Scenarios for language evolution

Linguistic monogenesis is the hypothesis that there was a single proto-language, sometimes called Proto-Human, from which all other languages spoken by humans descend. All human populations possess language. This includes populations, such as the Tasmanians and the Andamanese, who may have been isolated from the Old World continents for as long as 40,000 years.

Thus, the multiregional hypothesis would entail that modern language evolved independently on all the continents. According to the Out of Africa hypothesis, all humans alive today are descended from Mitochondrial Eve, a woman estimated to have lived in Africa some 150,000 years ago. This raises the possibility that the Proto-Human language could date to approximately that period.

The gestural theory states that human language developed from gestures that were used for simple communication.

Two types of evidence support this theory.

1. Gestural language and vocal language depend on similar neural systems. The regions on the cortex (кора больших полушарий головного мозга) that are responsible for mouth and hand movements border each other.

2. Nonhuman primates can use gestures or symbols for at least primitive communication, and some of their gestures resemble those of humans, such as the "begging posture", with the hands stretched out, which humans share with chimpanzees.

Research has found strong support for the idea that verbal language and sign language depend on similar neural structures. Patients who used sign language, and who suffered from a left-hemisphere lesion (вреждение), showed the same disorders with their sign language as vocal patients did with their spoken language. Other researchers found that the same left-hemisphere brain regions were active during sign language as during the use of vocal or written language.

The important question for gestural theories is why there was a shift to vocalization. There are three likely explanations:

1. Our ancestors started to use more and more tools, meaning that their hands were occupied and could not be used for gesturing.

2. Gesturing requires that the communicating individuals can see each other. There are many situations in which individuals need to communicate even without visual contact, for instance when a 'predator (хищник) is closing in on somebody who is up in a tree picking fruit.

3. The need to co-operate effectively with others in order to survive. A command issued by a tribal leader to 'find' 'stones' to 'repel' attacking 'wolves' would create teamwork and a much more powerful, co-ordinated response.

Humans even now use hand and facial gestures when they speak, especially when people meet who have no language in common. And there are also a great number of sign languages still in existence, commonly associated with deaf and dumb people, but it is important to note that these sign languages are equal in complexity to any spoken language - the cognitive functions are similar and the parts of the brain used are similar - the main difference is that the "phonemes" are produced on the outside of the body, articulated with hands, body, and facial expression, rather than inside the body articulated with tongue, teeth, lips, and breathing. To compare sign language to primitive gestures is a mistake.

Critics of gestural theory note that it is difficult to name serious reasons why the initial pitch-based vocal communication (which is present in primates) would be abandoned in favour of the much less effective non-vocal, gestural communication. Other challenges to the "gesture-first" theory have been presented by researchers in psycholinguistics, including David McNeill.

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