June 24, 2025 • 49 mins
From the earliest grunts and gestures to the complex sentences we use today to convey a multitude of concepts, language has evolved to become one of humanity’s most powerful tools. It allows us to connect, create, conspire, control, console, catch up, and so much more. How did we come to have this uniquely human trait? What anatomical changes or cultural developments were necessary for language to evolve? What differentiates language from communication? In this TPWKY book club episode, Professor Steven Mithen joins us to discuss his latest book The Language Puzzle: Piecing Together the Six-Million-Year Story of How Words Evolved. By combining scholarship across wide-ranging fields such as archaeology, genetics, anthropology, linguistics, neuroscience, and more, Professor Mithen presents a compelling story of the origins of language. If you’ve ever wondered how babies can go from babbling one day and talking in a torrent of words the next, or how an individual language changes with each generation, this is the episode and book for you.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Hi, I'm Aaron Welsh and this is This Podcast Will
Kill You. You're listening to the latest episode in the
tp w k Y book Club series, where I chat
with authors of popular science and medicine books about their
latest work. Part of what I love about these episodes
is getting to read about such varied topics. Whether it's
(01:06):
measles or tuberculosis, the pelvic exam or gaslighting in medicine,
road ecology, or animal senses, I'm always learning something new.
We've showcased some fascinating books so far this season and
in past seasons, and we've got more great books coming up.
To check out the full list of books featured in
(01:27):
these book club episodes, head over to our website This
Podcast will Kill You dot com. Under the Extras tab,
you'll find a link to our bookshop dot org affiliate page,
which includes several different TPWKY related lists, including one for
this book club. Another thing that I love about this
series and just making this podcast in general, is hearing
(01:50):
from you all about these episodes, your favorite books, questions
you want to ask, books you'd like to see featured
on a future episode, suggestions for future talk, and any
other thoughts you have The best way to get in
touch with us is by filling out the contact us
form on our website. Two last pieces of business before
we can get into the Book of the Week, and
(02:11):
that is to please rate, review, and subscribe. It really
helps us out. And if you haven't heard already, we're
now on YouTube. That's right. You can find full videos
of most of our newer episodes on exactly Right Media's
YouTube channel. Make sure you're subscribed so you never miss
a new episode release. Have you ever put your foot
(02:31):
in your mouth or held your tongue or maybe you
didn't and let the cat out of the bag. Do
you have a friend that's a total chatterbox or met
someone who has a way with words taken by themselves?
These idioms don't really make literal sense. I'm not really
asking who is bendy enough that they have actually inserted
(02:52):
their foot into their mouth? I mean, who has said
something embarrassing that they shouldn't have. We use idioms like
these to communicate a feeling as shorthand for what might
require a longer description, or just to add a little
fun and the utility of idioms gives us a glimpse
into the incredible power of human language. Our capacity for
(03:15):
language sets us apart from all other species. It has
shaped the evolution of our species, our societies, our cultures,
our history, and it will continue to do so while
also being shaped by us. How we ever, evolved This
ability is so mind boggling that ironically I find myself
(03:37):
at a loss for words. Fortunately, my guest for this
episode has not only the words to describe language evolution,
but also the research to back them up. In today's episode,
I'm joined by Stephen Maythen, Professor of Archaeology at the
University of Reading and author, to discuss his latest book,
The Language Puzzle, piecing together the six million year story
(04:01):
of how words evolved. In this tremendous undertaking, Professor May
then takes readers on a tour spanning hundreds of thousands
of years and across many diverse fields of study, from
linguistics to archaeology, genetics, to neuroscience and beyond. What results
is a comprehensive picture of how we came to have language.
(04:26):
How do babies babble one day and then the next
out pours a flood of words? What can primate communication
today tell us about the early stages of human language?
Where do tool making, brain size, and bipedalism fit into
the Language Puzzle. Stay tuned, we'll take a quick break
and get into all those questions and more. Professormithen, thank
(05:14):
you so much for taking the time to chat with
me today. I really enjoyed your book The Language Puzzle
for so many reasons, but I especially loved how you
integrated many distinct fields of study, ones that you might
not normally encounter in the same place. Why is this
interdisciplinary approach or perspective so crucial when it comes to
(05:35):
exploring something like the origins of language.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
We really didn't have any choice because language is such
an incredible phenomenon. I mean, it uses not only our
vocal tracks to make the sounds, or you can use
your hands to make sign language. But that relies on
our physiology and ask me, our brains. So we need
to draw not only on human anatomy, but also on
(06:00):
neuroscience and psychology. But that's just a small part of it,
because sitting behind all those is the genetics of language.
And then we have to actually think about how humans evolved,
so that takes us into the arclosical record of human ancestors.
The fossil record and the arc cological evidence for how
(06:20):
they behave. And then we've also got to look at
other animals, because we're closely related to the chimpanzees, who've
got to think about how they communicate. And of course
the other big areas of disciplines is language itself, linguistics,
which is a hugely complicated and diverse subject, and around
the margins of that we move into subjects such as
(06:41):
music and philosophy and so forth. So to really address
the evolusion language, you've got to find the evidence and
the right theories and the right interpretations in all these
different disciplines and then try to join them together. And
that's why I call the book the Language Puzzle, because
there's like finding bits of a jigsaw puzzle, gradually piecing
(07:01):
them together until a picture merges of how this remarkable
ability that we have to communicate Viur language could have
possibly evolved.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Yes, and I am really excited to dig into some
of these individual pieces of the Language Puzzle. But before
we do that, maybe we should take a step back
and just define what language is and how is language
different from communication?
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Yeah, I mean that's easily said, but it's quite challenging
and many people would define language differently, because of course
we do talk about how chimpanzees and wales and birds
have language, but that's a very different type of communication
system to what we should think of as language. I
suppose the key elements of spoken language or signed language
(07:50):
are thoy discrete units called words, and words have shared meanings,
and often those meanings are entirely arbitrary. So you know,
I can say a word like a tree or a dog,
and unless you have some shared understanding, you won't know
what I'm naturally talking about because it's arbitrary. And then
we can combine those words in different orders to generate
(08:13):
particular meaning, and you can also interpret that meaning that
I say. So if I say the man bit the dog,
it means something entirely different from the dog bit the man.
It's the same words, but the order is playing a
role as well. So really, languages has got units of communication,
words and rules for how we combine them together to
(08:33):
convey larger meanings. And of course there's so many different
types of language which have all their different types of
words and different types of rules. That's an incredibly diverse
you know, there's over seven thousand languages in the world today,
which is probably a tiny fraction of those that ever existed.
So it's a remarkable it's a remarkable phenomenon. But it's
(08:54):
those two key aspects that I think distinguish it between
the communication systems of all other animals and some other
communication system that we use, like music or art and
so forth, which also ways of communicating.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Of course, that in itself is a fascinating aspect of this,
just the other ways that we communicate beyond language. And
it got me wondering, you know, using this definition of language,
with the components as you just laid out, could you
see any prerequisites for a species or a lineage that
would be necessary for language to evolve within that group.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Yes, you can do, because I think you have to.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
I mean, obviously, you need a sufficiently large brain to
be able to contain an efficient number of different words
to make a viable language. You also need to have
a vocal chat which can make sufficient number of different
sounds which can be joined together syllables to make words.
(09:56):
But they also need to be made in a consistent
manner that if I want to say a word, I'm
going to pronounce it broadly the same each time. Otherwise
you wouldn't know what I'm talking about. So if we
look at say, chimpanzees, one of their constraints in vocalizations
is that they have a limited ability to have that
(10:17):
consistency because of the nature of the vocal tracks. And
they also have a limited ability to make a sufficiently
wide range of sounds, again because of the way their
jaws are particularly elongated, which makes a very different shape
of vocal tracks to which we have. So you need
some basic anatomy in place to be able to make
the sounds, and in the efficient size of brain to
(10:39):
be able to remember those sounds, remember the meaning of words. Now,
those thresholds are probably passed pretty early in human evolution,
so I don't think there are you know, anything restricted
to our species. I think they must have been shared
with many of our ancestors.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Let's take a quick break, and when we get back,
there's still so much to discuss. Welcome back everyone. I've
(11:18):
been chatting with Professor Stephen mai Then about his book
The Language Puzzle, piecing together the six million year story
of how words evolved. Let's get back into things. The
natural outcropping of this is the languages as we use
in human language, as you said, involves this vocal component
or sign language. The bottom line is would we be
(11:40):
able to recognize language in another species if it looked
far different from ours?
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Yeah, I guess so.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
But eron, Just remember I am watching you on a video.
