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Where did we gain the ability to speak?
To form sentences and have language?

Please only serious answers. I have my theories but would like to know if there is proof of how language started.

I am not trying to disrespect anyones belief, just am curious. Thanks.

2006-08-04 08:47:05 · 54 answers · asked by Nep-Tunes 6 in Society & Culture Religion & Spirituality

First of all, thanks to those who enlightened me with the fact that evolution is based on Humans from common ancestor and not monkeys. But I only thank those who did so in a calm orderly manner without throwing insults.

I guess these answers show me that we will never truly know for sure how we developed language. I knew about the sign language and grunting and all, but it is still not a uniform stuctered ability like Humans have.

To Peri, you have no idea what my intentions are so don't assume anything. Christians on here get mocked all the time for being "ignorant" and "uneducated."
I was asking a serious question to further my knowledge and still get bashed. Thanks for your answer, it shows who you really are.

To everyone, thanks for your time in trying to answer the unanswerable.

2006-08-04 11:38:24 · update #1

54 answers

the ability to speak came about thusly:

Early primates who hunted in packs realized that they could use sounds to communicate with each other. As time when by and generations came and went, those primates who were better able to make a wider variety of sounds could coordinate their hunt better. These primates had an easier time acquiring food and, in general, staying alive. Throughout the years, primates with better communication skills were more likely to survive long enough to mate and raise their offspring. Every time a genetic mutation occurred that affected a given primate's ability to "speak," that mutation either increased its ability to survive and was therefore more likely to be passed on or hindered its ability to survive and was therefore less likely to be passed on.

Over hundreds of thousands of years, this process led to a more fully developed voice box and a greater ability to survive.

2006-08-04 08:49:59 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0 2

We didn't evolve from monkeys, but from primates. They have a sort of proto-language -- as do many other critters.

During the course of this evolution, the left hemisphere of our brain specialized to use language.

I read a book that suggested that first we developed sign language, then that changed to voice. Not sure I bought it, though.

The human brain is a language-using thing. We automatically learn whatever languages are around us in our first years.

Sorry, I ain't no expert, so I'm not making much sense, but I'm pasting a url to uc berkeley's site on evolution. If you want to understand more about it, look there.

An excellent book on evolution is The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins.

2006-08-04 09:06:15 · answer #2 · answered by tehabwa 7 · 0 0

Humans and monkeys evolved from the same extinct ancestor who did not have speech capabilities but had a large and complex brain. The monkeys and great apes branched off and many of them have more complex communication and language skills from other animals (which ALL communicate through some means or another). The human vocal chords are a new addition along with the larger brain and other complexities. There are alot of theories out there as to what caused this precise mutation to take hold, but no proof one way or another.

2006-08-04 08:52:15 · answer #3 · answered by Molly 3 · 0 0

I wouldn't have just happened one day. Language would have developed over many thousands of years. Linguists who are open-minded scientists who have a working knowledge of evolution pretty much agree that we would have communicated with a lot of gestures and a few primitive vocalizations at first. Once that gets started, there would be strong selective pressures favoring the better-communicating individuals, troops or tribes, and populations. From there, all it takes is several hundred generations of that selective pressure and you'd have a language.

By the way.....we didn't "evolve from monkeys". Modern humans, modern apes, and modern monkeys would have shared common ancestors that are now extinct.

2006-08-04 08:53:38 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

First of all, we did not evolve from monkeys. Humans and monkeys/apes have a common ancestor.

The human brain, according to Stephen Jay Gould, is a general purpose learning device; Noam Chomsky posits that the human brain contains the basics for language within it. However, they both believe it's less a matter of natural selection, and more about the physical world.

Here's more info: http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~rkopp/collegepapers/chimps.html

The general belief of why language developed:

Need for communication

As life became more complex, communication became more complex

Shift to group living

A more abstract world needs language to be described and to probe “reality”

2006-08-04 08:59:08 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

It really is sad that people like you are so woefully under-informed when it comes to evolution. The theory is very complex and you'd need to be taking some degree level biology courses to really get into it. But the theory does not claim that we evolved from monkeys but that a member of the primate family that was smarter than the others began to develop into humans over a period of millions of years. Our particular branch of the primate tree happened to have the ability to make linguistic noises and we began to develop them over a series of thousands of years.

Of course since no one was around back then to see it happen there is no concrete proof or evidence. But then there is also no evidence that a snake can talk as described in Genesis.

2006-08-04 08:58:54 · answer #6 · answered by ZCT 7 · 0 0

We didn't come 'from' monkeys as we have monkeys here with us today. We were a species that developed from all fores like monkeys until we began to stand upright. As far as gaining the ability to speak, monkeys can speak in their own way. It's a slow and gradual process to develop an organized language. This is part of the process of evolution.

2006-08-04 08:52:56 · answer #7 · answered by jasonlajoie 3 · 0 0

This isn't the kind of question that can be answered in a few sentences as it involves scientific data that has been collected for decades. Howver it would seem from your past questions that you are just trying to disprove science/evolution so I'm definitely not going to waste my time.
If you really are interested go do some reading about evolution. It's interesting stuff. But it does require thought and effort to understand it unilke religion. Which is probably one reason most people choose religion.

I see some people above did take the time to answer your question. I salute them and I hope you take the time to read their answers.

2006-08-04 09:03:44 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

I personally believe that speech as we know it is a design of God. But to answer your question: under the assumption of evolution, one theory is that since animals vocalize their emotions too and many do communicate using voice, that's how language eventually developed into the complex system it is now. For example, some animals (like the meerkats) have more than a dozen sounds to alert each other of different predators. Chimps have the ability to use symbols and sign language to communicate with people when trained. So it's not that ape's brain are not capable of using language.
For more in-depth discussions and theories, check out books on psychology of linguistics.

2006-08-04 08:51:08 · answer #9 · answered by Juju 2 · 0 0

If that be the case, why are there still monkeys? why haven't they all evolved into humans, or why can't they talk like us? They are supposed to have been around much longer than us, so why are there still primates and why haven't they all become literate and civilized?
I think evolution has too many holes to be an exact science, much like most other theories of our time.

2006-08-04 09:00:07 · answer #10 · answered by Outman 4 · 0 0

We did NOT evolve from monkeys. Monkeys and humans evolved from a common ancestor. Liguists beleive that as we developed language, we became more intelligent. It is the organization of thought that language provides that allowed us to reason at all.

2006-08-04 08:52:24 · answer #11 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

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