jay_a2j wrote:Speech is a learned behavior. And don't give me the "language evolved" crap. Its learned, therefore it must be taught. Who taught the apelike men how to speak?
Are you talking about language or the process of forming phonemic sounds?
The evolution of speech follows two theories. The first is the theory that our ability to speak is a side-benefit to the evolution of our ability to swallow and not choke.
Article: "Chewing Over the Evolution of Speech" by David Wolman
For those convinced human superiority stems from our ability to vocalize like no other creature on Earth, this one might be tough to swallow: Japanese researchers studying chimpanzees recently found the biological machinery behind speech is less distinct than previously thought, and may have evolved in part from a selection pressure wholly unrelated to speech-the development of our swallowing mechanism.
Takeshi Nishimura of the Primate Research Institute at Kyoto University in Japan believes the descent of the larynx evolved not as part one of speech development-even though it may have ended up playing that role-but rather to decrease the chance for choking. The evolution of a swallowing system, Nishimura said, provided ample space and machinery to keep our food going one way and air going another. The ability to use that air to speak came much later.
Humans can talk because the vocal chords in the larynx, the muscles of the tongue affixed to a bone called the hyoid, and the space in and around all of this up to our lips (collectively known as the vocal tract) are situated and coordinated in a manner enabling us to create a variety of sounds in rapid succession and in a single breath.
Many scientists had believed the descent of the larynx during infancy and early childhood was not only a critical foundation for speech development, but also a phenomenon unique to modern humans. Nishimura and his colleagues used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to chart the structural development of three infant chimpanzees and discovered their larynges also descended during infancy, as in human infants. Based on previous studies, Nishimura had hypothesized that primates too had falling larynges, as it were, but the MRI results provided even stronger evidence.
"We used to think speech evolved in human lineage after the split from our Neanderthal ancestors, but our research shows that is not the case," said Nishimura. "The mechanism for the descent of the larynx is in fact composed of two phenomena that are not simultaneous: hyoid descent and larynx descent relative to the hyoid bone."
Although both of these anatomical moves are necessary for speech development, chimps experience only the descent of the larynx, leaving the hyoid too high for speaking. If it were lower, could chimpanzees talk? Perhaps, said Nishimura.
The importance of the descent of the larynx has been overemphasized, said Tecumseh Fitch, a lecturer in psychology at Harvard University. The recent paper out of Kyoto makes it "even more clear that it is not the descent of the larynx per se that is key for speech production in humans."
Rather, Fitch continued, it is the "the descent of the tongue root and hyoid bone, and the resulting re-configuration of the tongue and vocal tract" that have turned modern humans into talkers. It turns out these evolutionary steps were separate phenomena, and that one may have preceded the other by millions of years. The gift of gab, it appears, stems from the very basic need to feed.
Further Reading:
The Evolution of SpeechThat's a PDF
As for the evolution of language, I'm afraid that there is much uncertainty in that field. [Article
Here] But, thanks to new technologies, the field has undergone a revival of sorts. Unfortunately, I don't have much information of the origin of language.
Further Reading: Wikipedia,
Origin of LanguageMaybe it controls common sense? I still have mine!
And I have mine. So, that theory's out.
Initiate discovery! Fire the Machines! Throw the switch Igor! THROW THE F***ING SWITCH!
