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Concept
Origin of speech
Summary
The origin of speech is a topic that has faced consistent problems in explaining how human language evolved. The topic differs from the origin of language because language is not necessarily spoken; it could equally be written or signed. Language is a fundamental aspect of human communication and plays a vital role in our everyday lives. It allows us to convey thoughts, emotions, and ideas, enabling us to connect with others and shape our collective reality.
Many attempts have been made to explain scientifically how speech emerged in our species, although to date no theory has generated agreement.
Non-human primates, like many other animals, have evolved specialized mechanisms for producing sounds for purposes of social communication. On the other hand, no monkey or ape uses its tongue for such purposes. The human species' unprecedented use of the tongue, lips and other moveable parts seems to place speech in a quite separate category, making its evolutionary emergence an intriguing theoretical challenge in the eyes of many scholars.
The term modality means the chosen representational format for encoding and transmitting information. A striking feature of language is that it is modality-independent. Should an impaired child be prevented from hearing or producing sound, its innate capacity to master a language may equally find expression in signing. Sign languages of the deaf are independently invented and have all the major properties of spoken language except for the modality of transmission. From this it appears that the language centres of the human brain must have evolved to function optimally, irrespective of the selected modality.
Animal communication systems routinely combine visible with audible properties and effects, but none is modality-independent. For example, no vocally-impaired whale, dolphin, or songbird could express its song repertoire equally in visual display. Indeed, in the case of animal communication, message and modality are not capable of being disentangled.
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