After today’s class, write a 250-word summary of the Wade article and today’s in-class discussion. It is due before our next class.
Remember to write and save your summary in the cloud or on your computer/disk, and then copy-and-paste it into a comment made to this blog post.
Also, I would recommend watching these two TED talks for additional background information on the Wade article and the upcoming Mufwene essay:
Language is a major trait that distinguishes us humans from other primates in the world. In Nicholas Wade’s article “Early Voices: The Leap to Language” he talks about the origin of language and linguistics. It may seem as if language just popped out of nowhere because no other animal has a distinct language. Animals however do communicate with each other. Animals produce and understand sounds that refer to certain things. They have certain sounds that indicate danger and warns other animals around them that there is danger around. While animals do produce sounds to warn each other about potential danger, that is as far as their communication can go. They can’t use their communication skills to gather information about previous events. Linguists believe that language is based on words and syntax, the way words are put together to create sentences. Humans have been speaking words without syntax for as far back as two million years ago. Modern language however developed more recently about 120,000 years ago. The evolution of language really started when humans left the forest and started exploring the savannahs and they feel the need to pass on information. A gene called FOXP2, which has been discovered in recent years, has the ability to switch on other genes. It is active in specific regions of the brain during fetal development. This gene is so strong that in a study done in London on a family over the course of 3 generations, it has affected their pronunciation, ability to speak grammatically and make certain fine movements with their lips and tongue. There has been 3 changes in the FOXP2 protein, which may have led to the perfection of the language and speech that we use today.
In his article, “Early Voices, leap to Language,”Nicholas Wade shares the dichotomous views on the human language’s fundamental role in human attributes and social tendencies. Language distinguishes us from the rest of the animal kingdom.The writer hypothesizes that the click languages, such as those of the !Kung of southern Africa and the Hadza of Tanzania, may have been used in the inchoate language of our primordial ancestors.
Nicholas Wade further assets that language seemingly appeared from thin air since humans are the only one who speaks. But, other species communicate such as the Vervet monkeys that have a specific alarm calls from predators, like eagles, leopards and snakes.
The basis for language is more an input and output system; the crux of language is words and syntax, each achieved by a complex system in the brain, by combining a finite number of sounds that produce in infinite number of sentences and phrases. This system of syntax makes our language exceptional. Through this system, humans can attach meaning to words and sounds. As Mr. Wade points out, chimpanzees are devoid of this system. This leads to the question for the evolution of the encoding system in humans.
Linguists point to pidgins, which are simple phrase languages, as the nascent language of our early ancestors. Dr. Bickerton, a leading linguist, states that the catalyst to language may have occurred when our human ancestors left the forests and started rummaging on the grassland for food. There is much debate about the nature of this archetypic language. One hypothesis, by Dr. Michael Corballis, believes that gestures preceded speech. However, critics argue that Dr. Corballis’s idea is too limited in scope: gestures cannot work in the dark. A leading evolutionary psychologist, Dr. Robin Dunbar, believes that sociality may have been motivation for language. Language provides ways for large communities to communicate and to promote social cohesion. Other theorists have forwarded Darwin’s sexual selection theory as the basis for language. Sexual selection is a form of natural selection in which individuals with certain inherited characteristics are more likely than other individuals to obtain mates.
Some linguists and geneticist are looking at a gene called FOXP2 as the link for the development of language. They have opened studies with a London family, known as KE, whose members have difficulty pronouncing, speaking grammatically, and making fine movements of the lips and tongue. Linguists found the FOXP2 gene responsible for the KE family’s speech impediment. FOXP2 gene is the first gene discovered associated with speech and language.In humans, mutations of FOXP2 cause a severe speech and language disorder.Scientists are also looking at its role for switching on other genes as well. It directly regulates a number of other genes that are responsible for language and speech.
Researchers contend that many component of language faculty exist in other animals, but only in humans they were connected. Linguists and biologist are still examining the human genome for the faculty of language, and are waiting to identify the genetic program that causes words and syntax.
