Synthetic considerations on the origin and emergence of human language

Affiliations

Faculty of Letters, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University, Bd. Carol I 11, 700506 Iași, Romania

History

Received October 20, 2021
Accepted October 26, 2021
Published December 12, 2021

Key words

the origin of language
evolution
biosocial behaviour
multimodal

Motto

Abstract

Human (vocal-articulated) language may be regarded both as a structure and organ, and as an instrument and biosocial behaviour. Its foundation is material and motor, and its development procedural-historical. Examining the relationship between the initial moment (gesture) and the actual result (vocal-articulated language)—at the motor and neural levels—reveals that mental activities occur and develop as a result of the biological organism’s interactions with its natural and social environment. Therefore, language appears not as a consequence of a revolution or of an evolutionary jump, but as a result of organic and gradual developments occurring in a biosocial environment and having the same kind of premises. The many structures contributing to its appearance (osseous, muscular, nervous, genetic) were directed by social events generating behaviours whose exercise led to certain developments.

Having achieved structural and behavioral diversification, and in so far as it could benefit evolution, such a development was exploited by the biological and social organism, such that—irrespective of space, time, or the aspects of a particular context—above a certain level of evolution, the various human communities spread throughout the globe exhibited the intrinsic tendency of developing this ability.

Copyright

© 2021 The Authors. Publishing rights belong to the Journal. The article is freely accessible under the terms and conditions of the CC-BY Open Access licence.