Human Comunication and its Origins
The Origins Of Human Language And It's Relationship to Animal Communication Systems Human language is one of the most important milestones in human history. Much of our species is dependent on the intricacies of language to generate new ideas, converse and to solve the daily challenges life throws at people, but this tool which people use to communicate is pretty mysterious. Forms of animal communication bear so little resemblance to the human language that some scientists and scholars (American Science) believe that the origin of language lies in manual gestures, not in vocalization. Since the exact location, time or place of the language origin is not known there are many theories on how ,when, or where language originated. Undoubtedly, human language developmentis in some way, shape or form related to animal communication. One theory, from Hinchingbrooke School, (www.hinchbk.cambs.sch.uk) is that men used language to warn each other in battle or during hunting, or that women were the first conversationalists working together at home using language to entertain themselves or to pass the time, Evidence for the latter theory exists as girls learn language faster than boys. (Hinch
If language originated in manual gestures, why do modern-day human beings speak? Although the early hominids would have been much better preadapted to manual communication, and silent signs may have been preferred on the savanna, there were surely eventual advantages to switching to vocalization. This may have vastly developed social cooperation and unity, in which efficient communication would have been especially important. Today's argument for gestures in language origins draws on several lines of evidence , including the following: sound is questionable as the original basis for language, given the greater creative capacity and open-endedness of higher primate manual and digital operations. This would surely have given a boost to their use for a variety of other activities, including expressive communication. Nonhuman primates are restricted in the use of the hands for communication, since the hands and arms are also involved in postural support and movement. Regular tool using in hominids probably evolved before vocal language, and the human brains left-lateralization for speech could have been tracked on to a previous specialization for predominantly right-handed gestural language and precise sequences of manual manipulations. In early "homo" we saw the first clear signs of an increase in brain size and the first evidence for manufactures stone tools, But although stone tools became somewhat more sophisticated in succeeding species of "homo", technology seemed to stop and not progress for almost 2 million years--held back, maybe, by the involvement of the hands in communication. It is thought that with increasing man's knowledge and use of tools a proto-speech developed: out of mouth-gestures patterned after hand gestures and combined with vocalizations. Vocalized grunts and squeals would surely have added to early gestural language, just as gestures add to modern vocal language--especially, one is tempted to observe, among the Italians, But vocal communication would have required extensive changes to the vocal tract, as well as a shift from sub cortical to cortical control over vocalization and general speech. Language may have well begun to evolve as a generative, grammatical system from the emergence of the genus "homo" over 2 million years ago. More importantly perhaps, speech would have freed the hands yet again, allowing our ancestors to verbally instruct others in manual arts, such as the use and manufacture of tools, while at the same time demonstrating them. Gesture, as a precursor to language, may go back even further, to our common origins with apes and monkeys perhaps 25 or 30 million years ago.
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