LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 15:3 March 2015
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Evolution of Human Language: Limitations of Cotemporary
Approaches and Comparison of Minimalist Principle (Chomsky)
and the Integration Hypothesis (Miyagawa)

Mohammad Nehal and Mohammad Afzal

Abstract

The evolution of human language has puzzled linguists, biologists and psychologists, as its relevance is also professionally important for clinicians and neurologists. Much that has been learnt about speech and audition and their evolutionary homology with the ancestors, language remains unique and an internal asset exclusively of modern man, different from so- called communication. It is largely an abstract computational cognitive system which is unique with a universal grammar which is a tool for generating thought. In that sense, it is a human faculty of recent evolution some 100,000 years ago. The central characteristics of this faculty is the ‘merge’ principle which produces a set from the subsets, say, a and b, as (a, b). This set is further having feature of displacement which has a different outcome. This basic structure is then roped with atoms of concepts, so-called words, which then carry the complete meaning. This is called the strong minimalist principle (SMP) of Chomsky which has a great scope for solving the so-called language puzzle for the linguists In yet another attempt to improve the merge origin of human language, Miyagawa, et al. (2013, 2014) have put forward a recent Integration Hypothesis which takes the human language to consist of two structures_viz expression and lexical one each of which is unique to the bird and the monkey respectively and in man has come together in one place..The present article outlines both the views and suggests some insights from biological perspective (evo-devo approach) to reach the possibility of empirical validation of the evolutionary linguistics.

Introduction

A very comprehensive review has appeared in the “Frontiers in Psychology by a group of authors who represent the pinnacle of thought in evolutionary linguistics. The article the mystery of language evolution” by Hauser, et al (2014) presents a very gloomy picture of the efforts towards studying evolution of language. These are the authors whose individual citations exceed over lakhs, and all are experts in their own fields. They have argued that all approaches to evolution of language are limited by major pitfalls namely (i) comparative anatomy of non-humans has no relevant parallel with human communication (ii) paleontology and archeology have little fossil record base and behaviour details, (iii) genetics of language is still impoverished in connecting genes to linguistic processes and finally (iv) modeling and simulation attempts have no solid empirical base for strong foundation of language. They have also suggested some ways ahead for tackling these problems.

Comparative Animal Behaviour

Most animal studies in natural communication are simplistic, acoustic and gestural being different from human faculty of articulation of speech. A proper phonology must be defined for visual and acoustic signals, familiar to phoneticians. Secondly, the communicative signals have been studied in the field work, which can be studied in captivity for recording details of stimuli and their connection with the environment (viz for chimpanzees, monkeys and dolphins).

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Mohammad Nehal, B.Sc. (Biology), B.A. Hons. (English), M.A. (English), Ph.D.
(Linguistics)
Department of English
Sabour College
T.M. Bhagalpur University
Sabour 813210
Bihar
India
md.nehal2012@rediffmail.com

Mohammad Afzal, B.Sc. Hons. (Zoology), M.Sc. (Zoology), Ph.D. (Genetics)
Department of Zoology
Aligarh Muslim University
Aligarh-202002
Uttar Pradesh
India
afzal1235@rediffmail.com

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