Mar 18, 2025 08:08 PM
(This post was last modified: Mar 18, 2025 08:18 PM by C C.)
When did human language emerge? (no ads)
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1077363
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When did humans first speak? New genetic clues point to 135,000 years ago
https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-...years-ago/
EXCERPTS: When did the first humans start speaking? Did we always have this ability, inherited from our immediate ancestors? These questions sound impossible to answer — but not quite so. A new study, drawing on a wealth of genetic data, suggests that the capacity for language was present at least 135,000 years ago in humans alive at the time.
Unlike previous attempts to date the origins of language, which relied on fossils or cultural artifacts, this study takes a novel approach: it uses the genetic divergence of early human populations to estimate when our ancestors first possessed the cognitive tools necessary for language.
“The logic is very simple,” says Shigeru Miyagawa, a linguist at MIT and co-author of the study. “Every population branching across the globe has human language, and all languages are related.”
By analyzing when these populations began to split, the researchers concluded that the capacity for language must have existed before or around 135,000 years ago.
[...] This date serves as a “lower boundary” for when language capacity must have emerged. But since Homo sapiens is at least 300,000 years old, one may reasonably assume that language may have been a feature of our ancestors for all our species’ history.
But having the capacity for language is not the same as using it. The researchers propose that language likely began as an internal cognitive system before evolving into a tool for social communication. “Language is both a cognitive system and a communication system,” Miyagawa says. “My guess is prior to 135,000 years ago, it did start out as a private cognitive system, but relatively quickly that turned into a communications system.” (MORE - missing details)
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1077363
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
When did humans first speak? New genetic clues point to 135,000 years ago
https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-...years-ago/
EXCERPTS: When did the first humans start speaking? Did we always have this ability, inherited from our immediate ancestors? These questions sound impossible to answer — but not quite so. A new study, drawing on a wealth of genetic data, suggests that the capacity for language was present at least 135,000 years ago in humans alive at the time.
Unlike previous attempts to date the origins of language, which relied on fossils or cultural artifacts, this study takes a novel approach: it uses the genetic divergence of early human populations to estimate when our ancestors first possessed the cognitive tools necessary for language.
“The logic is very simple,” says Shigeru Miyagawa, a linguist at MIT and co-author of the study. “Every population branching across the globe has human language, and all languages are related.”
By analyzing when these populations began to split, the researchers concluded that the capacity for language must have existed before or around 135,000 years ago.
[...] This date serves as a “lower boundary” for when language capacity must have emerged. But since Homo sapiens is at least 300,000 years old, one may reasonably assume that language may have been a feature of our ancestors for all our species’ history.
But having the capacity for language is not the same as using it. The researchers propose that language likely began as an internal cognitive system before evolving into a tool for social communication. “Language is both a cognitive system and a communication system,” Miyagawa says. “My guess is prior to 135,000 years ago, it did start out as a private cognitive system, but relatively quickly that turned into a communications system.” (MORE - missing details)