The Origin of Speech

by Charles F. Hackett September 2960

Man is the only animal that can communicate by means ofabstract symbols. Yet this ability shares many features with communication in other animals, and has arisen from these more primitive systems

I , _ I . bout 50 years ago the Linguistic od of historical linguistics, the discovery such a prohibition. But in this instance i Society of Paris established a of which was one of the triumphs of the it had the useful result of channeling the il. standing rule barring from its period. Between two languages the re- energies of investigators toward the sessions papers on the origin of language. semblances are sometimes so extensive gathering of more and better information This action was a symptom of the times. and orderly that they cannot be attrib- about languages as they are today. The Speculation about the origin of language uted to chance or to parallel develop- subsequent progress in understanding had been common throughout the 19th ment. The alternative explanation is that the workings of language has been truly century, but had reached no conclusive the two are divergent descendants of a remarkable. Various related fields have results, The whole enterprise in conse- single earlier language. English, Dutch, also made vast strides in the last half- quence had come to be frowned upon- Cerman and the Scandinavian languages century: zoologists know more about the as futile or crackpot--in respectable are related in just this way. The com- evolutionary process, anthropologists linguistic and philological circles. Yet parative method makes it possible to ex- know more about the nature of culture, amidst the speculations there were two amine such a group of related languages and so on. In the light of these develop- well-reasoned empirical plans that de- and to construct, often in surprising de- ments there need be no apology-for re- ser\ e mention even though their results tail, a portrayal of the common ancestor, opening the issue of the origins of hu- were negative, in this ease the proto-Germanic lan- man speech. .J, century ago there were still many guage. Direct documentary evidence of Although the comparative method of C~YI,rers of the world that had not been proto-Germanic does not exist, yet un- linguistics, as has been shown, throws no FJ lted by European travelers. It was derstanding of its workings exceeds that light on the origin of language, the in- 8 cisonable for the European scholar to of many languages spoken today. vestigation may he furthered bv a com- aspect that beyond the farthest fron- There was at first some hope that the parative method modeled on th‘lt of the ers there might lurk half-men or man- comparative method might help deter- zoologist. The frame of reference must pes who would be “living fossils” mine the origin of language. This hope be such that all languages look alike ittesting to earlier stages of human was rational in a day when it was when vievved through it, but such that evolution. i’he speech ( or quasi-speech) thought that language might be only a within it human language as a whole can of these men (or quasi-men) might few thousands or tens of thousands of be compared with the communicative then similarly attest to earlier stages in Jean old, and when it was repeatedly systems of other animals, especially the the evolution of language. The search being demonstrated that languages that other hominoids, man’s closest living UQS vain. ,Xowhere in the world has had been thought to be unreIated were relatives, the gibbons and great apes. there been discovered a language that in fact related. By applying the com- The usefu1 items for this SOIt of com- can validly and meaningfully be called parative method to all the languages of parison cannot be things such as the “priinitive.” Edward Sapir wrote in the world, some earliest reconstructab,le lvord for “sky”; languages have such 1921: “There is no more striking gcn- hartzon would be reached. This might words, but gibbon c”alls do not involve era1 fact about language than its uni- not date back so early as the origin of words at all. Nor can they be even the versality, One may argue as to tvhether language, but it might bear certain ear- signal for “danger,” which gibbons do a particular tribe engages in activities marks of primitiveness, and thus it would h ave. Bather, they must be the basic that are worthy of the name of religion enable investigators to extrnpola te to- features of design that can be present or of art, but we know of no people that ward the origin. This hope also proved or absent in any communicative system, is not possessed of a fully developed vain. The earliest reconstructable stage whether it be a ~or~i~~u~~j~ative system language. The lowliest South African for any language famiIy shovvs all the of humans, of animals or of machines. Bushrnan speaks in the forms of a rich complexities and flexibiiities of the lan- With this sort of comparative method symbolic system that is in essence per- guages of today. it may be possible to reconstruct the fectly comparable to the speech of the communicative habits of the remote an- cultivated Frenchman.” r hese points had become clear a half- cestors of the hominoid line, which may The other empirical hope in the 19th r century ago, by the time of the Paris be called the protohominoids. The task, century rested on the comparative meth- ruling. Scholars cannot really approve of then, is to work out the sequence by 6 I 1 HUMAN LANGUAGE AND ANIMAL COMMUNICATION