You're gesturing the whole time as you something. So you know,
when we talk about spoken language, it's a fully integrated
system with facial expressions, with body posture, and very often
with gesturing with hands. And some people say it's that
(12:08):
sort of physical movements that convein so much of the
meaning of what we want to say. And of course
it's also it's not just the words, it's our intonation.
It's the prosody of language, that that musicality of language
that can put a particular meaning on a particular type
of phrase, whether you're angry or happy, or please.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
And so forth.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Obviously, we can do some very clever studies on the
communications whether by chimpanzees or by whales or birds, and
we can see that they have some elements which are
certainly important to language today. So whether you're a chimpanzee
or a young bird or young well, you do learn
the communication system of your community it's not just genetically present.
(12:56):
There's some learning, so you'll grow out learning a particular
way or of communicating. And there certainly are some aspects,
certainly in chimpanzee communication that are wordlick and language like,
so they are able to control the loudness which they
speak or the duration of a phrase. They'll take account
(13:17):
of who else is around when they make a vocalization,
because they know they want to inform some people but
not others. Now, all of these are crucial elements of
our spoken language as well, but in themselves that don't
constitute language by themselves. I'm sure we can see the
same make the same comparisons with birds and with whales,
(13:40):
but of course they're much more evolutionary distance, and their
communication systems are one more of If they have language
like elements, it's more one of convergent evolution, whereas with chimpanzees,
we shared an ancestor just about eight million years ago,
so that ancestor probably gave rise to both the chimpanzee
type communication today and our language today.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
To think about the convergent evolution possibilities of you know
what else language would look like, I think is a
really intriguing part. But I think maybe we'll stay in
the realm of humans or hominins, and I'd like to
now turn to the past, to our hominine ancestors. What
can we infer about the origins of language from their
fossil remains.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
It's a huge challenge. I'm sure I don't need to
tell you that or a listeners to that. And you know,
it's the slightly odd subject for an archaeologist to tackle
because the past is absolutely silent, you know, I can't
hear people talk in the past and so forth. But
we have no choice because if we've got a non
sertain language, we've got to look at evolution history. We
(14:45):
can look at the skeletal remains or the fossilized remains,
and we are able in some instances to reconstruct or
shape all these parts of the of the vocal tract,
because sometimes we get a face, more bones remaining, or
particular parts of the ukranium that indicates how the face
(15:09):
and the larynts and so forth would have been positioned.
And we can see that even by five hundred thousand
years ago and probably earlier, from those little scraps of bone,
the vocal tract was probably much the same as ours today.
We can also find tiny earbones from our human ancestors
(15:29):
going back again hundreds of thousands of years, and we
can look at the shape of the earbones that influence
our earing, our audio track, and we can also see
when they are most similar to ours. So we can
use these bits of fossilized remains to reconstruct as far
as we can the both the vocal tract or an
auderary tract, and by five hundred thousand years ago they're
(15:51):
looking sufficiently similar to ours so that we can say
the physical capability of language was there. Whether the mental
capability was there or not is another question now for that,
of course, we can look at brain size, but it's
not clear that there is a particular threshold of brain
size that we need for language. You know, how many
(16:12):
neurons would you need to be able to have like
we don't know, And of course very young children with
much more brains and adults they have fabulous language skills.
So it's not clear to me. It's absolute side of
the brain is important. It's probably the way all the
neurons are networked inside, connected inside, but of course that's
something that we cannot see as archaeologists. But to get
(16:36):
some insights of that, we can look at aspects of
tool making, hunting, social behavior, whether building fires or making huts,
because all of those are complex behavior that must have
drawn either directly language skills or equivalent cognitive processes.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
I appreciate that layout of like, Okay, these are the possibilities,
But whether or not language itself would have emerged as
a different question. And you mentioned a few different things
that would have driven or would have been an obvious
need for language. And of course today you know, we
use language for literally everything. It's impossible to imagine things
that we don't use it for. But would there have
(17:16):
been particular drivers of or like important reasons that communication
would have been elaborated in this way to lead to
language for these early hominins.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
A common argument among many anthropologists, and one that I
tend to support, is that one of the earliest functions
of language would have been for building social bonds between individuals,
and of course that remains one of the primary uses
of language, as in chit chat, gossip and so forth. Now,
why that became important was that if we go back
(17:49):
to about four million years ago, our homine ancestors, which
were probably not much more than one and a half
meters high and rather defensive creatures by themselves. They're increasing
living in rather open savannah environments as the landscape changed,
environments which are quite difficult and dangerous to live in
(18:09):
because lots of dangerous predators around. So they're probably needing
to live in larger group sizes. They're probably needing to
cooperate more than others. They couldn't just escape up a tree,
for instance, because there are not many act trees around,
so need to work together both for finding food and
defending against predators. That might have been one of this
(18:29):
stimulants for language, not to be communicating information but to
be building social bonds. But we've got to think those
earlier stages of the language, they probably didn't involve many words,
let loan complex grammar. There is probably you know, not
that different from chimpanzee type grunts and barks, but becoming
(18:51):
more directed to particular individuals, becoming richer, more emotionally involved,
and so forth. So socializing is certainly important, but also
just transmitting information about what's happening in the landscape, the
site of a predator, the location of some righte berries
or some tubas or a carcass could be exploited. I mean,
(19:12):
I'm sure passing on that factual information was also being
of selective value and help push language that bit forward.
So trying to find one particular reason, I don't think
it's right. And I think if we look at language today,
we can say it's used for all sorts of purposes.
I'm sure that was also the case right back in
our early times.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
We've touched a few times on chimpanzees today and our
other ape relatives today can tell us about the origins
of human language. And you have a really fascinating chapter
about this where you examine some of these research that
has revealed the capacity or what their capacity might be
for language on both, you know, anatomical and cognitive levels.
(19:51):
And I was hoping you could just take me through
a little bit of that research.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Ethologists, I mean, they do just such fascinating experiments. If
we go back thirty years, we'd think that chimpanzees just
bark and grunt and these or just really emotional outbursts.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
But what they followed us.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Have done is that they've worked with wild chimpanzees because
once you have them in zoos or in institutions. You
can't really see their natural behavior communications they work in
the world, but they make subtle manipulations of those wild settings. So,
for instance, if they see a trail that chimpanzees will
(20:29):
frequently use when out gathering, gathering food, and so forth,
they might put an artificial snake on the track, and
they might ensure that one chimpanzee sees that, and then
they'll be able to record its responses. It's vocal responses.
Who does it call to, when does it call? Does
it call to everybody?
Speaker 3 (20:50):
Or quite what?
Speaker 2 (20:51):
And they do the similar things with putting different types
of food out and so forth, so gradually trying to
control certain factors and stimulate certain calls, and gradually then
piece together what those calls, not so much what they
might mean, but the function that they're playing. Another really
fascinating spe orangutangs. And orangutangs live with their the mothers
(21:16):
live with their infants for many years, and they're big predators,
are tigers in the forest, so they actually put people
out in tiger costumes crawling through the forest. Orangutangs see
them and they listen to the response. And one of
the amazing things is that orangutang sometimes don't respond immediately.
They wait until the predator has passed and then they call.
(21:40):
The idea of that is they're able to be aware
of the situation but control themselves, because if you call immediately,
you're just going to attract the tension of the predator.
But you need to call in a while to warn
your offspring and you and the other female orangutang that
there is danger about. So these experiments show how these
(22:02):
barks and grunts and calls aren't just emotional outbursts.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
They're carefully controlled.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
We're relating to the social and the ecological context.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
That experiment reveals what it seems like a deliberate delay
in communication. But how much can we really say about
conscious intent there.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
We don't know whether the orangutangs are actually consciously aware
of what they're doing. We don't know that, and but
we know that we would be consciously aware. We don't
really know whether that is the case in orangutangs or
whether it's just something it's been selected. I suspect they are,
you know, I suspect there's a lot more consciousness, not
only in these great apes, but many other animals than
(22:43):
we're generally prepared to credit them.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
With Let's take a quick break here, we'll be back
before you know it. Welcome back everyone. I'm here chatting
(23:08):
with Professor stephenmi Then about his book The Language Puzzle.
Let's get into some more questions. So along those lines,
you discuss a concept in your book called displacement, so
the ability to communicate about things that are not actually present.
We thought that this was something unique to humans, but
turns out that it might not be.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
As part of displacement, the other big area of displacement
is being able to talk not just about the present,
but about the future and the past. So I can
talk about what happened to me yesterday, or I can
talk about what happened to my family fifty years ago,
or I can talk about the Alcatra distance past aplec
talk about what I expect to happen in the future,
(23:52):
and that predicting me features a really important element. You
can think of how that would be no enormous adaptive
value to a hominin answer in terms of planning, by
imagining a different future, but not only imagining in your mind,
but be able to tell other people of what you
imagine and somebody else might say, well, I don't think
it'd be by it like this. I think if we
(24:12):
do there, you know, we'll have more success hunting or
gathering and so forth. So the displacement of time is
really facilitated by language. Be able to communicate that now,
when did that occur? When did that happen? Is difficult
to say. But being able to talk about the future
and things that you cannot actually see at that time.
