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U2 l4 6 Student Handout Origins of Language p1

Full language with rules for combining sounds and words likely originated before 50,000 years ago. However, we will never know precisely when and where language originated. Several theories suggest that early humans first communicated through gestures and sounds before developing a full language. Proto-languages may have involved individual words, phrases with single meanings, or music-like phrases before evolving into the languages we know today. Evidence from ancient images and artifacts indicates symbolic thought and early forms of communication emerged over 30,000 years ago, though the origins were possibly earlier.

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115 views2 pages

U2 l4 6 Student Handout Origins of Language p1

Full language with rules for combining sounds and words likely originated before 50,000 years ago. However, we will never know precisely when and where language originated. Several theories suggest that early humans first communicated through gestures and sounds before developing a full language. Proto-languages may have involved individual words, phrases with single meanings, or music-like phrases before evolving into the languages we know today. Evidence from ancient images and artifacts indicates symbolic thought and early forms of communication emerged over 30,000 years ago, though the origins were possibly earlier.

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Unit 2 Lesson 4: Student Handout: The Origins of Language Part 1

What Makes Us Human?


LANGUAGE: ORIGINS
Many species communicate with vocal sounds. But language is a special form of communication. Full
languagewith rules for combining sounds into words, and words into sentencesprobably originated at
some point before about 50,000 years ago. But we will probably never know precisely when and where
language originated. Fossils, DNA evidence, comparisons with other animals and studies of languages
change over time all provide clues, but spoken language itself leaves few traces.
HOW DID LANGUAGE ARISE?
Human language did not appear entirely out of the blue, but most likely evolved from a simpler form of
communication, or "proto-language." Theories of a proto-language include:

Gesture before speech: Early humans communicated with gestures and "body language" in addition
to simple sounds before developing language as we know it.

Words before sentences: Language might have begun with individual words. Rules for linking words
into sentences could have come later.

Phrases before words: Early proto-language might have consisted of whole phrases with a single
meaning. These phrases might later have been broken into individual words.

Calls and Gestures


We cannot observe early humans, but we can observe related species and make inferences. Chimpanzees
use both gestures and vocal calls to communicate status and other complex social information. It is possible
that our ancestors also expressed themselves first with gestures or simple words, then developed rules for
linking them into sentences.
Talking Without Words
Before language emerged, humans might have used music-like phrases similar to those parents use when
talking to babies. Though not composed of individual words, these phrases might have conveyed a
meaning, much as a melody can be expressive even though individual notes are meaningless. Such
phrases might later have been broken into individual words, which could then be rearranged in different
sequences.
Symbolic Thought
Before writing was invented, people represented thoughts and ideas with
images. This pictogram was made in the 1800s in Siberia by people with
written language. Far older images have been discovered dating as far
back as 35,000 years ago. Their makers probably had the ability to use
language, since both language and art reflect a capacity for symbolic
thought.

Ancient Images

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The capacity to make visual symbols is related to the ability to use language. Over 30,000 years old, these
images from Chauvet Cave, France, provide some of the most powerful early evidence of symbolic thought.
Archaeological evidence indicates that there was a "creative explosion" of art, technology, culture and
probably language at some time after about 40,000 years ago, although the origins of these new behaviors
could well have been earlier than this.

Early Writing
Samples of early writing, such as these cuneiform tablets, provide hard evidence of language use for at
least the past 5,000 years. But written artifacts do not indicate when language itself began, since articulate
speech arose long before writing. Indeed, all cultures have speech, but some never developed writing.

What makes us human? Anne and Bernard Spitzer Hall of Human Origins. American Museum of Natural History.
http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/past-exhibitions/human-origins/what-makes-ushuman/language

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