which that ancestral system became lan- constitutes at least a major portion of stand. This feature of “discreteness” in guage as the hominids-the man-apes “thinking.” the elementary signaling units of ;I 1:~ :I11 d ancient men-became man. The sixth design-feature, “specinliza- guage contrasts with the use of SWIIKI Con,” refers to the fact that the bodily effects by way of vocal gesture. There is set of 13 design-features is pre- effort and spreading sound waves of an effectively continuous scale of de- A sented in the illustration on the op- speech serve no function except as sig- grees to which one may r,lise his voice posite page. There is solid empirical jus- nals. A dog, panting with his tongue as in anger, or lower it to Sigllill confi- tification for the belief that all the Jan- hanging out, is performing a biologically dentiality. Bee-dancing also is continu- pages of the world share every one of essential activity, since this is how dogs ous rather than discrete. them. At first sight some appear SOtrivial cool themselves off and maintain the Man is apparently almost unique in that no one looking just at language proper body temperature. The panting being able to talk about things that ale would bother to note them. They become dog incidentafly produces sound, and lemote in space or time (or both) from worthy of mention only when it is real- thereby may inform other dogs (or hu- Lvhere the talking goes on. This fenture- ized that certain animal systems-and mans) as to where he is and how he “displacement’‘-seems to be definitely certain human systems other than Jan- feels. But this transmission of informn- Iackini in the vocal sign&3ling of man’s guagc-Jack them. tion is strictty a side effect. Nor does the closest relatives, though it does occur in The first design-feature-the “vocal- dog’s panting exhibit the design-feature bee-dancing. auditory channel”-is perhaps the most of “semanticitv.” , It is not a signal mean- One of the mosl important design- obvious. There are systems of communi- ing that the dog is hot; it is part of being features of latlgunge is “productivity”; cation that use other channels; for exnm- hot. In language, however, a mess;lge tha?t is, the capacity to say things that pie, gesture, the dancing of bees or the triggers the particular result it does be- have never been said or heard before courtship ritual of the stickleback. The cduse there are rel‘3tively fixed ,lssocia- ;Ind yet to be understood by other speak- vocal-auditory channel has the advan- tions between elements in messages ers of the language. If a gibbon makes tnge-at least for primates-that it leaves (e.g., words) al3d recurrent features or my vdcaJ sound at all, it is one or an- much of the body free for other activities situations of the world around us. For other of a small finite repertory of fa- that can be carried 013 at the same time. example, the English word “salt” means miliar calls. The gibbon call system can The next two design-features-“rapid salt, not sugar or pepper. The cnlfs of be characterized as closed. Lnllguage is fading” and “broadcast transmission and gibbons also possess semanticity. The open, or “productive,” in the sense that tlirectional reception,” stemming from gibbon has a danger call, for ex‘lmple, one can coin new utterances by putting the physics of sound--are aJmost un- nl3d it does not in principle matter that together pieces familiar fron3 old utter- avoidable consequences of the first. A the meaning of the call is a great deal ances, assembling them by patterns of