(24:34):
Now we know we can do that even with quite
young children talk about something that's not in their visual field.
It's unlikely chimpanzees can manage communicate things not in their
current visual field. But that's clearly a pervasive element of language,
something really important in cevolution.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Going a little bit more into these experiments studying present
day you know, our present day ape relatives, what can
I tell us ab about the origins of language being
more gestural or more vocal or you know what are
some of the arguments for these.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
We do have to be slightly careful because we've got
to remember that chimpanzees, they aren't our ancestor. There are
modern species. So this the chimpanzee like communication has had
the same length of evolutionary time as modern has our
modern language. But the difference between vocal and gestural communication
is important. We can see that maybe with chimpanzee's agrillas
(25:29):
gestural is a really important form of communication, as it
remains with us today. And sam Anthropolos have argued that
actually language evolved originally by gesture by sun language, and
then quite late in the hevolution is sort of switched
over into a vocal form. You know, our vocal tracks
(25:50):
really evolved for breathing and for eating, and they've been
secondarily used for language. So they argued that gestural language
lies at the origin.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
I don't believe that.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
The simple reason is, I think our vocal tracts are
so superbly adapted now to making such a wide range
of vocalizations. You know, when we talk, we use such
subtle manipulations of different muscles to be able to change
the shape of our mouth, our larynx, to be able
to create the different sounds. I don't think that's a
(26:23):
late development. I think I's haid millions of years of
evolution and it must have been for vocal communication. So
I think gesture has always been supporting it, but never
driving the evolution of language.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
I'm wondering where hearing fits into this as well. Human hearing,
how has that evolved in conjunction with our vocal tract
or our language capacity?
Speaker 2 (26:48):
The elusion hearing I think must have been relatively more
advanced than speaking in the early periods of our evolution,
because as hunter gatherers that have been very attuned to
listening to the sounds of nature, listening to the sounds
of approaching predators or bird singing, or leaves, the wind,
(27:08):
and so forth, So listening carefully to nature's critical not
just from human undergatherers, but for various apes and so forth.
So there was always I think, a very strong capacity there.
We can see how that evolved by looking at some
of these shapes of the earbones as I mentioned earlier,
because we can use those to reconstruct the inner ear
(27:31):
and what frequencies they were susceptible too at some time
in the evolution, probably around five hundred thousand years ago.
A bit later, we can see how these change to
become more sensible to rather lower range of frequencies, which
are tend to be more that we have wind spoken
language rather than in nature itself. So we can make
(27:55):
some estimates of how hearing might have evolved, but it's
as crucial to language because just remember when I'd speak
to you, if we're in the same room, my words
are just little puffs of air. They come into your
ears and your ear drums and convert them into electrical signals,
which then your brain decodes into concepts that you in
(28:16):
your brain, and if it's right, those concepts be the
same ones that I'd tried to communicate with you.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Where do words exist?
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Not really sure words exist, but the ear and the
audio track is absolutely critical aspect of language, and you're
right to raise it because it does often get neglected
in people talking about the evlush language. The eVision hearing
is as important as the evolush speaking.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
And it kind of brings me to the next question,
which is, as we discussed, you know, the vocal origins
of language would have just started out not with recognizable words,
of course, with like discrete meanings. Necessarily, what would those
early vocalizations have looked like or sounded like when they
began to take on meaning? And then how is that
meaning communicated? I guess iconic words is kind of where
(29:02):
I'm going with this.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
We did really enter into the realms of speculation here,
of course, but this question of what were the first
words and how did words start has been one of
the biggest challenges in people thinking about and writing about
language evolution, well ever since Plato, Because Plato in the
fifth century BC, you know, in his dialogue Cratalyst, he
(29:25):
was speculating about the origins of words, and in the
Enlightenment period, scholars such as had they really struggled to
think what is the bridge between human words and animals
barks and cries? They can really find anything in the
(29:46):
middle there. Now we do have something in the middle,
which is what we called the iconic words. These are
words that don't have arbitrary meanings or not entirely arbitrary meanings,
but they either sound like or create a sense impression
of what they refer to. So the obvious ones are
on a matter peers like bang and quack and so forth.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
And you know when I say these.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Words, you don't have to know a meaning of them.
You have an intuitive understanding of what they're referring to.
So an idea came around that maybe these iconic words
were the earliest type of words, and then others built
on top of that. Research over the last decade or
two has really confirmed that, because what has shown is
(30:33):
that young children, when the learning language, the majority of
their first words they learn are indeed iconic words. And
as we talk to children, we tend to liter our
language with iconic words rather than the arbitrary words, so
you know, would say, rather than saying look at this dog,
we say look at that woof or something like that.
(30:55):
We litter iconic words into our conversation with children because
at facility takes their language learning, and we actually use
iconic words a huge amountain language without realizing it. In
English and many languages, when we talk about small little things,
often quick moving, we often use short words and high
(31:16):
in front valwels like b or flea or p. As
I say those, I'm making little small size of my
mouth and it's sort of mimicking the size of the object.
Where if you think about large, slow, heavy objects, we
use words like enormous or rhinoceros or hippopotamus. Now I'm
using these back vowels o's and use and by the
(31:39):
size of my mouth, I'm generating a sense impression of
what that image was like. So if we go back
to babies, if we're in a room and I point
and say.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
Look at that balloon.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Now, they'll intuitively grasp balloon because the word balloon creates
that that frame, that size in their mouth, and it
connects what they're seeing with the sound that's being made.
So these are iconic words. And my guess is that
(32:13):
iconic words did indeed provide a bridge between these sort
of animal grunts and barks.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
Don't want to.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Dismiss their complication, but nevertheless, they don't have meaning to
words in modern language. The majority of rich have arbitrary
meanings and in the middle of there, I think SIT's
arbitrary words. And you know, by the time they get
to about thirteen or fourteen, arbitrary words take over. And
that's because we just can't have enough iconic words to
(32:40):
talk about all the different things we want to. But
by that time they've understood ah, words are labeled for
things and they're shared understandings. So that's how they that's
how I think they emerge.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Iconic words as a bridge is really crucial. And you
mentioned in your book about the role that synesthesia may
have played in their these iconic words sort of existing
or coming to have meaning, And I was hoping you
could talk a little bit more about the role that
synthesia may have played.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
You know, Synthesia is is this condition whereby our different
senses are somehow connected. In some adults, it's found in
quite an extreme form where they'll always associate a particular
word with a particular color, or a particular a particular
texture or so forth. It's a cross modal connection between
(33:35):
their different sensory organs. That's really extreme form. But we
all and especially young children probably have synthesia in some
sort of some sort of mild form, and it was
it was indeed suggested by some psychologists a number of
years ago that this may have facilitated live unt iconic
(33:57):
words early in our ancestors. It may well be that
as the brain was enlarging in our early ancestors, such
as Homer Hablits living about two and a half million
years ago, that the level of synthesia was to some
extent a bit larger than we have in our one
(34:17):
mister day, and that facilitate this connection between sounds and
what can be seen or what can be felt, or
what can be tasted. If that is the case, it
would have been a big boost to sort of iconic words,
and I think there's a very strong argument for that.
Of course, it's really difficult to prove, and we do
(34:39):
need some more research about that low level synthesia that
I think is in present in all of us today.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
So you mentioned iconic words as being this bridge between
vocalizations and these vocalizations taking on meaning, and we also
discussed how babies learn iconic words first, how much which
does or doesn't the phrase antogeny recapitulates phylogeny apply in
this case, like, how much can we deduce about language
(35:09):
origins from babies learning language?
