I attended a lecture at the Baylor College of Medicine (~ 2019) where one of the questions was “Does birdsong have anything to do with human language?” Noam Chomsky would say, “Absolutely not!” The speaker who had just finished discussing how birdsong is influenced by dopamine, a neurotransmitter that has been implicated in reward (incidentally a specialty of one of Chomsky’s critics, B.F. Skinner) was put off by the question, delivering a non-committal answer.
The late Doreen Kimura who spent much of her life studying how the brain processes human language (Kimura 1993) needs to be mentioned here. Kimura believed that human language does not represent some type of exceptionalism, but rather just a species-specific characteristic of the brain and body that was shaped by evolution. She argued that communication of early Homo sapiens some 500,000 years ago was non-verbal and gesture-based, but that later changes to the vocal apparatus (i.e., the formation of a right-angled vocal tract, see Fig. 1.1 Kimura 1993) allowed for the production of vowels. This idea runs contrary to the notion that some 60,000 years ago humans just started producing language spontaneously (Chomsky 2012) with no clear link to evolution (Everett 2017) and animal behavior and brain organization (Bolhuis et al. 2014). The notion that human language is an evolutionary outlier must be as wrong as the idea that the sun rotates around the earth (Galileo 1616, at the time a criminal complaint was issued by the Catholic Church).
It has been posited that speaking, and thus language, evolved from singing. Singing was at least physically possible 530,000 years ago when Neanderthals (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) and an earlier hominid species (Homo heidelbergensis) had evolved the necessary physiognomy. The larynx migrated to a lower position in the throat than other primates and mammals, freeing the voice to speak and sing. Heidelbergians and Neanderthals also possessed a hyoid bone that is the same shape as in Homo sapiens and thus had support at the root of the tongue which is essential for speech (Martinez et al 2008).
Birds produce a sound that we call singing using a syrinx (from the Greek for pan pipes) that is independent of vocal chords. Sitting at the base of the avian trachea where it branches into the lungs, it modulates air flow and sets up vibrations of the membranes that compress the wall of the trachea whilst muscle movements create different sounds. Some birds can vibrate each branch independently to create two sounds simultaneously. Although birdsong may appear similar to language, it lacks semantics and, of course, anything corresponding to words (Berwick et al 2011).
Singing appears to have aided co-operation in humans which bolstered survival. Singing, even more than speech, is affected by and communicates nuances of emotion, which again may have aided empathy and cooperation, enabling our ancestors to bond in groups and gain evolutionary advantage. The sounds of song can carry further than speech (hence wolves’ communicative howling) and early singing-like vocalisations may have helped humans to communicate at a distance and memorise and pass on information. There is some evidence that other primates possess a similar ability from which the human singing voice may have evolved (Ravignani et al 2013, Shogler 1998 and Horn 2020).
The ability to control pitch and memorise melody requires complex neurological functions involving the vocal sensorimotor loop (VSL). This employs perceptual functions, auditory motor-mapping, motor control and memory, the malfunction of any of which can cause poor pitch (Dalla Bella et al 2012). True congenital amusia (commonly known as “tone deafness”) affects just 4% of the population (Peretz et al 2007), but more is beginning to be realised about the rôle that memory plays in the ability to hold a tune (Dalla Bella et al 2012).
Fast mapping and extended mapping (Carey and Bartlett 1978) may enable language to be acquired quickly. Unfamiliar words can be understood and absorbed quickly when the learner makes contextual connections and inferences. It has been posited that this has been demonstrated in gifted word learner dogs when learning the names of toys (Kaminski et al 2004). Alternatively, the associative proposal theory posits that the meaning is deduced by comparing a novel object to environmental stimuli (Franck 2014).
Thus, there are similarities between birdsong and human language and the processes involved in both (as with other animals) seems to illustrate the evolutionary basis for language acquisition in physiological and cognitive terms.
Berwick C et al (2011) Songs to syntax: the linguistics of birdsong, Trends in Cognitive Science, V15(3), pp 113 - 121
Carey S and Bartlett, E (1978) Acquiring a single new word, Proceedings of the Stanford Child Language Conference, V15, pp 17 - 29
Dalla Bella S et al (2012) Memory disorders and vocal performance, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, The Neurosciences and Music IV: learning and memory, Issue 1252, pp 338-344
Frank MC (2014) Learning words through probabilistic inferences about speakers’ communicative intentions, Trends in Language Acquisition Research, V12, pp 207 - 230
Horn D et al (2020) Singing facilitates word learning and memory, Proceedings of the 44th Boston University Conference on Language Development
Kaminski J et al (2004) Word Learning in a Domestic Dog: Evidence for "Fast Mapping”, Science, V304, pp 1682 - 1683
Martinez I et al (2008) Human hyoid bones from the middle Pleistocene site of the Sima de los Huesos (Sierra de Atapuerca, Spain), Journal of Human Evolution, V54(1), pp 118-124
Ravignani A et al (2013) Action at a distance: dependency sensitivity in a New World primate, Biology Letters, 9:20130852
Shogler B (1998) Music as a tool in communications research, Nordic Journal of Music Therapy, V7(1), pp 40 -49
Thank you, Charlotte Kasner, for the very nice response, and a reference list as well for readers. Ed Tehovnik.
- Badges
- Science topic