Origin of language (Part 3) A study of April 2011 Dr Quentin Atkinson (Auckland University) Origin of language (Part 3) A study of April 2011 Dr Quentin Atkinson (Auckland University) situated the origin of human language in Africa. He listed and compared the number and diversity of phonemes in 504 languages worldwide. It has been calculated that the richest in diverse languages phonemes were found in Africa and mainly on a coastal strip that extends from Senegal to South Africa. In contrast less affluent languages are found in Oceania and North America ... continents that are the most recently conquered by mankind. This new discovery confirms the African origins of humanity. Study published in the journals Science and Nature. Note that the work of Quentin Atkinson was challenged in 2012 by another team for which the diffusion of human language was not necessarily carried out as genetic dispersion. Who was the first hominid to have used the language? According to some anthropologists, hominids equipped with a low larynx position, also have a flat skull base. This feature is only found in our ancestors less than 2.5 million years: the Homo and Paranthropus. This character is, however, deemed irrelevant by Pascal Picq. For Phillip Tobias, the endocranial casts show that Homo habilis possessed Broca and Wernicke, specialized in the development and understanding of language. But other studies show that, physically speaking, his larynx was not down and therefore could not "articulate the correct way." For some scientists, Homo erectus had to have the language for its production of flint (Levallois) which required a control and a technique that could only be transmitted with a means of a developed communication. And what about the Neanderthal? Studies follow and are very contradictory. According to U.S. researchers, the position of the larynx and morphology did not allow the production of a wide range of sounds (some consonants and short vowels) ... For the French anthropologist Anne-Marie Tillier (CNRS Bordeaux) there is no doubt: Neanderthals had developed a spoken language. In October 2007 the Neanderthal genetic study on the FOXP2 gene put it responsible for part of the language learning. To be continued…. L
Posted on: Sat, 06 Jul 2013 09:05:17 +0000
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