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Yeah, well, I mean that's a huge question and I'm
not sure on that the answer myself. We's got to
be very cautious of this because because babies are growing
up in a language environment, not only a language environment,
but ones where people, particularly their mothers and their fathers
and their siblings are talking to them in a way
(35:34):
that is facilitating the acquisition of language. When we talk
to babies, we use what sometimes called mothers or infant
directed speech. We exaggerate the contours of language, the length
of vowels and so forth, and that helps children grasp
words where they start and where they stop and what
(35:55):
they might mean. Of course, early humans are evolving in
a language jabsent environment. They're building it themselves, so the
very different contexts. But nevertheless, both in evolution and in
development we're dealing somehow with the acquisition of language. So
I think we can see some parallels, but I'd be
(36:18):
really cautious about saying there's a direct recapitulation of philologeny
happening here. I don't think there is. I think both
are hominine ancestores and inmphysation are just solving a problem
of how do we communicate vocally, and to some extent
similar solutions are found. The speed at which babies acquire language,
(36:41):
it's just phenomenal. You know, the fact that you can
take a baby and put it in any language community
and do or acquire the language that people are speaking
to it.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
However different that is.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
It's just astonishing, And there's been some remarkable research in
psychology whereby we now understand how babies are begin to
identify words and grasp the meaning of them. It's a
fascinating air of linguistics supportive of evolutionary ideas, but perhaps
not giving a solution to how language involved.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
It's I mean, it's incredible just to go from like
this baby who then you know, learns a few words
and then suddenly is just talking NonStop is amazing to
watch and experience. And we could talk about the language
learning in babies for the rest of this time, I'm sure,
but I want to fast forward us now to the
point where humans have language or languages and ask what
(37:40):
drives the evolution of a language net once it's in existence,
like how do words change or how are they invented?
Speaker 2 (37:48):
I mentioned earlier that there's over seven thousand different languages
in the world today, and they've all got different vocabularies
and different grammars, but they share similarities by having these
having both likeonic and arbitrary words, by having a grammatical structures.
Our early human ancestors, living between the time of the
(38:08):
commonaciy of the chimpanzees and modern humans we evolved around
one hundred and fifty thousand years ago, may have had language,
but not fully modern language. So I'd argue that one
grade of our ancestors, Homerhablists, probably used iconic sounds within
their ape like vocalizations. By the time we got to Homorectus,
(38:31):
there are probably using the first iconic words, but probably
didn't have lots of arbitrary words at that time. By
the time we moved on to Homo heidelbagensis and then
the Neanderthals, they've probably got words which are iconic and
which are arbitrary. They've probably got some grammatical structures, but
when you get onto modern humans there's probably additional components
(38:54):
of language being added there. So I think they're all languages.
But languages are fifty different types to modern human language,
and those languages were changing partly by biological evolution, by
further evolutions of the vocal tract, of brain connections of
the oral tract, but also by culture transmission, which is
(39:15):
the way our languages change today. The language are constantly evolving.
Words change their meanings, they change how they're pronounced. We
invent new words, and this is done partly without any
intention and partly done sometimes intentionally because our circumstances change
and we need new different types of words. So language
(39:36):
is something that's constantly constantly evolving and changing by conversations
like we're having today. You might hear me pronounce a
word in a particular way, or use a word you
haven't heard before, or use a word with a meaning
that you like but hadn't particularly been aware of. Then
you might go and use that to somebody else, and
so forth, And gradually, those which work well get adopted
(40:01):
by a language community. Those which are no longer significant
just get lost. So language is continually continually changing.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
Is the rate at which a language change is affected
by things like war or conflict or upheaval in some way.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
Times of I suppose catastrophe can change language because you
can have large numbers of particular speakers wiped out, leaving
the population of maybe predominantly younger people, or one gender
rather than another, or one class from another, and of
course they would have a vocabulary, maybe in dialects which
(40:40):
are different to the larger previous population. Times of warfare
can do the same. Times of political change can also
have a big impact on language when political leaders want
to impose one language over those of many minority languages.
Speaker 3 (40:59):
So there's all events.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Like plagues, warfare, political insurrections that can push the languages
of a community in one direction with other another, And
they sit on top of this low level, constant, gradual
evolution of language change. And of course you know invention
of technology has a huge impact. If we think about
(41:21):
what changes have happened in our lifetimes, they're probably going
to be in the range of digital communication. I mean,
are if I talk to you about the cloud? Now
you know I'm not talking about clouds in the sky.
I'm talking about some sort of strange digital storage mechanism.
I might have talked to you, what five years ago,
ten years ago about a mouse and not an animal?
Speaker 3 (41:42):
But do you still use a mouse? Maybe?
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Still do I still do? On the okay? Or I say,
have you got your tablet? I don't mean your tablet
your medicine. I mean your tablet, which is the other thing.
So this is a lovely example of how teen little
change has changed the meaning of words and what we've done.
We've just borrowed existing words that seem suitable, that people understand,
(42:06):
and so quickly they've become part of everyday vocabulary. And
they still sit with those other meanings, but we just
draw on the context in which they're said to know
what meaning is meanings being used.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
Just to kind of take a step back and consider,
I guess all of these pieces together and borrowing from
Stephen J. Gould's you know thought experiment of replaying the
tape of life, we rewind evolutionary time. At what point
in human evolution does language become inevitable?
Speaker 2 (42:39):
I think that the point in time when language became
inevitable was probably about two million years ago, when we
began walking on two legs, the evolution of bipedalism rather
than go around on all flaws most of the time.
Because that changed our whole anatomy. It gave us freed
(43:00):
our hands, It changed the way we breathe, It changed
the shape of the vocal trapped. It ultimately allowed the
brain to grow in size, and I think once that's
been released, a miroad of selection pressures led to evolution language.
If you could run human evolution again, you might not
(43:20):
have the same selective pressures. You might have different ones.
A language might not take the same formers is today,
but I think you would have ended up with a
complex form of vocal communication. And the reason for that
is it's just so bloody useful, isn't it. I mean,
you know, and you can see its value because after
about one hundred thousand years ago, humanity was just transformed
(43:44):
and culture transformed. Because I think that's when the final
stage of the modern language evolved. And the key to that,
I think is our ability to use metaphor. Metaphor connects
ideas together in the mind, and it allows us to
think creatively, to hold abstract cons And I think it's no,
it should not be surprising that after that had evolved
(44:05):
at about one hundred thousand years ago, as soon as
I sage came to an end, who prevented agriculture and farming,
and from farming we went to towns and cities and
civilizations and empires, and within just ten thousand years to
the present day. And I think the ultimate cause of
that is an evolution of fully modern language. I think
it lies behind everything in the modern world.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
Well, now that we've you know, looked back at the
origins of language, I would love to turn and look
to the future, you know. Knowing what we know about
the origins of language, about how it has evolved over
written history, what can we hypothesize about the future and what,
for instance, English might look like one hundred years from now,
(44:48):
And at what point does it become unrecognizable to us,
to humans in twenty twenty five today.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
Well, that's another really impossible question to answer, isn't it
as you jolly one. Though, what I think we can
say is it's going to be continually evolving. I think
English will get simpler if you like I think, or
lose various of its grammatical constructions. Today we can see
it happening. People don't use apostrophes properly anymore, do they
(45:16):
when they write, and et cetera.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
Okay, why is it.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
Becoming simpler Because it's becoming a global language, because it
got more and more second learners to it. More people
need to learn it as their as a first language
or second language or third language, so it's developing even
more learnability than has at the moment. So I think
the grammatical structures of English are going to become even
(45:43):
simpler as we move. As we move forward, of course,
we did see a transformation of language already in the
past when writing was invented five thousand years ago, and
we're seeing another transformation of it now with the way
we write in social media. That's changing on written texts,
but I think it's also influencing spoken language as well.
(46:05):
And in the past, the people who have tended to
make the most innovations in language seems to be adolescent women.
They've often been the main innovatives in language change as
far as we can see, and I suppose that's going
to continually happen in the world. Quite where it's going
to go, we don't know. I think what we will
(46:26):
know is that language will continue to be the most wonderful,
fabulous thing we have, but also the most dangerous. Because
we talk about using language, we use it to make friends,
to tell stories, and so forth. But we also know
the danger of language, especially in the world we're living
in at the moment, with peace negotiations starting or stopping
(46:48):
in Gaza or in Russia. Those particular words that are said,
and the ambiguity of words and so forth, which sometimes
are so invaluable, sometimes are so dangerous. So I think
we know that our future lives will depend on how
language is used and how it will develop.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
Profound and I completely agree. And I just want to
thank you so much for taking the time to chat
with me today. This was an absolutely I opening conversation,
so enlightening, So thank you.
Speaker 3 (47:18):
Well.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
I'm really delighted to have the interview to join your podcast.
I hope this one doesn't kill you or anybody else.
