From the Mouths of Babes?

Is it really so hard to figure out how and why language began?   On the one hand the first example of communication; the initial connecting of one mind to another must have been, literally, a mind blowing experience. This first push into the realm of language tore open the egocentric cocoon that encased the mind of early hominids and exposed them to the world of the great other.  There was no going back.  

On the other hand it may have been a natural, quiet revolution between mother and child; the intimate caring relationship that longs for and grasps the opportunity to connect on a level higher than mere necessity.  The soft babbling between a mother and suckling child that inadvertently promoted a copy-cat sound game that may have existed for centuries before the dawning of the realization that one mind was in contact with the other; the child fathering the language development of the adult.  

I favor the latter example for several reasons.  While it is possible that prehistoric adult minds were child-like it is more likely their concern for survival provided little opportunity for those care free activities so necessary for language development.  Also, while a few researchers hold a negative view, there is much evidence to suggest that a critical period exists in brain development (usually around puberty), before which, if a child has not been introduced to language it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible for a child to learn language with any degree of competency.  

If we can assume that what holds for modern humans equally held for prehistoric humans then the first word was not spoken by an adult.  Rather, language evolved with children.  How this could be so is provided by the example of Nicaraguan Sign Language.

In Nicaragua there was no formal education or sign language for the deaf community until mid-1980.  Prior to this period each family that supported a deaf child evolved rudimentary, idiosyncratic gestures as a means of communicating.  When schools were provided for these children and they were no longer isolated from their deaf peers they recognized and developed their own distinct and sophisticated communication system which is now known as Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL). 

NSL came about as a result of the initiative of the children and their recognition that they were a social group with a shared handicap which could only be overcome by their own efforts.  As they had a shared handicap they had a shared understanding which provided the basis for a common language.  The language the children created involved rules of grammar and syntax and a seeming inexhaustible vocabulary.  Interestingly, while the children became very adept at using this new sign language deaf adults seemed unable to duplicate the ability of the children which demonstrates another example the ‘critical period’ thesis.

So might it have been the case that the children of early Homo sapiens evolved a spoken language drawing on the idiosyncratic babbling game played with their mothers?  As children they spoke to one another and carried their new found ability into adulthood fostering another generation who introduced an added dimension to the babbling game of children.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Launt Thompson
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