Evolution of Language (General)

by dhw, Thursday, October 24, 2019, 10:45 (1855 days ago) @ David Turell

QUOTE: "A major difficulty here is that, as an abstract quality, language does not preserve directly in any material historical record. As a result, the use of language and of any of its putative precursors has to be inferred from indirect proxy evidence furnished principally by archaeology.”

dhw: It is indeed a major difficulty. The basic assumption seems to be that for 100,000 years, our immediate ancestors communicated with grunts and arm wavings, even though they had the anatomy to create the same variety of sounds we use today. I don’t buy it.

DAVID: OK. I'm sure they had brief sounds and arm motions, but had to learn how to use the new brain.

We have no idea what sounds they used. But of course once the apparatus was in place (I suggest it came into being because there was a need for it), its use evolved as humans continued to build on the work of their predecessors. That is how all the immaterial products of our consciousness evolve.

dhw: Why assume that the potential was not already in use 200,000 years ago?

DAVID: Precisely, but it took time to learn to use it.

Yes, evolution takes time, but that does not mean there was no progress for 100,000 years. We have no way of knowing!

dhw: Indirect proxy evidence does not explain why the anatomy changed in the first place, and it certainly doesn’t provide one jot of evidence that 150,000 years ago our ancestors were not already using sounds we use today in order to communicate with one another.

DAVID: Some sounds, yes, but not language as we know it.

Just like material evolution, we can assume that language as we know it has evolved from simple beginnings to current complexities. We have absolutely no idea what level it had reached 150,000 or 100,000 years ago, but of course it is perfectly reasonable to assume that it was not as complex as it is now.

QUOTE: "The archaeological indications are that this new potential lay fallow for upwards of 100,000 years, until it was activated by a cultural stimulus of some kind.“

dhw: I wish they would be more specific about the “archaeological indications” (perhaps they are - I don't have time to read the whole article) but whatever these are, why should we not assume that they themselves were a “cultural stimulus” resulting from new ideas. It is new ideas that demand new language, not the other way around.

DAVID: Read the article. They use signs of conceptualization.

I have now read it. There is no mention of specific “archaeological indications”. Or perhaps you have spotted something I missed.

dhw: The question is whether the brain, larynx etc originally complexified as a result of our ancestors endeavouring to organize their thoughts and utterances, or the changes took place beforehand via a number of random mutations, or via the hand of your God. I would say the first of these is at least as likely as the second and third.

DAVID: And of course I fully disagree. Larynx and brain changes first from god.

I know that is your guess. As a good and true agnostic, I am presenting the alternatives.

dhw: Once the apparatus is there, of course humans will learn to use it – use is what leads to evolution, both material and immaterial. […] Human speech exists, and produces language which evolves from comparatively simple utterances to increasingly complex structures as required by an ever expanding range of thought. (This process is of course mirrored by language learning itself, as children progress from the simple to the complex.)

DAVID: But it is humans using their new brain that evolved language, not evolution itself.

Evolution is a description of the process. It doesn’t have a mind of its own! As a believer in common descent, I would argue that all evolution is the result of new uses of existing organs, as in pre-whales’ new use of their legs to evolve flippers. I propose that the newly complexified brain (it was not a new brain) evolved because of new demands, and so did language.