While it is possible to imitate the making of tools like those made by early Homo under circumstances of

demonstration, research on primate tool cultures show that non-verbal cultures are vulnerable to
environmental change. In particular, if the environment in which a skill can be used disappears for a
longer period of time than an individual ape's or early human's lifespan, the skill will be lost if the culture
is imitative and non-verbal. Chimpanzees, macaques and capuchin monkeys are all known to lose tool
techniques under such circumstances. Researchers on primate culture vulnerability therefore argue that
since early Homo species as far back as Homo habilis retained their tool cultures despite many climate
change cycles at the timescales of centuries to millennia each, these species had sufficiently developed
language abilities to verbally describe complete procedures, and therefore grammar and not only two-
word "proto-language".[67][68]

The theory that early Homo species had sufficiently developed brains for grammar is also supported by
researchers who study brain development in children, noting that grammar is developed while
connections across the brain are still significantly lower than adult level. These researchers argue that
these lowered system requirements for grammatical language make it plausible that the genus Homo
had grammar at connection levels in the brain that were significantly lower than those of Homo sapiens
and that more recent steps in the evolution of the human brain were not about language.[69][70]

Acheulean tool use began during the Lower Paleolithic approximately 1.75 million years ago. Studies
focusing on the lateralization of Acheulean tool production and language production have noted similar
areas of blood flow when engaging in these activities separately; this theory suggests that the brain
functions needed for the production of tools across generations is consistent with the brain systems
required for producing language. Researchers used functional transcranial Doppler ultrasonography
(fTDC) and had participants perform activities related to the creation of tools using the same methods
during the Lower Paleolithic as well as a task designed specifically for word generation.[71] The purpose
of this test was to focus on the planning aspect of Acheulean tool making and cued word generation in
language (an example of cued word generation would be someone giving you a random letter and then
you list all words beginning with that letter that you can think of). Theories of language developing
alongside tool use has been theorized by multiple individuals,[72][73][74] however until recently there
has been little empirical data to support these hypotheses. Focusing on the results of the study
performed by Uomini et al. evidence for the usage of the same brain areas has been found when looking
at cued word generation and Achuelean tool use. The relationship between tool use and language
production is found in working and planning memory respectively and was found to be similar across a
variety of participants furthering evidence that these areas of the brain are shared.[71] This evidence
lends credibility to the theory that language developed alongside tool use in the Lower Paleolithic.

Humanistic theory

The humanistic tradition considers language as a human invention. Renaissance philosopher Antoine
Arnauld gave a detailed description of his idea of the origin of language in Port-Royal Grammar.
According to Arnauld, people are social and rational by nature, and this urged them to create language
as a means to communicate their ideas to others. Language construction would have occurred through a
slow and gradual process.[75] In later theory, especially in functional linguistics, the primacy of
communication is emphasised over psychological needs.[76]

The exact way language evolved is however not considered as vital to the study of languages. Structural
linguist Ferdinand de Saussure abandoned evolutionary linguistics after having come to the firm
conclusion that it would not be able to provide any further revolutionary insight after the completion of
the major works in historical linguistics by the end of the 19th century. Saussure was particularly
sceptical of the attempts of August Schleicher and other Darwinian linguists to access prehistorical
languages through series of reconstructions of proto-languages.[77]

Evolutionary research had many other critics, too. The Paris linguistic society famously banned the topic
of language evolution in 1866 because it was considered as lacking scientific proof.[78] Around the same
time, Max Müller ridiculed popular accounts to explain language origin. In his classifications, the 'bow-
wow theory' is the type of explanation that considers languages as having evolved as an imitation of
natural sounds. The 'pooh-pooh theory' holds that speech originated from spontaneous human cries
and exclamations; the 'yo-he-ho theory' suggests that language developed from grunts and gasps
evoked by physical exertion; while the 'sing-song theory' claims that speech arose from primitive ritual
chants.[79]

Saussure's solution to the problem of language evolution involves dividing theoretical linguistics in two.
Evolutionary and historical linguistics are renamed as diachronic linguistics. It is the study of language
change, but it has only limited explanatory power due to the inadequacy of all of the reliable research
material that could ever be made available. Synchronic linguistics, in contrast, aims to widen scientists'
understanding of language through a study of a given contemporary or historical language stage as a
system in its own right.[80]

Although Saussure paid much focus to diachronic linguistics, later structuralists who equated
structuralism with the synchronic analysis were sometimes criticised of ahistoricism. According to
structural anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, language and meaning—in opposition to "knowledge,
which develops slowly and progressively"—must have appeared in an instant.[81]

Structuralism, as first introduced to sociology by Émile Durkheim, is nonetheless a type of humanistic

evolutionary theory which explains diversification as necessitated by growing complexity.[82] There was
a shift of focus to functional explanation after Saussure's death. Functional structuralists including the
Prague Circle linguists and André Martinet explained the growth and maintenance of structures as being
necessitated by their functions.[76] For example, novel technologies make it necessary for people to
invent new words, but these may lose their function and be forgotten as the technologies are eventually
replaced by more modern ones.