MILESTONE

OF
HUMAN EVOLUTION
REPORTED BY:
NOVEY T. LIPIO
Charles Darwin- The
founder of the Modern
Theory of Evolution
Darwin formulated his bold theory in private in 1837-
1839, after returning from a voyage around the world
aboard HMS Beagle, but it was until two decades
later that he finally gave it full public expression in
On the Origin of Species (1859), a book that has
deeply influenced modern Western society and
thought.
 Adaptation
for prelanguage or non-verbal skills are ways in which
we communicate without using words.
 Neolitic- a period in the development of human technology.
 Paleolithic-a period of human prehistory distinguished by the
original development of stone tools.
 Articulate speech- able to express ideas clearly and effectively.
 Full-fledged-fully develop or meeting all the necessary
requirements to be something.
 Pre-Indo-European language- refers to the lingistic reconstruction
of the hypothetical common ancestor of the language. It is the most
widely spoken language in the world.
Language as an Evolutionary
Product
 Evolution has no goals and no ultimate products, it is just the natural outcome
of inherited variability linked to variable survival and reproduction.
Certainly we are unique and special on planet Earth, being the only animal to
acquire a reasoning mind, which is a whole new ball game and opens up so many
new possiblities. No doubt we would continue to evolve naturally, though nobody
could predict the exact directions.
However, we are already able to amplify our natural abilities and will soon be
able to control our own genetic evolution as well. So in the sense we are certainly
just a step, though in future we will be directing the steps.
DESIGN FEATURES
OF
HUMAN LANGUAGE
Charles F. Hocket – (1916-2000)
 An American Linguist who proposed the Design
Features Of Language
 Characterizelanguage, distinguish it from other
communication systems
 System must have all 9 features to be language
 If a system lacks even one feature, it is
communication, not language.
9 Design Features of Language

Mode of communication
Semanticity
Pragmatic function
Interchangeability
Cultural transmission
Arbitrariness
Discreteness
Displacement
productivity
 Mode of Communication
-language is to transmit messages

Semanticity
 All signals in a communication system have a meaning or function

Pragmatic Function
 Language must serve some useful purpose

Interchangeability
-langauge has the ability to both transmit and receive messages
 Cultural Transmission
 Genetic or heridity background in and of itself has no influence whatsoever on the
language we acquire as children, through some aspects are innate and acquired through
interaction.

Arbitrariness
 In language, a word’s meaning is not predictable from its linguistic form, nor its from
dictated by its meaning.

Discreteness
- Property of communication system by which complex messages may be built up out of
smaller parts
 Displacement
 The property of some communication systems that allows them to be used to communicate
about things, actions, ideas that are not present at the place or time where communication
is taking place

Productivity
- The capacity of a communication system (unique to human language) for novel messages
built out of discrete units to be produced and understood
CONCLUSION

There are certain features which are shared by almost all communication systems
but certain features are present only in human language
 LANGUAGE AS AN
EVOLUTIONARY PRODUCT
Theory of Language Evolution

(Lenneberg, 1975)
 CONTINUITY THEORY

- This theory holds that speech must have ultimately developed from premitive forms of
communication used by lower animals and that its study is likely to reveal that language
evolved in a straight line over time.

 DISCONTINUITY THEORY

- This holds that human language must be recognized as unique without evolutionary
antecedents.
MONOGENESIS
Vs.
POLYGENESIS
Linguistic Diversity
 Language is relatively recent phenomena:
 Early humans first appeared 150,000 years ago
 Language first appeared 50,000 years ago
 All of the original first languages have disappeared
 Many more languages were spoken in the past because humans lived in small
tribes (lots of different languages) rather than in large states (with one common
language)
• Monogenesis: mono = one
genesis = birth
There was a single, original langauge spoken by a single group of Homo sapiens as early as
50,000 years ago which gave rise to all human languages spoken on earth today.

The Mother Tongue Hypothesis – this original language diverged through time and distance
to form many different languages. All of today’s languages descended from this one language.

Out of Africa Theory- General theory of human origin arising in Africa; language may have
arisen here as well.
Linguistic Diversity Myths
 Many culture have stories about how the first language became many language:

 The Tower of Babel (Genesis, Judeo-Christian)

 The Toltec Pyramid of Cholula (Pre-Columbian Mexico)
 Basque scholars claim Basque as the first language; a Swedish scholar claims Swedish
was spoken in the Garden of Eden. A German scholar from the 18th century believed
German was the proto-language .
Linguistic Diversity
 Polygenesis: poly = many
genesis = birth

The Candelabra Hypothesis:

The hypothesis of parallel evolution of language in more than one place and by more than
one group of Homo sapiens. Each of these languages would have diverged into many forms.

The major language groups of today would be descended from these separate mother
tongues.
ESTIMATING THE AGE OF
LANGUAGE
LinguisticConsiderations
The View From Prehistory
Evidence from Anatomy
Linguistic Considerations
Pioneer: Morris Swadesh
Age of Language: Indefinite

Linguists dared to provide an approximated age of language

using comparative method
 Comparative Method

Linguist use this technique for studying the development of languages

by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more
languages with common descent from a shared ancestor, in order to
extrapolate back to infer the properties of the ancestor.
Prehistoric Views

The more complex the culture of early hominids grew, the more
elaborate the system of communication had to become to accomodate
it. And the more the communication system was able to handle, the
more elaborate the culture could become.
Stone-tool assemblages in Tanzania (2M yrs, old)
“Speech was already well established among the makers of those tools, so that for
the origins of speech and languages, we would have to look at earlier horizons and
perhaps earlier forms of man (than homo bilis)”
-Ashley Montagu (1976)

Homo Erectus hunters Excavation at Torralba and Ambora in Spain reveals that a
band of Homo Erectus 200,000-400,000 years ago manage their kills by either
brandishing torcher or setting grass afire to stampede elephants into swampy area
and so render them defensless or kill. Their hunting acivities is believed to have
been accomplished if it wasn’t for planning and coordination that would have
required some sort of communication.
Prelanguage to Language
 More Finished stone tools
 More proficient hunters
 Ritual Activities
 Belief in life after death
 Treatment of cave bear reamins
Evidences in Anatomy
Among the primates, humans have brains that are relatively large in
comparison to their total body mass. In the course of the human
evolution, the size of the braincase apparently expanded quite rapidly
twice. First during the age of Homo Habilis and Homo Erectus and
second in the rise of the Homo Sapiens.
Neanderthal’s Speech
Lieberman’s Findings

 Position of the Larynx (lower in the throat)

 Size of the supralaryngeal area (smaller)
 Incapability (or ineffectiveness, inconsistency) to produce
extreme vowels (i, u, a) and certain consonants
Laitman’s Findings

 Australopithecines’ vocal tracts are like those of living monkeys or apes

 Larynx in Homo Erectus may have begun to descend into the neck, increasing the
area available to modify laryngeal sounds.
 Full arching of the skull base like those of contemporary humans coincides with
the arrival of Homo Sapiens some 300,000-400,000 years ago.
THANK YOU!