linguistic signal can be heard by any broader ;md mole vague than, say, the arrangement i3JSO fnmilinr in old utter- auditory system xvithin earshot, and the cry of “Fire!” ances. source can normally be localized by bin- In a semantic communicative system Human genes carry the capaA;y to aural direction-finding. The rapid fad- the ties between meaningful message- acquire a language, and probably also ing of such a signal means that it does elements and their meanings can be nr- a strong drive toward such acquisition, not linger for reception at the hearer’s bitrary or nonarbitrary. In Innguage the but the detailed conventions of any one convenience. Animal tracks and spoors, ties are arbitrary. The word “salt” is not languCjge are transmitted extrngenetical- on the other hand, persist for a while; SO salty nor granular; “dog” is not “canine”; 1y by Jeaming and teaching. To what of cg\Irse do written records, a product “w,hnJe” is n small \+lord for a large ob- extent such “trnrlitional transmission” of i~xiri’s extremely recent cultural evo- ject ; “micl oorg2nism” is the reverse. A phys n pal t in gibbon calls or for other Jl:tjon. picture, on the other hand, looks like mammalian systems of vocal signals is The significance of “interchangeabil- what it is a picture of. A bee dances not known, though in some illstances the ity” and “t&al feedback” for Janguage faster If the source of nectar she is re- unjfolmity of the sounds m,lde by a spe- becomes clear upon comparison with porting is closer, and slower if it is far- cies, wherever the species is found over other systems. In general a speaker of a ther nw,~y. The design-feature of “Jrbi- the \sorld, is so great that genetics rnllst J*lnguage can reproduce any Jinguistic tl .IriJXZSS” hns the disadvantage of being be responsible. message. he can understand, whereas the arbitrary, but the gre;lt advant,lge that The meaningful elements in any lan- characteristic courtship motions of the there is 130 limit to what ca13 be com- guage- “words” in ever)&y parlance, male ar3d female stickleback are differ- municated about. “morphemes” to the linguist-constitute cnt, and neither cart act out those ap- Hum,u3 vocal organs can produce a an enormous stock. Yet they are lepre- propriate to the other. For that matter huge variety of sound. But in any one ztznted by sm,~Jl arrangements of a rela- in the communication of a human rnoth- langu,tge only n reJ,itiveJy small set of tively very small stock of disting\~ishable er and infant neither is apt to transmit ranges of sou13d is used, and the differ- sounds which are in themselves wholly the characteristic signals or to manifest ences bet\veen these ranges are function- meaningless. This “duality of pnttern- the typical responses of the other. Again, ;rJly absolute. The E:3glish words “pin” ing” is illustl ated by the English v,olds the speaker of a Jangu‘lge hears, by total and “bin”

BROADCAST TRANSMISSION 1 VOCAL-AUDITORY CHANNEL 2 AND DIRECTIONAL RECEPTION 3 RAPID FADING (TRANSITORINESS)

r 4 INTERCHANGEAB!LITY 3 TOTAL FEEDBACK 6 SPECIALIZATION

7 SEMANTICITY 8 ARBITRARINESS 9 DISCRETENESS

WHALE

MICROORGANISMS

10 DISPLACEMENT ?,- 11 PRODUCTIVITY TRADITIONAL TRANSMISSION

13 DUALITY OF PATTERNING

T ...... E A...... M

M ...... a...... E A...... , . , ...... , , . . , . .T 8

“tack,” “ cat” and “act.” They are totally ICELANDIC ENGtiSH DUTCH ” SOUTH distinct as to meaning, and yet are com- GERMAN posed of just three basic meaningless DANISH FLEMISH DIALECTS sounds in different permutations. Few I NORWEGIAN NORTH animal communicative systems share this GERMAN design-feature of language-none among DISH DIALECTS the other hominoids, and perhaps none at all.

t should be noted that some of these I 13 design-features are not independ- ent. In pa&cular, a system cannot be either arbitrary or nonarbitrary unless it is semantic, a;d it cannot ha;e duality of- patterning unless it is semantic. It should also be noted that the listing does n6t attempt to include all the features that might be discovered in the communicative behavior of this or that species, but only those that are clearly importilnt for language. I It is probably safe to assume that nine of the 13 features were already present in the vocal-auditory communication of the protohominoids-just the nine that ‘ire securely attested for the gibbons and humans of today. That is, there were a dozen or so disiinct calls, each the ap- OlD ICE!ANDI propriate vocal response (or vocal part iD of the whole response) to a recurrent nnd biologicall>* important type of situ- LItion: the discovery of food, the detec- tion of a predator, sexual in/crest, need for mi>ternal care, and SO on. The prob- lem of the origin of hum,m speech, then, is that of trying. - to determine how such a system could have developed the four ,ldditionnl properties of displncernent, productivity and full-blon n traditional transmission. Of course the full star) in- vohes a gleat deal more than cornmuni- c;>ti\e behs\ior alone. The development must be visualized as occurring in the context of the evolution of the ptim~te horde into the primitive society Gf food- gather -ers ‘tnd hunters, an i13tegriIl part, but a part, of the total evolution of behavior. It is possible to imagine closed svs-I tern developing some degree of p[oduc- tivity, even in the absence of the other three features. IIuman speech exhibits a phenomenon that could hake this eflect, the phenomenon of “blending.” Some- times a slxaker will hesit‘jte bet\n,een two words or phrases, both re‘jsonably appropriate for the situation in which he is speaking, and actuCllly say something that is neither wholly one nor wholly the other, but a combination of parts of each. Hesitating between “Don’t shout ORIGIN OF 310DERN GERMIASIC LANGUAGES, as indicated by this “family tree,” so loud” and “Don’t yell so loud,” he ~8s yroto-Germanic, spoken some 2,700 years ago. Comparisolr of present-day languages has ~~ov~d~d detailed knowledge of ~roto”~~~~~~;c, although no direct documentary evi. might come out with “Don’t shell SO dence for the lanp5uage exists. It grew, in turn, from the proto-lndo-EuropefrY of 5000 B.C. loud.” Blending is almost alw;tys in- Historical studies cannot, however, trace origins of Ianguage back much further in time. volved in slips of the tongue, but it may - , _ - _____.- - _ __-_._--- ..- _. -.... -.--

