The idea that language is an innate characteristic of humans stems from the fact that all human societies have language and that all normal humans seem to effortlessly acquire or learn language as children.It should be noted that language in general, or rather that ability to acquire language, is innate, not the specific language which is spoken or signed.
In his book Prehistory: The Making of the Modern Mind, archaeologist Colin Renfrew writes:
“While as members of our species we have an innate (that is, genetically determined) capacity to learn a complex language, we still have at birth to learn that language. The specific language that we learn is not a product of anyone’s genetic makeup.”
While humans have an anatomically unique vocal tract which enables spoken language, looking for the origins of the innateness of language should focus on two primary areas: (1) the brain, and (2) genetics.
The Brain
Scientists in the nineteenth century—Pierre-Paul Broca in Paris, France and Carl Wernicke in Breslau, Germany—discovered specific regions of the brain which are associated with language. In the twentieth century, scientists studying language acquisition—that is, how children initially learn language—began to view children as having brains that were prewired for language.
In his chapter on language development in Language and Poverty: Perspectives on a Theme, Harry Osser writes:
“In contemporary psycholinguistics a predominant point of view is that the child is ‘prewired’ for language behavior, so that his linguistic abilities depend largely on the unraveling of maturational processes.”
Linguist Noam Chomsky, in his book New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind, puts it this way:
“The brain has a component—call it ‘the language faculty’—that is dedicated to language and its use. For each individual, the language faculty has an initial state, determined by biological endowment. Serious pathology apart, such states as so similar across the species that we can reasonably abstract the initial state of the language faculty, a common human possession. The environment triggers and to a limited extent shapes an internally-directed process of growth which stabilized (pretty much) at about puberty.”
The idea of a language faculty in the brain is a bit misleading as it seems to imply that we should be able to locate a region in the brain that controls language. While it is easy to point to Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area in the brain and say this is where language is controlled, this is not actually the case. First , both of these areas are not exclusively focused on language. And second, language involves many other areas of the brain. In other words, we should view language not as a single system in the brain, but rather several interrelated systems.
Genetics
Since language is innate, is there a genetic component to language and, if so, can genetics provide us with any clues about the origins of language? In her book The Human Brain, Rita Carter reports:
“Humans have an innate capacity for language—a faculty that seems to rely on one or more genes that are unique to our species. It is not known, though, whether language arose as a direct genetic mutation, or as a result of the interaction between subtle biological changes and environmental pressures.”
In their introduction to The Oxford Handbook of Language Evolution, Maggie Tallerman and Kathleen Gibson put it this way:
“Most linguists, psychologists, and biologists assume, at a minimum , that humans have some genetic endowment for language acquisition; a biological trait which, in the presence of socially-presented linguistic data, ensures that language will develop in all children with normal biological endowments and normal socio/cultural experience.”
In her book The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language, Christine Kenneally writes:
“Language has to be partly innate, simply because human babies are born with the ability to learn the language of their parents. While this can justifiably be called a language instinct, there is no one gene compelling us to produce language. Instead a set of genetic settings gives rise to a set of behaviors and perceptual and cognitive biases, some of which may be more general and others of which are more language-specific.”
Evolutionary biology has shown that the process of evolution, when viewed through genetics, is not a simple, straight-line process. It is a process that usually involves several genes. In their chapter on genetics and language in the Encyclopedia of Languages & Linguistic, A. McMahon and R. McMahon report:
“More generally, it is highly unlikely that any complex system like language will involve only a single gene; many systems, both physical and neurological, are implicated in our linguistic abilities and behavior; and each may be controlled by the interaction of many genes.”
A. McMahon and R. McMahon also write:
“One thing linguists must remember, however, is that if we implicate genes and identify or theorize about some genetically specified language faculty, we are necessarily making evolutionary assumptions. Anything in our genes must have got there somehow in evolutionary time, either as a new structure, or, more likely, as a development of an existing, older structure that may have had a tangentially related or altogether different function.”
While most researchers feel that the potential for language does stem from a single gene, part of the answer seems to lie in a gene known as forkhead box P2, more commonly called FOXP2. This is a gene which basically acts as a switch to turn on other genes: moderates a wide range of distinct physiological pathways. Some writers have described it as functioning like the conductor in an orchestra
People who have a defective FOXP2 gene seem to be unable to acquire language. FOXP2, is described by Matt Ridley in his book Nature via Nurture: Genes, Experience, and What Makes Us Human:
“The gene is necessary for the development of normal grammatical and speaking ability in human beings, including fine motor control of the larynx.”
In his book Unlocking the Past: How Archaeologists Are Rewriting Human History with Ancient DNA, Martin Jones describes it this way:
“Individuals carrying a disabled version of the FOXP2 gene experience a variety of problems with their spoken language. They find difficulty in moving their mouths in the very complex ways necessary for human speech and language. They also have great problems with something called ‘prosody’. This is a term that is related to intonation, rhythm, and the general musicality of human speech, something as important to poetry as the actual meaning of the words.”
In looking for the origins of language, or at least the potential for language, determining when the FOXP2 mutation occurred may provide an important clue. While some of the initial discussions about FOXP2 suggested that this might be a relatively recent mutation—dates from 800,000 to 200,000 years ago—more recent studies have shown a much older date. In their chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Language Evolution, Karl Diller (a researcher in the evolutionary genetics of language) and Rebecca Cann (Professor of Genetics, University of Hawaii) report:
“Using genomic evidence, we propose a date of 1.8 or 1.9 mya [million years ago] for the mutations in FOXP2, approximately the time when the genus Homo (Homo habilis, H. ergaster, H. erectus) emerged.”
Karl Diller and Rebecca Cann also write:
“The date of 1.8 or 1.9 mya for the human FOXP2 mutations is just at the time when the human brain began to triple in size, from 450cc of australopithecine and chimpanzee brains to 1350cc of modern human brains. If the elements of vocal speech began early in this evolution, then symbolic speech, grammatical language, and spectacular brain growth would have evolved together, the type of co-evolution a biologist would expect.”
Social Skill
Acquiring language requires that children be in a social environment where they can see, hear, and experience being immersed in language. Language as a social skill may thus be linked to the human characteristics of cooperation, altruism, and socialization.
Language is more than a collection of sounds formed into words and sentences. It also requires intention which may be seen in things like body language and tone. In their book Thinking Big: How the Evolution of Social Life Shaped the Human Mind, Clive Gamble, John Gowlett, and Robin Dunbar write:
“The intentional stance refers to our extraordinary ability to understand just what it is that someone else is trying to convey when they speak. Words are notoriously slippery things, and of themselves are often quite ambiguous in their meaning.”
They go on to say:
“We are able to work out the real meaning of a statement because the speaker usually gives us clues in their tone of voice or the gestures they use. The cognitive skill of mentalizing is the reason we can do this complex, but to us ordinary, social task.”
In other words, language is a complex social skill which requires cognitive skills. The evolution of language is intimately associated with the evolution of human societies.
More Human Origins
Human Origins: The Sounds of Language
Human Origins: Making Spoken Language Possible
Human Origins: How children learn language
Human Origins: Protolanguage
Human Origins: Rock Art as Proto-Writing
Human Origins: Cultural Evolution
Human Origins: The Mind
Human Origins: The Large Brain