin?

What induced its evolution, what its intermediate states were, how they evolved, and what value they had. It is not enough to point to the adaptive value of the final state. Not enough.

 

[Angry Floof]

I thought the singing ape hypothesis was debunked or at least discredited to a great degree by neuroscience findings on the differences between language and singing.

 

[lpetrich]

Religion And Music… And Lions | διά πέντε / dia pente
reporting on
Music in Human Evolution - Melting Asphalt by Kevin Simler
reporting on
Joseph Jordania's book Why Do People Sing?: Music in Human Evolution.

He notes these features of us and our evolution after our split with chimps' ancestors:

• We are rather wimpy, with shrunken fangs and the like.
• Lion evolution has paralleled our evolution in some ways, including sociality.
• We are the only land-surface singers. All other singing species are either arboreal or aquatic. Me: wolves howl and lions roar, so they are partial counterexamples.
• We are the only rhythm-users.
• We often dance when we sing, and we often do so in groups.
• Rhythmic chanting and dancing can get us into trance states.
• JJ proposes that early hominids ate their dead. Among present-day humanity, protecting corpses and then disposing of them is essentially universal.

KS notes that our ancestors a few million years back were likely scavengers instead of hunters, and he notes two types of scavenging:

Passive scavenging, coming across an undefended dead body. Even one that predators had already eaten can have some meat left, like bone marrow. In fact, there's some evidence of smashed bones from there and then.

Confrontational scavenging, stealing some prey from its eaters. That's more difficult, for obvious reasons, but it does happen. Did our ancestors back then do some of that?

Despite our wimpiness back then, JJ proposes that we had a weapon that other species did not have. We could throw stones. We didn't have to hunt with them, just drive off predators who were attacking us or predators who we wanted to steal prey from.

JJ proposes an Audio-Visual Intimidation Display:

My suggestion is that our ancestors turned loud singing into a central element of their defence system against predators. They started using loud, rhythmic singing and shouting accompanied by vigorous, threatening body movements and object throwing to defend themselves from predators.

It's a way of seeming very threatening by seeing very big and loud.

Me: that's one possibility, but another one would be like lion roars and wolf howls: to advertise oneself to other members of one's group, and to advertise one's group's presence to rival groups.

JJ proposes that when our ancestors did an AVID against some predators, they may have gone into a "battle trance" state, something that would make them less fearful of their targets fighting back. It would be safe to be less cautious if your friends were fighting alongside, and you would be more dangerous to your targets.

 

[lpetrich]

I thought the singing ape hypothesis was debunked or at least discredited to a great degree by neuroscience findings on the differences between language and singing.

Any details on that?

Language Log » Bickerton on Fitch Derek Bickerton asks why prey animals would advertise their presence.

I concede that that is a difficulty. Wolves and lions are both predators, and well-known for being vocal, so our ancestors of a few million years ago ought to have been good at fighting off predators.

It was in response to Language Log » Musical protolanguage: Darwin's theory of language evolution revisited.


ETA:
Wolves Howl - YouTube
Powerful Roar Of A Majestic Wild African Male Lion - YouTube

 

[rousseau]

What are we trying to discover by understanding the origin of language? In other words, what do we want to know about it's origin?

What induced its evolution, what its intermediate states were, how they evolved, and what value they had. It is not enough to point to the adaptive value of the final state. Not enough.

I don't know, I find the adaptive value of communication a satisfactory answer.

Lots of animals communicate with each other. For many there isn't a lot of variability because communication isn't important, but rather requisite for survival. I suspect you won't find a lot of adult birds that don't know how to warn each other of danger, for instance.

With humans things are different because we developed the ability to adapt to new situations in real-time, and so with things like language those who were the smarter specimens of our species would have pushed it's evolution by using it in more complex forms and finding novel ways of communicating. This type of ability would have led to better survival outcomes: more successful hunts, more mates.. etc.

So the process is there for people with a better ability to communicate to overtake tribes and populations. Multiply this by expanses of time and we become an increasingly social species with more reliance on communication for survival.

Ask yourself, why language? It's so we can communicate to each other. Then, why communicate with each other? So we can avoid death, find food, and reproduce. So language itself has survival and reproductive value, and I would posit that this was the sole purpose of any type of communication that has ever existed in our species' history. What those specific sounds were and how they were used? To me that's a mystery, but it's clear to me that at any point in our history we were using vocalisations to help ourselves survive and reproduce, raise our young.. etc

One thing that just came to mind is that in the modern day women's sexual desire is often tied to words. Men who can invoke positive emotion in women by displaying appropriate affection leads to better mating outcomes. And so this would provide evidence of my theory, that speech in humans became selective in the same way that a peacock's feathers became selective.

