Humans are likely to have started speaking to each other more than 100,000 years ago, new research suggests.
A study from MIT, released this week, said genomic evidence suggested unique human language capacity existed at least 135,000 years ago.
Around 35,000 years later humans showed signs of symbolic activity, believed to be linked to more complex human behaviour and communication.
The first Homo sapiens emerged around 230,000 years old and estimates on when they started to use language have been based on evidence from fossils and cultural artifacts.
This latest research has approached the language question based on the spread of humans around the world, from a common point of origin.
“The logic is very simple,” MIT professor and co-author of the study Shigeru Miyagawa said.
“Every population branching across the globe has human language, and all languages are related.
“Based on what the genomics data indicate about the geographic divergence of early human populations I think we can say with a fair amount of certainty that the first split occurred about 135,000 years ago.
“So human language capacity must have been present by then, or before.”
The paper, “Linguistic capacity was present in the Homo sapiens population 135 thousand years ago,” was published in Frontiers in Psychology.
The conclusions around language timing were based on 15 genetic studies conducted over the past 18 years.
Professor Miyagawa believes all human languages are demonstrably related to each other.
His previous work has explored similarities between English, Japanese, and some of the Bantu languages.
While some researchers have proposed language capacity dates back a couple of million years, Professor Miyagawa is focussed on systemic language that combines vocabulary and grammar.
“Human language is qualitatively different because there are two things, words and syntax, working together to create this very complex system,” he said.
“No other animal has a parallel structure in their communication system. And that gives us the ability to generate very sophisticated thoughts and to communicate them to others.”
The full report is on the MIT website.