DISPLACEMENT TOOL-h&WING AND CARRYING

PRODUCTIVITY LARYNX AND SOFT PAtATE SEPARATED

DUALITY OF PATTERNING HUMOR VOWEL COLOR MUSIC

DISCRETENESS BIPEDALLOCOMOTION, NOT UPRIGHT TRADITIONAL TRANSMlSSlON OCCASIONAL TOOL USING

HOMINOIDS . HANDS HAND-EYE COORDINATION SPECIALIZATION BlNbCUUR V’SICN SEMANTICITY 1M09ltE FACIAL MUSCtES ARBITRARINESS OMNlVOROUSl - - BROADCAST TRANSMISSION AND DIRECTIONAL RECEPTION ’ SOCIAL BEHAVIOR “PLAY” ,INTERCHANGEABILITY WARM BLOODEDNESS RAPID FADING TOTAL FEEDBACK <

(LAND) MAMMALS VOCAL-AUDITORY CHANNEL

_.-. .- - __.A _ _ - ..- ___A ._ ._____ ._-._L. ..” , LAND EGG BREATHiNG WITH THORACIC MUSCLES

LEGS

SLEEPING VE?SUS WAKING EXTEZNALEAR

VLSION

/-iEARING (INTERNAL EAR) VERTEBRATES

MOTILITY BtVITERALSYMMETRY FRONT AND REARENDS

CHORDATES

EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE and some related characteristics evolved beyond the characteristics exhibited by all the groups are suggested by this classification of chordates. The lowest form below. The 13 design-features of larrgtlage appear in the colored of animal in each classification exhibits the features listed at the rectangle. Some but by no means aI1 of the characteristics a&so- right of the clns~. Brackets indicate that each group possesses oc has ciated with communication are presented in the column at right. 10 I 1 HUMAll LANGUAGE AND ANIMAL COMMUNICATION also be the regular mechanism by which are. A child may have a repertory of unitary calls to the repertory except per- a speaker of a language says something several dozen sentences, each of which, haps by occasional imitation of the calls that he has not said before. Anything a in adult terms, has an internal structure, and cries of other species. Even this speaker sdys must be either an exact and yet for the child each may be an would not render the system productive, repetition of an utterance he has heard indivisible whole. He may also learn but would merely enlarge it. But blend- before, or else some blended product of new whole utterances from surrounding ing might occur. Let AB represent the t\vo or more such familiar utterances. adults. The child takes the crucial step, food call and CD the danger call, each Thus even such a smooth and normal however, when he first says something a fairly complex phonetic pattern. Sup- sentence as “I tried toget there, but the that he has not learned from others. The pose a protohominoid encountered food car broke down” might be produced as only way in which the child can possibly and cilught sight of a predator at the a blend, say, of “I tried to get there but do this is by blending t\vo of the whole s‘une time. If the two stimuli were bnl- couldn’t” and ‘“While I w;ls driving down utterances thnt he alrtndy knows. LIJlCfd just right, he might emit the calls l\fain Street the car broke down.” ABCD or CDAB in quick sequence, or Children acquiring the language of 11 the case of the closed call-system might even produce AD or CB. AJIY of their community pass throtlgh a stage I of the gibbons or the protclhou7inc)its, these would be a blend. AD, for es:lmpie, that is closed in just the wa>’ gibbon calls there is no source for the ~cldition of new not11d mean “both food and danger.” By