So the above accounts for it's evolution and the value that language had.

What induced it's evolution? I'd argue it likely had it's origins in bipedal motion and increasing brain capacity that allowed for greater phenotypic variation in sounds we were able to produce.

Intermediate states? Just smoothly evolving language.

 

[lpetrich]

Ideally, one ought to have what has been done for many genes and proteins and RNA snippets: find families of them. Strictly speaking, proteins and RNA snippets are phenotypes, but they map fairly well onto genes. Beanbag genetics works fairly well for them. However, beanbag genetics does not work very well for macroscopic features, because these phenotypes are often influenced by a multitude of genes. Nevertheless, one can still make many inferences about their evolution, like the wings of birds, bats, and pterosaurs all being modified front limbs, and the wings of insects modified gills.

So that is what we can do with human language, and the singing theory is IMO a good one. It does not require all-at-once evolution, and the earlier intermediate stages are parallel to what some species have. The first stage would be modulating one's sounds, by controlling the mouth and upper throat. That makes a greater variety of sounds. The next stage is sequencing, producing roughly what singing birds and whales produce. After that is doing semantic loading, producing different sound sequences in different contexts that are interpreted as having different meanings. Making sequences means a much larger possible range of sounds, so one can name a lot more entities. Once one does that, one can use one's sequencing ability to assemble the words in patterns -- syntax.

 

[Angry Floof]

I thought the singing ape hypothesis was debunked or at least discredited to a great degree by neuroscience findings on the differences between language and singing.

Any details on that?

Language Log » Bickerton on Fitch Derek Bickerton asks why prey animals would advertise their presence.

I concede that that is a difficulty. Wolves and lions are both predators, and well-known for being vocal, so our ancestors of a few million years ago ought to have been good at fighting off predators.

It was in response to Language Log » Musical protolanguage: Darwin's theory of language evolution revisited.


ETA:
Wolves Howl - YouTube
Powerful Roar Of A Majestic Wild African Male Lion - YouTube

Well, I can't for the life of me remember the details enough to google it. I'll post if I remember or find it.

 

[bilby]

I suspect that pre-linguistic hominids would have used various sounds to coordinate the hunting and herding of prey animals; Today's shepherds are able to use whistles to communicate quite complex instructions to Border Collies, so establishing a similar communication with other humans should have been a doddle. It's pretty convenient to be able to communicate with a fellow hunter, when you and he are both trying to avoid being seen by your prey.

Or there's always this:

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I suspect that pre-linguistic hominids would have used various sounds to coordinate the hunting and herding of prey animals; ...

I was going to write the same thing, except also war with other tribes. Being able to use such sounds during battle or hunt would be advantageous. Moreover, repeating sounds from previous battles/hunts prior to such new ones could be used to plan out a battle and those with bigger brains would do better at this task. Natural selection.

Then, after thinking about it I decided that this is a very man-centric way of imagining language development. What probably actually happened is that all the women were left with the babies as the men went off to "plan" something with their spears. Then, one of the women was like "Oh great, now what are they up to?" And that was the beginning of advanced language.

 

[humbleman]

I love doing things with my hands. A far cousin of mine had a baby.

I went to visit her when the baby was almost two years old. I made a huge giraffe baby cloth hanger. When I arrived the baby was sleeping in her crib, so we put the giraffe cloth hanger near it. After about one hour we heard sounds in the baby's room.

Here she was, jumping of happiness seeing the giraffe cloth hanger while saying, "goo goo dah dah... goo goo dah dah..."

To me, apes are descendants of humans. The split of a chromosome caused the rupture of the new creature into a dumb status.

In nature, dogs, elephants, parrots and several more are indeed smarter than dumb apes.

The reason is because while the other animals are just a lower degenerated status of their more complex ancestors, in the case of apes, their status is a total corruption at genetic level, which causes them the incapacity of learning at the same level of other species.

Language in humans developed thanks to its relationship with intellect rather than intelligence.

 

[lpetrich]

To me, apes are descendants of humans. The split of a chromosome caused the rupture of the new creature into a dumb status.

Don't make me laugh. The fossil record demonstrates otherwise, as does genetics.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I love doing things with my hands.

Typing on the Internets ought to be a brain exercise.