Summary

From Hand to Mouth

Michael C. Corballis

Imagine trying to teach a child to talk without using your hands or any other means of
pointing of gesturing. Yet, once the system is up and running, it can function entirely
on vocalizations, as when two friends chat over the phone and create in each other’s
minds a world of events far removed from the actual sounds that emerge from their
lips. My contention is that the vocal element emerged relatively late in hominid
evolution.

The question now is what were the selective pressures that led to the eventual
dominance of speech? There may therefore have been continuity from the language
that was almost exclusively manual and facial, though perhaps punctuated by
involuntary grunts, to one in which the vocal component has a much more extensive
repertoire and is under voluntary control. The essential feature of modern expressive
language is not that it is purely vocal, but rather that the component can function
autonomously and provide the grammar as well as meaning of linguistics
communication.

Advantages of Arbitrary Symbols One possible advantage of vocal language is its

arbitrariness. Jared Diamond observes that the people living largely traditional
lifestyle in New Guinea can name hundreds of birds, animals, and plants, along with
details about each of them. To some extent, we can overcome this impediment by
whispering. Russell Gray has suggested to me that clicking one’s fingers as children
often do when putting their hands up in class to answer a question, may be a sort of
“missing link” between gestural and vocal language.

Sounds may therefore have played a similar and largely alerting role in early
evolution of language, gradually assuming more prominence in conveying the
message itself. For humans, visual signals can only attract attention if they occur
within a fairly restricted region of space, whereas the alerting power of sound is more
or less independent of where its source is located relative to listener.