There are over 6, 000 different languages today, but how did language evolve in the first place？Pinpointing the origin of language might seem like idle speculation, because sound does not fossilise. However,music, chit-chat and even humour may have been driving forces in the evolution of language, and gossip possiblyfreed our ancestors from sitting around wondering what to say next.There are over 6,000 different languages today, and the main language families are thought to have arisen asmodern humans wandered about the globe in four great migrations beginning 100,000 years ago. But how didlanguage evolve in the first place？ Potential indicators of early language are written in our genetic code, behaviourand culture. The genetic evidence is a gene called FOXP2, in which mutations appear to be responsible for speechdefects. FOXP2 in humans differs only slightly from the gene in chimpanzees, and may be about 200,000 yearsold, slightly older than the earliest modern humans. Such a recent origin for language seems at first rather silly.How could our speechless Homo sapiens ancestors colonise the ancient world, spreading from Africa to Asia, andperhaps making a short sea-crossing to Indonesia, without language？ Well, language can have two meanings: theinfinite variety of sentences that we string together, and the pointing and grunting communication that we sharewith other animals.Marc Hauser （Harvard University） and colleagues argue that the study of animal behaviour and communicationcan teach us how the faculty of language in the narrow human sense evolved. Other animals dont come close tounderstanding our sophisticated thought processes. Nevertheless, the complexity of human expression may havestarted off as simple stages in animal thinking or problem-solving. For example, number processing （how manylions are we up against？）, navigation （time to fly south for the winter）, or social relations （we need teamwork to buildthis shelter）. In other words, we can potentially track language by looking at the behaviour of other animals.William Noble and lain Davidson （University of New England） look for the origin of language in early symbolicbehaviour and the evolutionary selection in fine motor control. For example, throwing and making stone toolscould have developed into simple gestures like pointing that eventually entailed a sense of self-awareness. Theyargue that language is a form of symbolic communication that has its roots in behavioural evolution. Even if archaichumans were physically capable of speech （a hyoid bone for supporting the larynx and tongue has been found ina Neanderthal skeleton）, we cannot assume symbolic communication. They conclude that language is a feature ofanatomically modern humans, and an essential precursor of the earliest symbolic pictures in rock art, ritual burial,major sea-crossings, structured shelters and hearths - all dating, they argue, to the last 100,000 years.But the archaeological debate of when does not really help us with what was occurring in those first chats. RobinDunbar （University of Liverpool） believes they were probably talking about each other - in other words, gossiping.He discovered a relationship between an animals group size and its neocortex （the thinking part of the brain）, andtried to reconstruct grooming times and group sizes for early humans based on overall size of fossil skulls. Dunbarargues that gossip provides the social glue permitting humans to live in cohesive groups up to the size of about150, found in population studies among hunter-gatherers, personal networks and corporate organisations. Apes arereliant on grooming to stick together, and that basically constrains their social complexity to groups of 50. Geladababoons stroke and groom each other for several hours per day. Dunbar thus concludes that, if humans had nospeech faculty, we would need to devote 40 per cent of the day to physical grooming, just to meet our socialneeds.
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