It's been great fun talking to you.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
Erin a huge thank you again to Professor Stephen mai
(47:45):
Then for taking the time to chat with me. I
can already tell that our conversation and this book will
stick with me for quite a while. If you enjoyed
today's episode and would like to learn more, check out
our website this podcast will Kill You dot com, where
I'll put link to where you can find the language
puzzle piecing together the six million year story of how
(48:05):
words evolved, as well as a link to Steven's website
where you can find his other fascinating work. And don't
forget you can check out our website for all sorts
of other cool things, including but not limited to, transcripts,
quarantiny and Placeberrita, recipes, show notes and references for all
of our episodes, links to merch our bookshop, dot Org,
(48:26):
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and music by Bloodmobile. Speaking of which, thank you to
Bloodmobile for providing the music for this episode and all
of our episodes. Thank you to Leana Squalacci and Tom
Bryfogel for our audio mixing, and thanks to you listeners
for listening. I hope you liked this episode and are
(48:47):
loving being part of the TPWKY book Club. A special
thank you, as always to our fantastic patrons. We appreciate
your support so very much. Well, until next time, keep
washing those hands. Hum
Hi, I'm Aaron Welsh and this is This Podcast Will
Kill You. You're listening to the latest episode in the
tp w k Y book Club series, where I chat
with authors of popular science and medicine books about their
latest work. Part of what I love about these episodes
is getting to read about such varied topics. Whether it's
(01:06):
measles or tuberculosis, the pelvic exam or gaslighting in medicine,
road ecology, or animal senses, I'm always learning something new.
We've showcased some fascinating books so far this season and
in past seasons, and we've got more great books coming up.
To check out the full list of books featured in
(01:27):
these book club episodes, head over to our website This
Podcast will Kill You dot com. Under the Extras tab,
you'll find a link to our bookshop dot org affiliate page,
which includes several different TPWKY related lists, including one for
this book club. Another thing that I love about this
series and just making this podcast in general, is hearing
(01:50):
from you all about these episodes, your favorite books, questions
you want to ask, books you'd like to see featured
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(02:11):
that is to please rate, review, and subscribe. It really
helps us out. And if you haven't heard already, we're
now on YouTube. That's right. You can find full videos
of most of our newer episodes on exactly Right Media's
YouTube channel. Make sure you're subscribed so you never miss
a new episode release. Have you ever put your foot
(02:31):
in your mouth or held your tongue or maybe you
didn't and let the cat out of the bag. Do
you have a friend that's a total chatterbox or met
someone who has a way with words taken by themselves?
These idioms don't really make literal sense. I'm not really
asking who is bendy enough that they have actually inserted
(02:52):
their foot into their mouth? I mean, who has said
something embarrassing that they shouldn't have. We use idioms like
these to communicate a feeling as shorthand for what might
require a longer description, or just to add a little
fun and the utility of idioms gives us a glimpse
into the incredible power of human language. Our capacity for
(03:15):
language sets us apart from all other species. It has
shaped the evolution of our species, our societies, our cultures,
our history, and it will continue to do so while
also being shaped by us. How we ever, evolved This
ability is so mind boggling that ironically I find myself
(03:37):
at a loss for words. Fortunately, my guest for this
episode has not only the words to describe language evolution,
but also the research to back them up. In today's episode,
I'm joined by Stephen Maythen, Professor of Archaeology at the
University of Reading and author, to discuss his latest book,
The Language Puzzle, piecing together the six million year story
(04:01):
of how words evolved. In this tremendous undertaking, Professor May
then takes readers on a tour spanning hundreds of thousands
of years and across many diverse fields of study, from
linguistics to archaeology, genetics, to neuroscience and beyond. What results
is a comprehensive picture of how we came to have language.
(04:26):
How do babies babble one day and then the next
out pours a flood of words? What can primate communication
today tell us about the early stages of human language?
Where do tool making, brain size, and bipedalism fit into
the Language Puzzle. Stay tuned, we'll take a quick break
and get into all those questions and more. Professormithen, thank
(05:14):
you so much for taking the time to chat with
me today. I really enjoyed your book The Language Puzzle
for so many reasons, but I especially loved how you
integrated many distinct fields of study, ones that you might
not normally encounter in the same place. Why is this
interdisciplinary approach or perspective so crucial when it comes to
(05:35):
exploring something like the origins of language.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
We really didn't have any choice because language is such
an incredible phenomenon. I mean, it uses not only our
vocal tracks to make the sounds, or you can use
your hands to make sign language. But that relies on
our physiology and ask me, our brains. So we need
to draw not only on human anatomy, but also on
(06:00):
neuroscience and psychology. But that's just a small part of it,
because sitting behind all those is the genetics of language.
And then we have to actually think about how humans evolved,
so that takes us into the arclosical record of human ancestors.
The fossil record and the arc cological evidence for how
(06:20):
they behave. And then we've also got to look at
other animals, because we're closely related to the chimpanzees, who've
got to think about how they communicate. And of course
the other big areas of disciplines is language itself, linguistics,
which is a hugely complicated and diverse subject, and around
the margins of that we move into subjects such as
(06:41):
music and philosophy and so forth. So to really address
the evolusion language, you've got to find the evidence and
the right theories and the right interpretations in all these
different disciplines and then try to join them together. And
that's why I call the book the Language Puzzle, because
there's like finding bits of a jigsaw puzzle, gradually piecing
(07:01):
them together until a picture merges of how this remarkable
ability that we have to communicate Viur language could have
possibly evolved.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Yes, and I am really excited to dig into some
of these individual pieces of the Language Puzzle. But before
we do that, maybe we should take a step back
and just define what language is and how is language
different from communication?
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Yeah, I mean that's easily said, but it's quite challenging
and many people would define language differently, because of course
we do talk about how chimpanzees and wales and birds
have language, but that's a very different type of communication
system to what we should think of as language. I
suppose the key elements of spoken language or signed language
(07:50):
are thoy discrete units called words, and words have shared meanings,
and often those meanings are entirely arbitrary. So you know,
I can say a word like a tree or a dog,
and unless you have some shared understanding, you won't know
what I'm naturally talking about because it's arbitrary. And then
we can combine those words in different orders to generate
(08:13):
particular meaning, and you can also interpret that meaning that
I say. So if I say the man bit the dog,
it means something entirely different from the dog bit the man.
It's the same words, but the order is playing a
role as well. So really, languages has got units of communication,
words and rules for how we combine them together to
(08:33):
convey larger meanings. And of course there's so many different
types of language which have all their different types of
words and different types of rules. That's an incredibly diverse
you know, there's over seven thousand languages in the world today,
which is probably a tiny fraction of those that ever existed.
So it's a remarkable it's a remarkable phenomenon. But it's
(08:54):
those two key aspects that I think distinguish it between
the communication systems of all other animals and some other
communication system that we use, like music or art and
so forth, which also ways of communicating.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Of course, that in itself is a fascinating aspect of this,
just the other ways that we communicate beyond language. And
it got me wondering, you know, using this definition of language,
with the components as you just laid out, could you
see any prerequisites for a species or a lineage that
would be necessary for language to evolve within that group.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Yes, you can do, because I think you have to.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
I mean, obviously, you need a sufficiently large brain to
be able to contain an efficient number of different words
to make a viable language. You also need to have
a vocal chat which can make sufficient number of different
sounds which can be joined together syllables to make words.
(09:56):
But they also need to be made in a consistent
manner that if I want to say a word, I'm
going to pronounce it broadly the same each time. Otherwise
you wouldn't know what I'm talking about. So if we
look at say, chimpanzees, one of their constraints in vocalizations
is that they have a limited ability to have that
(10:17):
consistency because of the nature of the vocal tracks. And
they also have a limited ability to make a sufficiently
wide range of sounds, again because of the way their
jaws are particularly elongated, which makes a very different shape
of vocal tracks to which we have. So you need
some basic anatomy in place to be able to make
the sounds, and in the efficient size of brain to
(10:39):
be able to remember those sounds, remember the meaning of words. Now,
those thresholds are probably passed pretty early in human evolution,
so I don't think there are you know, anything restricted
to our species. I think they must have been shared
with many of our ancestors.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Let's take a quick break, and when we get back,
there's still so much to discuss. Welcome back everyone. I've
(11:18):
been chatting with Professor Stephen mai Then about his book
The Language Puzzle, piecing together the six million year story
of how words evolved. Let's get back into things. The
natural outcropping of this is the languages as we use
in human language, as you said, involves this vocal component
or sign language. The bottom line is would we be
(11:40):
able to recognize language in another species if it looked
far different from ours?
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Yeah, I guess so.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
But eron, Just remember I am watching you on a video.
You're gesturing the whole time as you something. So you know,
when we talk about spoken language, it's a fully integrated
system with facial expressions, with body posture, and very often
with gesturing with hands. And some people say it's that
(12:08):
sort of physical movements that convein so much of the
meaning of what we want to say. And of course
it's also it's not just the words, it's our intonation.
It's the prosody of language, that that musicality of language
that can put a particular meaning on a particular type
of phrase, whether you're angry or happy, or please.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
And so forth.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Obviously, we can do some very clever studies on the
communications whether by chimpanzees or by whales or birds, and
we can see that they have some elements which are
certainly important to language today. So whether you're a chimpanzee
or a young bird or young well, you do learn
the communication system of your community it's not just genetically present.
