Which speech sounds were uttered first, and when did language evolve? The evolution of modern humans and what makes us different from other animals have fascinated people for many years. George has spent most of his career researching the structure of African languages. New timelines for the origins of language are proposed in his newest book. He told us about his findings.
According to the research carried out for this study, the first speech sounds were uttered about 70,000 years ago, and not hundreds of thousands or millions of years ago.
My research has mainly been based on the analysis of speech sounds and language, but it has also taken into account other disciplines, like archaeology and anthropology.
At the same time as our hunter-gatherer ancestors migrated out of Africa, Homo sapiens became a speaking species.
The greatest gift our species has ever received is the ability to produce speech sounds, thanks to the creation of a "speech" genes. Their ability catapulted them into a world in which they would rule all other species.
The first speech sounds were more than just random noises. The speech sounds were underpinned by a network that connected parts of the brain. The ability to produce speech sounds for the first time was made possible by a number of factors.
A change in the diet of our early ancestors may have had an effect on our brain. When the early humans migrated from the interior to the coastlines of the continent, they changed the diet to be rich in Omega 3.
Different stages in the development of the vocal tract determine the types of sounds that can be produced. The only part of the vocal tract that was developed to produce sound was the mouth area.
The click sound was the only speech sound that could be made completely in the mouth. There is a way to control the airstream inside the mouth. Speech sounds that behave this way are called clicks. Today, they still occur in a few African languages, mostly in the Khoisan languages.
Less than 1% of the world's languages have clicks. They happen in a few instances in East Africa and in certain languages of South Africa that adopted the clicks when they came into contact with the Khoisan. Clicks can be found in an extinct ceremonial language register in Australia.
The back part of the tongue is raised against the back of the mouth to make a click speech sound. A click sound is produced when the lips are sucked inward.
The kiss click is thought to be the first speech sound produced by humans. It was possible for other click sounds to be produced in the mouth as the tongue became more manoeuvrable.
The production of the other human speech sounds began tens of thousands of years ago. It was dependent on the gradual development of a well-proportioned vocal tract which included the mouth, pharynx, nose, and throat. The three airstream mechanisms evolved slowly for the production of all speech sounds.
The only noises humans could make were vocal calls. Humans were exposed to a lot of sounds and actions in their environment.
The first dictionary of South Africa's Kaaps language is out.
It's possible that they were made when yawning, sneezing or yawning. The very intricate mechanisms that are involved in the production of the speech sounds which form the foundations of what we recognise today as human language are not confused with these.
The different speech sounds formed syllables and words. These are combined with each other in different ways to generate different types of sentences.
The gradual evolution of language was the result of the initial ability to produce speech sounds. Grammatical language did not change quickly. Language was not generated by a single silver bullet.
Human language is thought to have been acquired a long time ago. According to the study, language probably began to emerge about 20,000 years ago.
The first speech sounds were made by the ancestors of the speakers of today's languages. It would be reasonable to think that they were the first to speak a grammatical language.
There is no evidence to support the idea that the Neanderthals could have spoken a language. They didn't have the vocal tract dimensions that were required for speech sound production.
The beginning of the evolution of human language can be traced back to the very first speech that was made.
Language has provided the medium of communication that has played a pivotal role in the momentous developments that have taken place from the earliest known "written" records that we have access to.
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The author was from the University of South Africa.
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