STICKLEBACK MEADOWLARK BEE DANCING COURTSHIP SONG

* LIMITED . : ~---1-- --.- --:

IN PART 2 H CX hEIT THE OFJGIN OF SPEECH 11

Mi’dGUAGE

AUDITORY, PJGT VOCAl

-. - - - ..-- - - - ___^--

-- - -. -_ _ ---

IN PART 12 I 1 HUMAN LANGUAGE riND ANIMAL COMMUNICATIOPJ for traditjonal transmission and for dis- tention and foresight; a male can pro- difficulty learning and using any such plscement. But these in turn increase the tect his mate and guard her jeJously system. What Morse actually did was to Sw~ival value of the communkative sys- from other males even when he does not incorporate the principle of duality of tem. ‘4 child can be taught how to avoid at the moment hunger for her. patterning. The telegraph oper‘ltor h,~s ctArt,lin dangers before he actually en- There is excellent reason to believe to learn to discriminate, in the first in- counters them. that duality of patterning was the last stance, only two lengths of pulse alid property to be developed, because one about three lengths of pause. Each letter r 1 hese developments are also neces- can find little if any reason why a com- is coded into a different arrangement of I s,lrjly related to the appearance of municative system should have this these elementary meC~ninglcss units. The 1:11ge and convoluted brains, which are property unless it is highly complicated. arrangements are ezily kept apart be- Mter storage units for the conventions If a vocal-auditory system comes to have cause the few me‘tningless units are ;rf a complex communicati\ae system and a larger and larger number of distinct plainly distinguish,~ble. ior other traditionally transmitted skills meaningful elements, those elements in- The nn,ilogy expl‘lins wh> it was ad- ,lnd practices. IIence the adaptative evitably come to be more ,~ntl mole sim- vnnt‘lgeous for the forerunner of lan- 1.~11~ of the behavior serves to select ilar to one another in sound. There is n guage, JS it MYIS bccomillg increasingly c;enetically for the change in structure. practical limit, for any species or ;Iny complex, to acquire du&ty of p.lttern- A lengthened period of childhood hclp- machine, to the number of distinct stim- ing. Ho\vever it occurred, this W;IS .I lt5sness is also a lonser period of plastic- uli that can be discrimiil,ited, especi,tllv major brenkthlough; tvithout it lang~~,~ge ity for learning. There is therefore selec- \\ hen the discriminations tvpicClllv I have could not posblblv have ,lchie\ed the tion for prolonged childhood and, with to be made in noisy conditions. Suppose efficiency *lnd flexibility it h:ls. it, Inter matltrity ilnd longer life. with that Samuel F. B. hforse, in devising his One of the b,lsic principles of ebolu- more for the young to learn, and with telegraph code, had proposed ,I signal tion‘lry theory holds that the initi,ll SW- male as well as female tasks to’be taught, .I second long for “A,” .2 second long viva1 value of nnv jnnov,ttion is con- f,\thers become more dolnesticated. The for “B,” ‘2nd so on up to 2.6 seconds for servative in th,lt it m,tkes possible the ilrcrease of displacement promotes re- “Z.” Operators would have enormous inaintendnce of n 1;1Igely tracfitionnl ~vay of life in the face of ch,mged cireum- st‘mces. There was nothing in the make- .__._- _,.._-.. ._- _ I up of the protohominoids that destined their descendants to become hlml:u~. Some of them, indeed, did not. They made their w‘~y to ecologic;ll niches where food W,IS plentiful :md predntots suf&ieIitIy avoidable, ,~nd \vbere the de- velopmeltt of primitive v,lrirtics of 1‘11~ gage end clultul e u w11tf ha\ e bt:stc\~ ed no ad\ 4nt;ige. They sul>i\e still, \\lth various svits of speci,tli72tion, ,~s the gibbons 3rd the gleat apes.