A NEW STUDY REVEALED HUMAN LANGUAGE EVOLVED MORE THAN 135,000 YEARS AGO
There are an estimated 7,000 languages spoken around the world today, allowing humans to chat, tell stories, and share information. Being able to express our thoughts is a fundamental aspect of being human, and according to a recent study, people have been using language for at least 135,000 years, which is much older than previously believed
Even if every language has a distinct structure and sound, recent studies indicate that all 7,000+ languages in use today might be descended from a single linguistic family tree. The ability to speak was probably ingrained in our DNA long before our ancestors started traveling around the world, according to a group of scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the American Museum of Natural History, the Department of Linguistics at the University of São Paulo, and other international partners who studied the genetics of ancient humans.
Miyagawa and his colleagues examined 15 distinct scientific research studies, each employing a different methodology, and found that they all supported the same conclusion: approximately 135,000 years ago, humans began to divide into several tribes. Studying things like our entire DNA, the Y chromosomes (inherited from fathers), and mitochondrial DNA (inherited from mothers) served as the foundation for this. According to the researchers, certain human cultures today might not have language or might communicate very differently if language had evolved after that divide. However, since all humans are able to speak, the researchers concluded that language must have existed before people began to disperse.
“Every population branching across the globe has a human language, and all languages are related,” explains Shigeru Miyagawa, a professor emeritus of linguistics and the Kochi-Manjiro Professor of Japanese Language and Culture at MIT. “I think we can say with a fair amount of certainty that the first split occurred about 135,000 years ago, so human language capacity must have been present by then, or before.”
Based only on the communication patterns of other primates, such as apes, some scientists speculate that humans may have possessed language skills a few million years ago. But according to Miyagawa, it's about having the mental capacity to integrate grammar and words into a system that enables us to communicate intricate concepts, not just about producing sounds. According to him, human language is unique because it consists of two essential components: syntax, or the grammar or rules that enable us to combine words in a meaningful way, and words, or the names we assign to objects like "tree" or "run."
According to Miyagawa, language was a mental ability of people before they started utilising it for communication. It may have started out as a tool for solitary thought before developing into social communication about 135,000 years ago. Archaeology shows signs of this change about 100,000 years ago, such as the carving of symbols in graves and caves.
“Language was the trigger for modern human behaviour,” says Miyagawa. “Somehow, it stimulated human thinking and helped create these kinds of behaviours. If we are right, people were learning from each other [due to language] and encouraging innovations of the types we saw 100,000 years ago.”
Although Miyagawa acknowledges that much remains to be discovered in this field, he views research such as this as a significant step in the direction of comprehending the origins of language. He states, "Our method is highly empirically based, rooted in the most recent genetic knowledge of early Homo sapiens." "I believe that our research is headed in the right direction, and I hope that this will inspire others to study human language and evolution more closely."