Colin Alli
In the article “Early Voices leap to Language” Nicholas Wade tells us his own view on human’s and their language. He looks at the way we communicate and how it shows how we interact in terms of social tendencies and our own attributes. Compared to other animals who make noises to indicate what exactly what they are doing compared to us where we use words and weave it into a sentence. We are very advanced compared to a wild animal because we have language and we can understand exactly what each other need. Other animals have primal calls that indicate something is happening like danger. For us human beings we have language which contains words and a syntax which has words with anything else inside in it. Wade points out how monkeys are identical to us, but not exactly since they don’t have syntax therefore they cannot string around words and communicate effectively only using noise they can indicate things. Language was discovered by our ancestors and back then they were using phrases, which ended up being the catalyst to the language when our ancestors went around looking for fun. Two doctors argue with the way that humanity formed language one was when gestures created speech and the other one was sociability ended up creating what was called language. People believed another theory of sexual selection of choose individuals with certain characteristics to mate and make a new being. Scientist themselves are looking into these tests along with examining families who have a hard time speaking for example the KE family’s speech impediment. Overall researchers are looking into the human genome for faculty of language and waiting for something that cause words.
Everyone uses language in order to communicate, but where it began is still a mystery. In the article “The Early Voices, The Leap to Language” by Nicolas Wade talks about opposing arguments told from different experts in different fields and shares their opinion’s of how language came to be. There are different kinds of speculation as to how the origin of language started and spread. One theory brought up by Dr. Bickerton linguist of the University of Hawaii is that ancestors around 2 million to 120,000 year ago used a type of language called proto-language. This is the use of small phrases without any syntax therefore, they are unable to make complete sentences that have any significant meaning. His opinion is that our early ancestors moved from the forest to the savanna, and as they were making discoveries they would need a form of communication to relay accurate directions of their finding hence the use of proto-language. Gesturing is another theory made by Dr. Corballis a psychologist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His belief is that our ancestors started to use gestures as a way of communicating when evolution have them the ability to use hands and feet. As time went on ancestors associated sounds with the gesturing, which evolved in language. Gesturing doesn’t just refer to using your hands, but facial expressions and the tone you use in your voice are all examples of non-verbal communication.
Sociality is a major contributor to the evolution of language. For example, social media is the most popular way of sharing information with other people. It allows people to form relations that share common interest over the vast resources that the internet has to offer. A big name in linguistics is Noam Chomsky came up universal grammar, which is a natural instinct for humans unconsciously understand if a sentence has the correct syntax. The way language got here may always have a question mark, but one assurance that everyone can have is that it will keep evolving just the way people do.
In the article “Early Voices: The Leap to Language,” By Nicholas Wade, shared his idea about how language is very important in human’s life. Language plays a big role in our lives, we use language in social life it’s also one of the most important necessities because it means the human to express his need and desires. Wade mention that there was an argument about how language came to us. As we read throughout the article there were many different theories about the appearance of language. Dr. Bickerton said that “around 2 million to 120,000 year ago used a type of language called proton language.” Social media is one of the most popular thing to keep up the language, it let us share information with others.
In the beginning language looked like it came from nothing, it was like it just appeared by itself. Dr. Marc Hauser, a psychologist at Harvard, he studied animal communication. He thinks that the main system in making sound are in Animals. Language is the means of the person to develop his/ her ideas and experiences and to prepare for giving and creativity and participation through the language occurs meeting and mixing with the others, which earns people experiences and develop his/ her abilities and experiences where his/ her life evolves.
Dr. Pinker mentioned that Dr. Chomsky’s still have an effect on the language. The author said that “Biologists and linguists have long inhabited different worlds, with linguists taking little interest in evolution, the guiding theory of all biology. But the faculty for language, along with the evidence of how it evolved, is written somewhere in the now decoded human genome, waiting for biologists and linguists to identify the genetic program that generates words and syntax.” Language both verbal and nonverbal, it means of social, mental and cultural communication and in its written form is the record of the human culture.
