Journal Entry 4–The World in Words Podcast–Where Does Language Come From?

Fig. 1. Still from The World in Words.

 

Where does language come from? How did humans learn to speak?

 

To find the answers, the hosts of The World in Words podcast looked into the structure of our throats. They discovered with the help of Philip Lieberman, an evolutionary biologist at Brown University, that we are the only animals on Earth who, “have a common pathway for food, liquid, and air, which allows us basically to choke to death.” In essence, the composition of our throats don’t allow us to breathe and swallow at the same time.

     It is because of the setup in our throat, consisting of the larynx and esophagus, that gives us the ability to make sounds and utter words. Because we developed a throat that can lead to our demise though, scientists believed there had to be something beneficial about the configuration of the throat that outweighed the dangers choking held. That something had to be speech.

  fterall, it is the position of our tongues in our throats that allow us to make the sounds “eeee” and “oooh”. The gradual ability Homo sapiens developed of being able to pronounce consonants and vowels is what allowed the emergence of language.

     Additionally, Noam Chomsky, the godfather of linguistics, stated recursion (the ability to place one component inside another component of the same kind. For example: yellow, fuzzy, and soft – three adjectives placed together) is the fundamental building block of all languages and the universal grammar. However, Lieberman argues that languages don’t necessarily have to be complex or include recursions to function as a working language.

ieberman found an isolated tribe in South America, the Pirahã, who speak without the use of recursions. The tribe doesn’t have the words “and” or the word “or” in their language, and they use sounds and whistles to communicate. Lieberman states that having words and putting the words or sounds in an order is all you need to create a language.

     Still, with this evidence, many still follow Chomsky’s theories. Since there is no fossil or recordings of language, no one knows how language truly originated, or how the first people who spoke actually communicated. But what is known is that the makeup of our throats are what set us apart from other living things, and we are the only species who can speak to communicate.

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Works Cited:

Altmann, Gerd. “ear-2973126_1280.” Pixabay, 22 Nov. 2017. https://pixabay.com/illustrations/ear-auricle-listen-listen-to-2973126/. Accessed 13 Oct. 2023.

Daniels, Ari, et. al., hosts. “Where Does Language Come From?” The World in Words, Feb. 2018, https://theworld.org/stories/2018-02-21/where-does-language-come. Accessed 13 Oct. 2023.

Geleynse, Joyce. “alphabet-6916985_1280.” Pixabay, 22 Jan. 2022. https://pixabay.com/illustrations/alphabet-letters-decorated-letters-6916985/. Accessed 5 Sept. 2023.