(12:56):
There's some learning, so you'll grow out learning a particular
way or of communicating. And there certainly are some aspects,
certainly in chimpanzee communication that are wordlick and language like,
so they are able to control the loudness which they
speak or the duration of a phrase. They'll take account
(13:17):
of who else is around when they make a vocalization,
because they know they want to inform some people but
not others. Now, all of these are crucial elements of
our spoken language as well, but in themselves that don't
constitute language by themselves. I'm sure we can see the
same make the same comparisons with birds and with whales,
(13:40):
but of course they're much more evolutionary distance, and their
communication systems are one more of If they have language
like elements, it's more one of convergent evolution, whereas with chimpanzees,
we shared an ancestor just about eight million years ago,
so that ancestor probably gave rise to both the chimpanzee
type communication today and our language today.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
To think about the convergent evolution possibilities of you know
what else language would look like, I think is a
really intriguing part. But I think maybe we'll stay in
the realm of humans or hominins, and I'd like to
now turn to the past, to our hominine ancestors. What
can we infer about the origins of language from their
fossil remains.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
It's a huge challenge. I'm sure I don't need to
tell you that or a listeners to that. And you know,
it's the slightly odd subject for an archaeologist to tackle
because the past is absolutely silent, you know, I can't
hear people talk in the past and so forth. But
we have no choice because if we've got a non
sertain language, we've got to look at evolution history. We
(14:45):
can look at the skeletal remains or the fossilized remains,
and we are able in some instances to reconstruct or
shape all these parts of the of the vocal tract,
because sometimes we get a face, more bones remaining, or
particular parts of the ukranium that indicates how the face
(15:09):
and the larynts and so forth would have been positioned.
And we can see that even by five hundred thousand
years ago and probably earlier, from those little scraps of bone,
the vocal tract was probably much the same as ours today.
We can also find tiny earbones from our human ancestors
(15:29):
going back again hundreds of thousands of years, and we
can look at the shape of the earbones that influence
our earing, our audio track, and we can also see
when they are most similar to ours. So we can
use these bits of fossilized remains to reconstruct as far
as we can the both the vocal tract or an
auderary tract, and by five hundred thousand years ago they're
(15:51):
looking sufficiently similar to ours so that we can say
the physical capability of language was there. Whether the mental
capability was there or not is another question now for that,
of course, we can look at brain size, but it's
not clear that there is a particular threshold of brain
size that we need for language. You know, how many
(16:12):
neurons would you need to be able to have like
we don't know, And of course very young children with
much more brains and adults they have fabulous language skills.
So it's not clear to me. It's absolute side of
the brain is important. It's probably the way all the
neurons are networked inside, connected inside, but of course that's
something that we cannot see as archaeologists. But to get
(16:36):
some insights of that, we can look at aspects of
tool making, hunting, social behavior, whether building fires or making huts,
because all of those are complex behavior that must have
drawn either directly language skills or equivalent cognitive processes.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
I appreciate that layout of like, Okay, these are the possibilities,
But whether or not language itself would have emerged as
a different question. And you mentioned a few different things
that would have driven or would have been an obvious
need for language. And of course today you know, we
use language for literally everything. It's impossible to imagine things
that we don't use it for. But would there have
(17:16):
been particular drivers of or like important reasons that communication
would have been elaborated in this way to lead to
language for these early hominins.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
A common argument among many anthropologists, and one that I
tend to support, is that one of the earliest functions
of language would have been for building social bonds between individuals,
and of course that remains one of the primary uses
of language, as in chit chat, gossip and so forth. Now,
why that became important was that if we go back
(17:49):
to about four million years ago, our homine ancestors, which
were probably not much more than one and a half
meters high and rather defensive creatures by themselves. They're increasing
living in rather open savannah environments as the landscape changed,
environments which are quite difficult and dangerous to live in
(18:09):
because lots of dangerous predators around. So they're probably needing
to live in larger group sizes. They're probably needing to
cooperate more than others. They couldn't just escape up a tree,
for instance, because there are not many act trees around,
so need to work together both for finding food and
defending against predators. That might have been one of this
(18:29):
stimulants for language, not to be communicating information but to
be building social bonds. But we've got to think those
earlier stages of the language, they probably didn't involve many words,
let loan complex grammar. There is probably you know, not
that different from chimpanzee type grunts and barks, but becoming
(18:51):
more directed to particular individuals, becoming richer, more emotionally involved,
and so forth. So socializing is certainly important, but also
just transmitting information about what's happening in the landscape, the
site of a predator, the location of some righte berries
or some tubas or a carcass could be exploited. I mean,
(19:12):
I'm sure passing on that factual information was also being
of selective value and help push language that bit forward.
So trying to find one particular reason, I don't think
it's right. And I think if we look at language today,
we can say it's used for all sorts of purposes.
I'm sure that was also the case right back in
our early times.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
We've touched a few times on chimpanzees today and our
other ape relatives today can tell us about the origins
of human language. And you have a really fascinating chapter
about this where you examine some of these research that
has revealed the capacity or what their capacity might be
for language on both, you know, anatomical and cognitive levels.
(19:51):
And I was hoping you could just take me through
a little bit of that research.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Ethologists, I mean, they do just such fascinating experiments. If
we go back thirty years, we'd think that chimpanzees just
bark and grunt and these or just really emotional outbursts.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
But what they followed us.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Have done is that they've worked with wild chimpanzees because
once you have them in zoos or in institutions. You
can't really see their natural behavior communications they work in
the world, but they make subtle manipulations of those wild settings. So,
for instance, if they see a trail that chimpanzees will
(20:29):
frequently use when out gathering, gathering food, and so forth,
they might put an artificial snake on the track, and
they might ensure that one chimpanzee sees that, and then
they'll be able to record its responses. It's vocal responses.
Who does it call to, when does it call? Does
it call to everybody?
Speaker 3 (20:50):
Or quite what?
Speaker 2 (20:51):
And they do the similar things with putting different types
of food out and so forth, so gradually trying to
control certain factors and stimulate certain calls, and gradually then
piece together what those calls, not so much what they
might mean, but the function that they're playing. Another really
fascinating spe orangutangs. And orangutangs live with their the mothers
(21:16):
live with their infants for many years, and they're big predators,
are tigers in the forest, so they actually put people
out in tiger costumes crawling through the forest. Orangutangs see
them and they listen to the response. And one of
the amazing things is that orangutang sometimes don't respond immediately.
They wait until the predator has passed and then they call.
(21:40):
The idea of that is they're able to be aware
of the situation but control themselves, because if you call immediately,
you're just going to attract the tension of the predator.
But you need to call in a while to warn
your offspring and you and the other female orangutang that
there is danger about. So these experiments show how these
(22:02):
barks and grunts and calls aren't just emotional outbursts.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
They're carefully controlled.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
We're relating to the social and the ecological context.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
That experiment reveals what it seems like a deliberate delay
in communication. But how much can we really say about
conscious intent there.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
We don't know whether the orangutangs are actually consciously aware
of what they're doing. We don't know that, and but
we know that we would be consciously aware. We don't
really know whether that is the case in orangutangs or
whether it's just something it's been selected. I suspect they are,
you know, I suspect there's a lot more consciousness, not
only in these great apes, but many other animals than
(22:43):
we're generally prepared to credit them.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
With Let's take a quick break here, we'll be back
before you know it. Welcome back everyone. I'm here chatting
(23:08):
with Professor stephenmi Then about his book The Language Puzzle.
Let's get into some more questions. So along those lines,
you discuss a concept in your book called displacement, so
the ability to communicate about things that are not actually present.
We thought that this was something unique to humans, but
turns out that it might not be.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
As part of displacement, the other big area of displacement
is being able to talk not just about the present,
but about the future and the past. So I can
talk about what happened to me yesterday, or I can
talk about what happened to my family fifty years ago,
or I can talk about the Alcatra distance past aplec
talk about what I expect to happen in the future,
(23:52):
and that predicting me features a really important element. You
can think of how that would be no enormous adaptive
value to a hominin answer in terms of planning, by
imagining a different future, but not only imagining in your mind,
but be able to tell other people of what you
imagine and somebody else might say, well, I don't think
it'd be by it like this. I think if we
(24:12):
do there, you know, we'll have more success hunting or
gathering and so forth. So the displacement of time is
really facilitated by language. Be able to communicate that now,
when did that occur? When did that happen? Is difficult
to say. But being able to talk about the future
and things that you cannot actually see at that time.
(24:34):
Now we know we can do that even with quite
young children talk about something that's not in their visual field.