In Nicholas Wade’s article “Early Voices: The Leap to Language”, Wade traces the origins of language in animals. In the beginning of the article, we learn that other animals are capable of communicating with one another via alarm calls, their ability to indicate that trouble is near. Even though they are communicating, research tells us this still cannot be considered as language. Noam Chomsky, founding father of modern linguistics, tells us that language consists of words, syntax, is made up of combinatorial systems in the brain, and is something that is exclusive to humans. Research says that we are the only creatures capable of encoding, and expressing our thoughts to another being.
Wade shares a few research based perspectives that speak to the evolution of language in humans. Dr. Steven Pinker, a linguist from MIT, leans more towards natural selection playing a bigger part in language development than just sociality, as indicated by Dr. Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary psychologist.
Dr. Dunbar states language developed out of our need to be social. Language became a way of sharing information while bonding with one another. According to Dunbar, language also served as a means of protecting villages from outsiders due to its corruptibility. It was easy to identify foreigners due to their dialect. Their mispronunciations of words would alert the village that someone was trying to penetrate their community.
Research conducted by Dr. Svante Paabo in Germany at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, suggests that FOXP2, a gene responsible for activating other genes, played a significant role in language development in humans in the past 100,000 years.
If I had to, I would say it seems like all of these things could have co-evolved with one another, and may be the reasons why we are the only species who can articulate their thoughts. But even still I can’t say that I am completely comfortable saying that either. Enough research hasn’t been done on other animals for us to speak so confidently on something that is still being explored.
Atop the giant pyramid of biotic life, which organism earned the spot as the apex creature? In the short history of biology on Earth, the dominant group have been the upright walking, talking Homo Sapiens (“thinking man”) or more commonly known as humans. Contenders in the animal kingdom have gifts which distinguish themselves from their equally talented, distant relatives. In time human beings would eventually ascend the evolutionary tree to claim their place via a unique ability no other species has- orally transmit thoughts from the mind to another individual. In the article Early Voices The Leap to Language by Nicholas Wade the evolutionary origin of language is called to order. Like many mysteries pursued for curiosity, the exact moment when language became the versatile edge in the fight for survival remained largely in the dark. Involving natural selection, which are survival traits and sexual selection which are desired traits to choose a mate, these two concepts work together to produce our bodily apparatus. The subject of human language origins was kept quiet due Dr. Chomsky’s influence, but in spite of that some views have prompted feasible theories as to how early man developed the capacities of proto-language. First and foremost its important to know all animals communicate, each species has their own distinct form of calls for basic needs. This demonstrates their communication system utters and perceive specific sounds. Attention is focused to the input and output generated by the combinatorial system in the brain. Dr. Bickerton states proto-language must have preceded full-fledged syntax.
In the article “Early Voices leap to Language” by Nicholas Wade, Wade debates around the evolution of language. He discusses two points, natural selection and sexual selection. Natural selection refers to language as a survival state and sexual selection refers to language as a mate state. Although it may seem puzzling as how to language came about but language is not only spoken by humans. Animals have language as well, and they communicate with each other through certain sounds and gestures. We are more advanced than animals when it comes to language because we use it more to communicate and express ourselves, while animals use it for more primal things. Our language is based on words and syntax. Syntax is the way the words are put together. Humans first started speaking words without syntax and modern language only started to develop about 120,000 years ago. Dr. Robin Dunbar, a leading evolutionary psychologist, believes that society may be the reason for language. Language is a way for communities to interact and essentially communicate with each other. Some linguistics look at a gene called FOXP2 as the reason of development of language. They have looked at studies with a British family who have difficulty pronouncing words. They were referred to as KE. Linguistics have found that the FOXP2 gene is responsible for the family’s’ problems with speech. The FOXP2 gene is the first gene to be found that causes problems with speech. Linguistics are still looking closely at the human genome for the genetic program which provides words and syntax.