Per Guinness World Records, the world’s quickest speaker is one Sean Shannon, capable of articulating an astonishing 665 English words in a minute (that equates to 11 words per second). However, even those of us with average capabilities can chat endlessly. (Typically with our fellow beings, though we often converse even in their absence: When Tom Hanks’ character finds himself stranded on a deserted island for four years in the 2000 film “Cast Away,” he talks not just to himself but also to a volleyball.)
There’s no doubt we have a passion for conversation — but how did this ability come to be? Yes, humpback whales produce songs, vervet monkeys utilize alarm calls, and bees communicate food location through movement, yet only humans possess a fully developed language. Steven Mithen, a professor of early prehistory at the University of Reading, is well positioned to uncover insights about this question. His recent publication, “The Language Puzzle: Piecing Together the Six-Million-Year Story of How Words Evolved,” is certainly not the first to address the topic — yet it may be one of the most comprehensive so far. Drawing on the latest research from various disciplines, such as linguistics, archaeology, anthropology, psychology, and genetics, Mithen leads readers through approximately 1.6 million years of hominin development, from the earliest signs of language to the elaborate communication system established by Homo sapiens.
Numerous components from this timeline are challenging, if not impossible, to ascertain; after all, words don’t fossilize, and we started documenting events only around 5,000 years ago — long after our species had communicated orally for several hundred thousand years. (Mithen estimates the beginning of what he refers to as “fully modern language” to be about 40,000 years ago.)
However, there are some figures we can estimate with a degree of certainty. For instance, since no other species — not even our closest living kin, chimpanzees — uses a complex form of language similar to that of humans, it is reasonable to assume that whatever initiated the development of linguistic capability in our lineage must have occurred after humans and chimps diverged, approximately 6 million years ago.
Comparing humans with chimps and other apes can be insightful, and Mithen dedicates an entire chapter to this topic. Chimps certainly vocalize; however, Mithen claims that their sounds do not constitute words (though he acknowledges they possess “word-like qualities”). While there are distinct anatomical variations between humans and chimps that limit the latter’s capacity for nuanced speech, Mithen points out that the primary hurdle for chimp language is cognitive.
For one, there is scant evidence that chimps contemplate what other chimps may be thinking — psychologists refer to this ability as “theory of mind” (a skill that human children typically acquire by around age 4). Faced with this limitation, chimps never developed the linguistic skills necessary for planning collaborative activities to pursue shared objectives like humans do. At some juncture, our ancestors made this leap — and the implications were vast.
Mithen prompts us to consider the cognitive capabilities required to orchestrate a group hunt, for instance. To communicate about pursuing and capturing an antelope, he asserts, at the very least, one would need to reference an antelope even when none are within sight. (Mithen labels this capability “displacement” — the ability to discuss matters that are not in one’s immediate surroundings, which is crucial for narrating past and future events.) We possess this skill; earlier hominins may have had it to a more limited extent. Chimps lack this ability. Nevertheless, Mithen posits it could be merely a “minor cognitive shift” that distinguishes chimp capabilities from our own.
What might our initial vocabulary have encompassed? Mithen emphasizes the distinction between “arbitrary” and “iconic” words: The former are more prevalent; they are terms whose sounds bear no relation to the representational object. (For example, there is no inherent connection between the English term “dog” and the actual creature, nor does this connection exist in any other language.) Conversely, iconic words (also referred to as sound-symbolic words) do maintain a link to what they signify. Onomatopoeias serve as the most recognized examples — think of “bang” or “quack” — but an iconic word may also suggest its subject through aspects such as sound, size, shape, movement, or texture. Mithen contends that iconic words were crucial in the evolution of language, connecting our chimp-like ancestors’ “barks and grunts” to contemporary language.
While comparisons between humans and chimps are captivating, the linguistic distinctions between us and our fellow hominins — particularly those more closely related to us — are even more compelling. In certain regions of Europe and Western Asia, Homo sapiens and their close relatives, the Neanderthals, cohabitated and even interbred. Yet, even though the Neanderthals’ image has experienced a certain degree of enhancement in recent times, Mithen emphasizes that they were not our equals. For instance, they seem to have hardly innovated at all: He points out that while human tool usage evolved significantly, Neanderthals persisted in utilizing the same styles of stone tools for approximately 300,000 years.
How much of this difference can be attributed to the presence or absence of language? Mithen proposes that, while Neanderthals might have been capable of discussing immediate situations, they likely possessed little or no capacity for abstraction. They may have lacked metaphor. In contrast, early human language exhibited far greater flexibility. Our ancestors could correlate A to B even when neither was apparent. We could converse about concepts as effortlessly as tangible objects.
Mithen is profoundly intrigued by the extent of early human verbal communication.
“`may have varied from that of the Neanderthals. In contemporary times, we consistently relate one thing to another; we articulate distance using time (“the store is five minutes away”) and time using distance (“a 30-minute layover is too tight for comfort”). Envisioning how our forebears ventured into this type of linguistic expression, Mithen illustrates the following scenario: “With cognitive flexibility, a Homo sapiens mother might portray her daughter as being as courageous as a lion, while presuming that lions possessed human-like thoughts and desires; time could be articulated as space; and space through terminology derived from the human body.”
While the capability to grasp metaphorical language serves clear purposes, Mithen highlights another advancement that likely emerged around the same period, whose relationship with metaphor may not be readily apparent: humor. “Puns, double meanings, and innuendos, all dependent on metaphor and the verbal dexterity of the contemporary mind, now saturated language,” he notes. “These bestowed modern humans with a delight in words that was lacking among the domain-specific Neanderthals. Homo sapiens laughed their way into advancement.”
Numerous inquiries linger in the background. Does our manner of speaking affect our mode of thinking? Or could language be a crucial element of consciousness itself? Mithen contemplates a potential link between our inner dialogue and consciousness, but does so with caution. “Our silently expressed words might bring our concepts into awareness, whereby inner speech itself can be regarded as a form of thought,” he asserts — but he also observes that most of the contemplation we engage in happens without words.
Readers who frequently consume these types of literature will encounter many recognizable features. In one sense, “The Language Puzzle” serves as a chronicle of Homo sapiens, so there’s bound to be some overlap with species-explaining works like Yuval Noah Harari’s acclaimed book Sapiens or Leonard Mlodinow’s The Upright Thinkers. However, a narrative so essential can support multiple narratives, and Mithen’s sharp focus on the topic of communication and language distinguishes his account.
There are numerous surprises throughout, particularly in the specifics. For instance, Mithen highlights that, in English, there’s an entire array of terms associated with “unhurried motion” that are alike, all initiating with “sl” – he points to slow, slide, slur, slouch, and slime. In each instance, he asserts, “the motion of the tongue over the palate to produce sl- encapsulates the essence of those words — we can only express the tongue as moving leisurely and sliding.”
As our species advanced its linguistic abilities, “we became completely reliant on words for every facet of our existence,” Mithen observes. “To uphold such reliance, evolution not only granted us the pleasure of words but rendered language the vital essence of being human.” Mithen’s book is captivating, meticulous, and remarkably comprehensive — and provides a fresh and welcomed viewpoint on a longstanding enigma.
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