What is the origin of the word language?

Answer 1

There are two major physiological adaptions that provide indications whether early hominids had the power of speech. The first is the location of the larynx and the second is the shape of the brain, indicated by the skull cavity.

Vocal apparatusIn all mammals other than humans, the larynx is located high in the throat, enabling the individual to drink and breath at the same time. In adult humans, the larynx is located lower in the throat, creating a large sound-chamber, the pharynx, above the vocal cords. Jeffrey Laitman, Philip Lieberman and Edmund Crelin demonstrated that the expanded pharynx is the key to producing fuIIy articulate speech. In new-born babies, the larynx is located high in the throat, enabling the baby to suckle and breath simultaneously; the larynx begins to descend after about eighteen months.

The soft tissues of the vocal apparatus do not fossilise, but the bottom of the skull, or basicranium, can be used to indicate the vocal anatomy. In a survey of human fossils, Laitman discovered that the basicrania of the australopithecines were essentially flat, meaning that they would have been unable to produce some of the universal vowel sounds of human speech patterns. He calculated that the position of the larynx in an early Homo erectus specimen, dating from almost 2 million years ago, would have been equivalent to that in a modern six year old. According to this analysis, his Homo erectus individual would have had the ability to produce some vowels such as in boot, father, and feet. We do NT know whether Homo erectus had a degree of spoken language, but several lines of evidence suggest this.

The earliest known fossil with a fuIly flexed basicranium was about 300,000 to 400,000 years ago, in what people call archaic Homo sapiens.

Broca's area of the brainThere also appear to be many language-related areas, scattered throughout several regions of the human brain. One brain feature related in some fashion both to language and to the use of tools is visible on the surface of the brain, Broca's area - a raised lump located near the left temple in most people. Evidence of Broca's area in fossil human brains would be evidence, although inconclusive, of emerging language ability. Ralph Holloway examined the shape of the brain of a Homo habilis skull, determined to be around 2 million years old, and not only detected evidence of Broca's area on the inner surface of the cranium, but also a slight asymmetry in the left-right configuration of the brain, an indication that Homo habilis communicated with speech. ConclusionOn this evidence, speech originated with our Homo habilisancestors, who lived from around two million years ago to around one and a half million years ago.

Answer 2

The word language comes from the French 'langue' and ultimately from the Latin 'lingua', meaning 'tongue' or 'speech'.