• Question: who came up with languages. was it animals

    Asked by safia123 to Ed, Katie, Sam, Steve, Vera on 20 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Steven Daly

      Steven Daly answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      A good question. I guess it depends what you mean by language. Animals certainly communicate with each other by sound, sight, smell and in other ways I probably can’t think of. I think however that no animal has the complexity or detail of our language to communicate with.

    • Photo: Ed Morrison

      Ed Morrison answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      THis is a really fascinating topic. Language as we know it seems to be unique to humans. Some people have taught chimpanzees and gorillas sign language, but they can only use it much more simply that humans.

      Someone else asked about language, so my answer to them is here: /evolutionj11-zone/2011/06/how-did-people-start-talking

    • Photo: Vera Weisbecker

      Vera Weisbecker answered on 19 Jun 2011:

      I agree with Steven that it is hard to tell where just communication noises start and where language begins. One important part in language is the existence of sentence rules (verbs and nouns being put together to form a meaningful sentence) – I don’t think any other animal has evolved this (although perhaps toothed whales like dolphins could be an exception?).

    • Photo: Katie Marriott

      Katie Marriott answered on 19 Jun 2011:

      All very good answers. I have answered something similar question also:

      I’m assuming it would have started as something quite simple like grunts and then as our brains grew and we became more intelligent we developed different sounds and different ways of arranging sounds – what we now call words.

    • Photo: Sam Tazzyman

      Sam Tazzyman answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      The others have dealt with this. I would add that the change in language over time (for example Latin turning into French and Italian) is something that is often studied using evolutionary ideas.

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