User:Lingleigh/Origin of language

Develop paragraph focusing on different modalities of communication.

Link between signed communication, tool use and development, and language capacities.

Significance of symbols over grammar.

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While it is possible to imitate the making of tools like those made by early Homo under circumstances of demonstration, research on primate tool cultures show that non-verbal cultures are vulnerable to environmental change. In particular, if the environment in which a skill can be used disappears for a longer period of time than an individual ape's or early human's lifespan, the skill will be lost if the culture is imitative and non-verbal. Chimpanzees, macaques and capuchin monkeys are all known to lose tool techniques under such circumstances. Researchers on primate culture vulnerability therefore argue that since early Homo species as far back as Homo habilis retained their tool cultures despite many climate change cycles at the timescales of centuries to millennia each, these species had sufficiently developed language abilities to verbally describe complete procedures, and therefore grammar and not only two-word "proto-language". The theory that early Homo species had sufficiently developed brains for grammar is also supported by researchers who study brain development in children, noting that grammar is developed while connections across the brain are still significantly lower than adult level. These researchers argue that these lowered system requirements for grammatical language make it plausible that the genus Homo had grammar at connection levels in the brain that were significantly lower than those of Homo sapiens and that more recent steps in the evolution of the human brain were not about language.

Acheulean tool use began during the Lower Paleolithic approximately 1.75 million years ago. Studies focusing on the lateralization of Acheulean tool production and language production have noted similar areas of blood flow when engaging in these activities separately; this theory suggests that the brain functions needed for the production of tools across generations is consistent with the brain systems required for producing language. Researchers used functional transcranial Doppler ultrasonography (fTDC) and had participants perform activities related to the creation of tools using the same methods during the Lower Paleolithic as well as a task designed specifically for word generation. The purpose of this test was to focus on the planning aspect of Acheulean tool making and cued word generation in language (an example of cued word generation would be someone giving you a random letter and then you list all words beginning with that letter that you can think of). Theories of language developing alongside tool use has been theorized by multiple individuals , however until recently there has been little empirical data to support these hypotheses. Focusing on the results of the study performed by Uomini et al. evidence for the usage of the same brain areas has been found when looking at cued word generation and Achuelean tool use. The relationship between tool use and language production is found in working and planning memory respectively and was found to be similar across a variety of participants furthering evidence that these areas of the brain are shared. This evidence lends credibility to the theory that language developed alongside tool use in the Lower Paleolithic.

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Homo erectus

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Evidence for Homo erectus potentially using language comes in the form of Acheulean tool usage. The use of abstract thought in the formation of Acheulean hand axes coincides with the symbol creation necessary for simple language. Recent language theories present recursion as the unique facet of human language and theory of mind. However, breaking down language into its symbolic parts: separating meaning from the requirements of grammar, it becomes possible to see that language does not depend on either recursion or grammar. This can be evidenced by the Pirahã language users in Brazil that have no myth or creation stories, no numbers and no colors within their language. This is to highlight that even though grammar may have been unavailable, use of foresight, planning and symbolic thought can be evidence of language as early as one million years ago with Homo erectus.