Language May Be Older Than Humanity

The Economist has reported on a recent linguistic study by Dr. Quentin Atkinson, of the University of Auckland, in New Zealand. Dr. Atkinson compared phonemes from over 500 languages around the world and used each language’s phoneme complexity to triangulate (as it were) the probably location of the ancestor of all the languages in his study: central or southern Africa.

Dr. Atkinson’s calculations agree well with the archaeological and DNA record, which both strongly suggest that modern humans arose in central or southern Africa and gradually spread out across the Earth from there over the past 40-60,000 years. In fact, the farther away from central/southern Africa “indigenous” groups are, the less genetic variation their DNA demonstrates. Hence, Dr. Atkinson’s phonetic analysis tends to agree with previous work in DNA.

However, our definition for language is considerably inadequate. Language more than likely is older than the dinosaurs. That is not to say that the dinosaurs had a vocalized communication system (although they apparently had the ability to vocalize sounds) as sophisticated as our own. Rather, animal vocalizations have been shown in numerous studies to have meaning and context, both of which are fundamental aspects of communication through “language”.

Language does not have to be vocalized, however. Although known written languages are only a few thousand years old, biologists have discerned a significant number of natural gestures and body movements across multiple animal populations to show that many animals are capable of conveying complex information to their peers, their enemies, in some cases even to other species. And they have the capacity to act upon that conveyance of information.

For example, many animals establish territorial boundaries within their own species and against the encroachment of rival species. Male lions that have been accepted into prides signal their locations to other pride-bound males in the vicinity. Wolf packs similarly announce their presence to warn other wolf packs off from encroaching on their territories.

Animals also use sounds and body movements in courtship/mating rituals, to challenge enemies, to teach their young, and to “conduct the business of life” on a daily basis. We know that young animals behave with intense curiosity, poking around things they ought not to be poking around, until they either learn a hard lesson or their parents come along and stop their risky behavior.

Animals do not simply make sounds for the sake of the sake of making sounds. Nor do they gesture, posture, and pose simply for the sake of gesturing, posturing, and posing. They do these things to communicate with other animals their feelings, their instincts, their needs, their desires. Animals have learned to read the body language of other animals such that a lion may approach a water hole without sending flocks of gracing animals into panic; such that dogs can herd sheep and other animals; such that geese spit and wave their wings when other creatures approach their young.

The popularity of meercats on television owes a great deal to the unspoken communication (and the vocalized communication) between members of the meerkat clans. They work together for mutual protection and provision. They also engage in territorial aggression, clandestine romance, and strategic political division and management of groups. Alpha animals suppress the mating privileges of less dominant animals in many species. The list of types of communications between animals is nearly as endless as the lists of words humans have devised for similar purpose.

Humanity has struck it rich in the vein of vocalized communication. Although we claim to think abstractly in ways the animals cannot, problem solving has been observed among clever animals including apes, birds, and dolphins (to name only a few). What sets humanity apart in the realms of abstraction and communication (so far as we can determine at this time) appears to be our higher degree of complexity.

Perhaps the dolphins are wiser than we and that is why they haven’t riddled the Earth with waste and nuclear weapons; but perhaps our need to communicate with our peers and cooperate drove us not only to learn how to use our hands more effectively but to speak more eloquently, precisely, and figuratively.

We have not yet unraveled the full tale of how animals communicate but by studying their behavior (and communication) we gain insight into our own behavior and communication. Language is not a recent invention. Spoken language probably took a giant leap forward on several occasions due to a variety of influences. We may never be able to reverse-engineer those processes or influences but we should come to better understand their effects.

Even social insects communicate well enough to build both complex societies and structures. Although their individuals may not be very intelligent, they are intelligent enough to perform the most basic of communicative tasks (such as laying down pheromone trails) and social functions (such as gathering food, invading or defending colonies, and caring for young).

There should be no doubt that language is older than humanity. What we need to understand is how much older language is, and what we really want to know is when humans began developing language in a way that differed from the languages of other creatures, especially other hominids.