Humans Emerged in Africa. What About Language? A Critical Review from the Perspectives of Paleontology and Linguistic Theory
Keywords:
language evolution, origins of language, human language, symbolic communication, evolutionary linguistics, human evolutionAbstract
Introduction: The scientific community recognizes that anatomically modern humans emerged in Africa; however, there is no consensus as to whether articulated and symbolic language also originated there. This article critically examines the evidence and theories concerning the origins of language in the context of human evolution in Africa, with the aim of assessing whether the hypothesis of a parallel origin of language and the species withstands current interdisciplinary scrutiny.
Methods: This study employs a critical and selective review of interdisciplinary scientific literature published over the past fifteen years, drawing on paleoanthropology, genetics, archaeology, and evolutionary linguistics. The analysis was organized around the identification of anatomical, genetic, and cultural correlates of language in the African fossil record, which were examined in relation to the main theoretical approaches to language origins.
Results: The African fossil and genetic record provides evidence of prerequisites for language but indirect evidence, including the hyoid bone, laryngeal position, and phonemic diversity, remains subject to debate. While some scholars propose a protolanguage in Homo erectus or Neanderthals, most place fully recursive and symbolic language in anatomically modern Homo sapiens, in association with the Upper Paleolithic revolution. Current theories offer partial explanations but fail to provide a unanimous account of the evolutionary trajectory.
Conclusions: Fully articulated and symbolic language most probably emerged in sub-Saharan Africa during the Middle Stone Age, in conjunction with the emergence of Homo sapiens as a distinct species. Nevertheless, given the impossibility of obtaining a direct fossil record of speech and the inferential nature of archaeological and genetic proxies, this hypothesis, although robust, cannot be regarded as definitive.
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