Man Speaketh

“Language was our secret weapon, and as soon we got language we became a really dangerous species."

Dr. Mark Pagel, University of Reading

There is an interesting article in the New York Times today about a new study that points to southern africa as the birthplace of human language. Dr. Quentin Atkinson, a biologist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, used mathematical models to trace phonemes, the root consonants, tones and vowels that enable human speech. The study was published in the science journal Nature.

Phonemic Diversity Supports a Serial Founder Effect Model of Language Expansion from Africa

1. Quentin D. Atkinson 

ABSTRACT

Human genetic and phenotypic diversity declines with distance from Africa, as predicted by a serial founder effect in which successive population bottlenecks during range expansion progressively reduce diversity, underpinning support for an African origin of modern humans. Recent work suggests that a similar founder effect may operate on human culture and language. Here I show that the number of phonemes used in a global sample of 504 languages is also clinal and fits a serial founder–effect model of expansion from an inferred origin in Africa. This result, which is not explained by more recent demographic history, local language diversity, or statistical non-independence within language families, points to parallel mechanisms shaping genetic and linguistic diversity and supports an African origin of modern human languages.

The farther we hairless apes got from the birthplace of communication, even in Africa itself, the less phonemes we apparently used in our discourse. The clicking sounds made by the Kalahari bushmen have over 100 phonemes while english has 42 and hawaiian a mere 13.

According to the article, languages are difficult to trace back in time, the indo-european language tree which includes english and the romantic languages reaches back a mere 9000 years. Dr. Atkinson's research illuminates language origins from about 100,00 years ago.

I wonder what other complexities are left to discover about our earliest ancestors in Africa and their relatives living today? Fascinating study.