If Jared Diamond and Bo Graslund were to sit down and begin discussing the evolution of human language, it would not take them long to agree on the difficulties associated with pondering such a subject!  (Diamond, 1993, p 112; Graslund, 2005, p 142).  Yet, regardless of the inherent obstacles associated with perusing a field with such a small amount of documented evidence, they have both managed to explore this arena and develop persuasive theories on the origins of human communication.

Graslund’s view of language evolution spans roughly the past 40,000 years.  Up until this point, he sees our Neanderthal ancestors as unintelligent, rather incapable, beings (p44).  It is not until the “Great Leap Forward” that Cro-Magnonswere able to grasp complex ideas such as tools with distinct uses (p 47), effective big game hunting (p 48), and “the emergence of modern language as we know it” (p 141).  More accurately, he believes that is was the emergence of effective language, allowing us more precise communication, which provided us the gateway to these cultural tools (p 55, p 141).  After this jump has been made, he argues that Cro-Magnons had the same mental capacities as modern humans, with simply fewer opportunities to utilize them (p 51).

Diamond, however, argues that it was our ancestors’ large mental capacity that allowed us to begin speaking (p 106).  He points to stone tools made 2.5 million years ago and 2.34 million year old bipedal human remains as evidence of very crude speech capacity (p115).  Once elementary vocal communication had begun, he asserts that it was a slow and gradual process to where we are today (p 123).     

References     

Diamond, Jared. (1993). The third chimpanzee; the evolution and future of the human animal. New York; HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Graslund, Bo. (2005). Early Humans and their world. London and New York: Routledge.