Q&A: What is human language, when did it evolve and why should we care?

Pagel, M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7287-8865 (2017) Q&A: What is human language, when did it evolve and why should we care? BMC Biology, 15 (1). 64. ISSN 1741-7007 doi: 10.1186/s12915-017-0405-3

Abstract/Summary

Human language is unique among all forms of animal communication. It is unlikely that any other species, including our close genetic cousins the Neanderthals, ever had language, and so-called sign 'language' in Great Apes is nothing like human language. Language evolution shares many features with biological evolution, and this has made it useful for tracing recent human history and for studying how culture evolves among groups of people with related languages. A case can be made that language has played a more important role in our species' recent (circa last 200,000 years) evolution than have our genes.

Additional Information	** From PubMed via Jisc Publications Router.
Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/71865
Identification Number/DOI	10.1186/s12915-017-0405-3
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Life Sciences > School of Biological Sciences > Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Additional Information	** From PubMed via Jisc Publications Router.
Publisher	BioMed Central
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