It's unlikely chimpanzees can manage communicate things not in their
current visual field. But that's clearly a pervasive element of language,
something really important in cevolution.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Going a little bit more into these experiments studying present
day you know, our present day ape relatives, what can
I tell us ab about the origins of language being
more gestural or more vocal or you know what are
some of the arguments for these.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
We do have to be slightly careful because we've got
to remember that chimpanzees, they aren't our ancestor. There are
modern species. So this the chimpanzee like communication has had
the same length of evolutionary time as modern has our
modern language. But the difference between vocal and gestural communication
is important. We can see that maybe with chimpanzee's agrillas
(25:29):
gestural is a really important form of communication, as it
remains with us today. And sam Anthropolos have argued that
actually language evolved originally by gesture by sun language, and
then quite late in the hevolution is sort of switched
over into a vocal form. You know, our vocal tracks
(25:50):
really evolved for breathing and for eating, and they've been
secondarily used for language. So they argued that gestural language
lies at the origin.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
I don't believe that.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
The simple reason is, I think our vocal tracts are
so superbly adapted now to making such a wide range
of vocalizations. You know, when we talk, we use such
subtle manipulations of different muscles to be able to change
the shape of our mouth, our larynx, to be able
to create the different sounds. I don't think that's a
(26:23):
late development. I think I's haid millions of years of
evolution and it must have been for vocal communication. So
I think gesture has always been supporting it, but never
driving the evolution of language.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
I'm wondering where hearing fits into this as well. Human hearing,
how has that evolved in conjunction with our vocal tract
or our language capacity?
Speaker 2 (26:48):
The elusion hearing I think must have been relatively more
advanced than speaking in the early periods of our evolution,
because as hunter gatherers that have been very attuned to
listening to the sounds of nature, listening to the sounds
of approaching predators or bird singing, or leaves, the wind,
(27:08):
and so forth, So listening carefully to nature's critical not
just from human undergatherers, but for various apes and so forth.
So there was always I think, a very strong capacity there.
We can see how that evolved by looking at some
of these shapes of the earbones as I mentioned earlier,
because we can use those to reconstruct the inner ear
(27:31):
and what frequencies they were susceptible too at some time
in the evolution, probably around five hundred thousand years ago.
A bit later, we can see how these change to
become more sensible to rather lower range of frequencies, which
are tend to be more that we have wind spoken
language rather than in nature itself. So we can make
(27:55):
some estimates of how hearing might have evolved, but it's
as crucial to language because just remember when I'd speak
to you, if we're in the same room, my words
are just little puffs of air. They come into your
ears and your ear drums and convert them into electrical signals,
which then your brain decodes into concepts that you in
(28:16):
your brain, and if it's right, those concepts be the
same ones that I'd tried to communicate with you.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Where do words exist?
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Not really sure words exist, but the ear and the
audio track is absolutely critical aspect of language, and you're
right to raise it because it does often get neglected
in people talking about the evlush language. The eVision hearing
is as important as the evolush speaking.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
And it kind of brings me to the next question,
which is, as we discussed, you know, the vocal origins
of language would have just started out not with recognizable words,
of course, with like discrete meanings. Necessarily, what would those
early vocalizations have looked like or sounded like when they
began to take on meaning? And then how is that
meaning communicated? I guess iconic words is kind of where
(29:02):
I'm going with this.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
We did really enter into the realms of speculation here,
of course, but this question of what were the first
words and how did words start has been one of
the biggest challenges in people thinking about and writing about
language evolution, well ever since Plato, Because Plato in the
fifth century BC, you know, in his dialogue Cratalyst, he
(29:25):
was speculating about the origins of words, and in the
Enlightenment period, scholars such as had they really struggled to
think what is the bridge between human words and animals
barks and cries? They can really find anything in the
(29:46):
middle there. Now we do have something in the middle,
which is what we called the iconic words. These are
words that don't have arbitrary meanings or not entirely arbitrary meanings,
but they either sound like or create a sense impression
of what they refer to. So the obvious ones are
on a matter peers like bang and quack and so forth.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
And you know when I say these.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Words, you don't have to know a meaning of them.
You have an intuitive understanding of what they're referring to.
So an idea came around that maybe these iconic words
were the earliest type of words, and then others built
on top of that. Research over the last decade or
two has really confirmed that, because what has shown is
(30:33):
that young children, when the learning language, the majority of
their first words they learn are indeed iconic words. And
as we talk to children, we tend to liter our
language with iconic words rather than the arbitrary words, so
you know, would say, rather than saying look at this dog,
we say look at that woof or something like that.
(30:55):
We litter iconic words into our conversation with children because
at facility takes their language learning, and we actually use
iconic words a huge amountain language without realizing it. In
English and many languages, when we talk about small little things,
often quick moving, we often use short words and high
(31:16):
in front valwels like b or flea or p. As
I say those, I'm making little small size of my
mouth and it's sort of mimicking the size of the object.
Where if you think about large, slow, heavy objects, we
use words like enormous or rhinoceros or hippopotamus. Now I'm
using these back vowels o's and use and by the
(31:39):
size of my mouth, I'm generating a sense impression of
what that image was like. So if we go back
to babies, if we're in a room and I point
and say.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
Look at that balloon.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Now, they'll intuitively grasp balloon because the word balloon creates
that that frame, that size in their mouth, and it
connects what they're seeing with the sound that's being made.
So these are iconic words. And my guess is that
(32:13):
iconic words did indeed provide a bridge between these sort
of animal grunts and barks.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
Don't want to.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Dismiss their complication, but nevertheless, they don't have meaning to
words in modern language. The majority of rich have arbitrary
meanings and in the middle of there, I think SIT's
arbitrary words. And you know, by the time they get
to about thirteen or fourteen, arbitrary words take over. And
that's because we just can't have enough iconic words to
(32:40):
talk about all the different things we want to. But
by that time they've understood ah, words are labeled for
things and they're shared understandings. So that's how they that's
how I think they emerge.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Iconic words as a bridge is really crucial. And you
mentioned in your book about the role that synesthesia may
have played in their these iconic words sort of existing
or coming to have meaning, And I was hoping you
could talk a little bit more about the role that
synthesia may have played.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
You know, Synthesia is is this condition whereby our different
senses are somehow connected. In some adults, it's found in
quite an extreme form where they'll always associate a particular
word with a particular color, or a particular a particular
texture or so forth. It's a cross modal connection between
(33:35):
their different sensory organs. That's really extreme form. But we
all and especially young children probably have synthesia in some
sort of some sort of mild form, and it was
it was indeed suggested by some psychologists a number of
years ago that this may have facilitated live unt iconic
(33:57):
words early in our ancestors. It may well be that
as the brain was enlarging in our early ancestors, such
as Homer Hablits living about two and a half million
years ago, that the level of synthesia was to some
extent a bit larger than we have in our one
(34:17):
mister day, and that facilitate this connection between sounds and
what can be seen or what can be felt, or
what can be tasted. If that is the case, it
would have been a big boost to sort of iconic words,
and I think there's a very strong argument for that.
Of course, it's really difficult to prove, and we do
(34:39):
need some more research about that low level synthesia that
I think is in present in all of us today.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
So you mentioned iconic words as being this bridge between
vocalizations and these vocalizations taking on meaning, and we also
discussed how babies learn iconic words first, how much which
does or doesn't the phrase antogeny recapitulates phylogeny apply in
this case, like, how much can we deduce about language
(35:09):
origins from babies learning language?
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Yeah, well, I mean that's a huge question and I'm
not sure on that the answer myself. We's got to
be very cautious of this because because babies are growing
up in a language environment, not only a language environment,
but ones where people, particularly their mothers and their fathers
and their siblings are talking to them in a way
(35:34):
that is facilitating the acquisition of language. When we talk
to babies, we use what sometimes called mothers or infant
directed speech. We exaggerate the contours of language, the length
of vowels and so forth, and that helps children grasp
words where they start and where they stop and what
(35:55):
they might mean. Of course, early humans are evolving in
a language jabsent environment. They're building it themselves, so the
very different contexts. But nevertheless, both in evolution and in
development we're dealing somehow with the acquisition of language. So
I think we can see some parallels, but I'd be
(36:18):
really cautious about saying there's a direct recapitulation of philologeny
happening here. I don't think there is. I think both
are hominine ancestores and inmphysation are just solving a problem
of how do we communicate vocally, and to some extent
similar solutions are found. The speed at which babies acquire language,
(36:41):
it's just phenomenal. You know, the fact that you can
take a baby and put it in any language community
and do or acquire the language that people are speaking
to it.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
However different that is.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
It's just astonishing, And there's been some remarkable research in
psychology whereby we now understand how babies are begin to
identify words and grasp the meaning of them. It's a
fascinating air of linguistics supportive of evolutionary ideas, but perhaps
not giving a solution to how language involved.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
It's I mean, it's incredible just to go from like
this baby who then you know, learns a few words
and then suddenly is just talking NonStop is amazing to
watch and experience. And we could talk about the language
learning in babies for the rest of this time, I'm sure,
but I want to fast forward us now to the
point where humans have language or languages and ask what
(37:40):
drives the evolution of a language net once it's in existence,
like how do words change or how are they invented?
