In Charles Darwin’s vision of the origins
of language, early humans had already
developed
musicalabilitypriortolanguageandwereu
singit“tocharmeachother.”Thismaynotm
atch the typical image that most of us
have of our early ancestors as rather
rough characters wearing animal skins
and not very charming, but it is an
interesting speculation about how
language may have originated. It
remains, however, a speculation.
We simply don’t know how language
originated. We do know that the ability
to produce sound and simple vocal
patterning (a hum versus a grunt, for
example) appears to be in an ancient
part of the brain that we share with all
vertebrates, including fish, frogs, birds
and other mammals. But that isn’t
human language.