Speaker 2 (37:48):
I mentioned earlier that there's over seven thousand different languages
in the world today, and they've all got different vocabularies
and different grammars, but they share similarities by having these
having both likeonic and arbitrary words, by having a grammatical structures.
Our early human ancestors, living between the time of the
(38:08):
commonaciy of the chimpanzees and modern humans we evolved around
one hundred and fifty thousand years ago, may have had language,
but not fully modern language. So I'd argue that one
grade of our ancestors, Homerhablists, probably used iconic sounds within
their ape like vocalizations. By the time we got to Homorectus,
(38:31):
there are probably using the first iconic words, but probably
didn't have lots of arbitrary words at that time. By
the time we moved on to Homo heidelbagensis and then
the Neanderthals, they've probably got words which are iconic and
which are arbitrary. They've probably got some grammatical structures, but
when you get onto modern humans there's probably additional components
(38:54):
of language being added there. So I think they're all languages.
But languages are fifty different types to modern human language,
and those languages were changing partly by biological evolution, by
further evolutions of the vocal tract, of brain connections of
the oral tract, but also by culture transmission, which is
(39:15):
the way our languages change today. The language are constantly evolving.
Words change their meanings, they change how they're pronounced. We
invent new words, and this is done partly without any
intention and partly done sometimes intentionally because our circumstances change
and we need new different types of words. So language
(39:36):
is something that's constantly constantly evolving and changing by conversations
like we're having today. You might hear me pronounce a
word in a particular way, or use a word you
haven't heard before, or use a word with a meaning
that you like but hadn't particularly been aware of. Then
you might go and use that to somebody else, and
so forth, And gradually, those which work well get adopted
(40:01):
by a language community. Those which are no longer significant
just get lost. So language is continually continually changing.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
Is the rate at which a language change is affected
by things like war or conflict or upheaval in some way.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
Times of I suppose catastrophe can change language because you
can have large numbers of particular speakers wiped out, leaving
the population of maybe predominantly younger people, or one gender
rather than another, or one class from another, and of
course they would have a vocabulary, maybe in dialects which
(40:40):
are different to the larger previous population. Times of warfare
can do the same. Times of political change can also
have a big impact on language when political leaders want
to impose one language over those of many minority languages.
Speaker 3 (40:59):
So there's all events.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Like plagues, warfare, political insurrections that can push the languages
of a community in one direction with other another, And
they sit on top of this low level, constant, gradual
evolution of language change. And of course you know invention
of technology has a huge impact. If we think about
(41:21):
what changes have happened in our lifetimes, they're probably going
to be in the range of digital communication. I mean,
are if I talk to you about the cloud? Now
you know I'm not talking about clouds in the sky.
I'm talking about some sort of strange digital storage mechanism.
I might have talked to you, what five years ago,
ten years ago about a mouse and not an animal?
Speaker 3 (41:42):
But do you still use a mouse? Maybe?
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Still do I still do? On the okay? Or I say,
have you got your tablet? I don't mean your tablet
your medicine. I mean your tablet, which is the other thing.
So this is a lovely example of how teen little
change has changed the meaning of words and what we've done.
We've just borrowed existing words that seem suitable, that people understand,
(42:06):
and so quickly they've become part of everyday vocabulary. And
they still sit with those other meanings, but we just
draw on the context in which they're said to know
what meaning is meanings being used.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
Just to kind of take a step back and consider,
I guess all of these pieces together and borrowing from
Stephen J. Gould's you know thought experiment of replaying the
tape of life, we rewind evolutionary time. At what point
in human evolution does language become inevitable?
Speaker 2 (42:39):
I think that the point in time when language became
inevitable was probably about two million years ago, when we
began walking on two legs, the evolution of bipedalism rather
than go around on all flaws most of the time.
Because that changed our whole anatomy. It gave us freed
(43:00):
our hands, It changed the way we breathe, It changed
the shape of the vocal trapped. It ultimately allowed the
brain to grow in size, and I think once that's
been released, a miroad of selection pressures led to evolution language.
If you could run human evolution again, you might not
(43:20):
have the same selective pressures. You might have different ones.
A language might not take the same formers is today,
but I think you would have ended up with a
complex form of vocal communication. And the reason for that
is it's just so bloody useful, isn't it. I mean,
you know, and you can see its value because after
about one hundred thousand years ago, humanity was just transformed
(43:44):
and culture transformed. Because I think that's when the final
stage of the modern language evolved. And the key to that,
I think is our ability to use metaphor. Metaphor connects
ideas together in the mind, and it allows us to
think creatively, to hold abstract cons And I think it's no,
it should not be surprising that after that had evolved
(44:05):
at about one hundred thousand years ago, as soon as
I sage came to an end, who prevented agriculture and farming,
and from farming we went to towns and cities and
civilizations and empires, and within just ten thousand years to
the present day. And I think the ultimate cause of
that is an evolution of fully modern language. I think
it lies behind everything in the modern world.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
Well, now that we've you know, looked back at the
origins of language, I would love to turn and look
to the future, you know. Knowing what we know about
the origins of language, about how it has evolved over
written history, what can we hypothesize about the future and what,
for instance, English might look like one hundred years from now,
(44:48):
And at what point does it become unrecognizable to us,
to humans in twenty twenty five today.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
Well, that's another really impossible question to answer, isn't it
as you jolly one. Though, what I think we can
say is it's going to be continually evolving. I think
English will get simpler if you like I think, or
lose various of its grammatical constructions. Today we can see
it happening. People don't use apostrophes properly anymore, do they
(45:16):
when they write, and et cetera.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
Okay, why is it.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
Becoming simpler Because it's becoming a global language, because it
got more and more second learners to it. More people
need to learn it as their as a first language
or second language or third language, so it's developing even
more learnability than has at the moment. So I think
the grammatical structures of English are going to become even
(45:43):
simpler as we move. As we move forward, of course,
we did see a transformation of language already in the
past when writing was invented five thousand years ago, and
we're seeing another transformation of it now with the way
we write in social media. That's changing on written texts,
but I think it's also influencing spoken language as well.
(46:05):
And in the past, the people who have tended to
make the most innovations in language seems to be adolescent women.
They've often been the main innovatives in language change as
far as we can see, and I suppose that's going
to continually happen in the world. Quite where it's going
to go, we don't know. I think what we will
(46:26):
know is that language will continue to be the most wonderful,
fabulous thing we have, but also the most dangerous. Because
we talk about using language, we use it to make friends,
to tell stories, and so forth. But we also know
the danger of language, especially in the world we're living
in at the moment, with peace negotiations starting or stopping
(46:48):
in Gaza or in Russia. Those particular words that are said,
and the ambiguity of words and so forth, which sometimes
are so invaluable, sometimes are so dangerous. So I think
we know that our future lives will depend on how
language is used and how it will develop.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
Profound and I completely agree. And I just want to
thank you so much for taking the time to chat
with me today. This was an absolutely I opening conversation,
so enlightening, So thank you.
Speaker 3 (47:18):
Well.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
I'm really delighted to have the interview to join your podcast.
I hope this one doesn't kill you or anybody else.
It's been great fun talking to you.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
Erin a huge thank you again to Professor Stephen mai
(47:45):
Then for taking the time to chat with me. I
can already tell that our conversation and this book will
stick with me for quite a while. If you enjoyed
today's episode and would like to learn more, check out
our website this podcast will Kill You dot com, where
I'll put link to where you can find the language
puzzle piecing together the six million year story of how
(48:05):
words evolved, as well as a link to Steven's website
where you can find his other fascinating work. And don't
forget you can check out our website for all sorts
of other cool things, including but not limited to, transcripts,
quarantiny and Placeberrita, recipes, show notes and references for all
of our episodes, links to merch our bookshop, dot Org,
(48:26):
affiliate account, our Goodreads list, a first hand account, form
and music by Bloodmobile. Speaking of which, thank you to
Bloodmobile for providing the music for this episode and all
of our episodes. Thank you to Leana Squalacci and Tom
Bryfogel for our audio mixing, and thanks to you listeners
for listening. I hope you liked this episode and are
(48:47):
loving being part of the TPWKY book Club. A special
thank you, as always to our fantastic patrons. We appreciate
your support so very much. Well, until next time, keep
washing those hands. Hum
Hosts And Creators
Erin Welsh
Erin Allmann Updyke
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Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com