Daniel L. Everett: How Language Began. Homo erectus and the Origin of Language

In dem Vortrag werden Erkenntnisse aus unterschiedlichen Disziplinen – Linguistik, Archäologie, Biologie, Anthropologie und Neurowissenschaften – zusammengetragen, um die These zu belegen, dass, entgegen der landläufigen Auffassung, bereits homo erectus vor eineinhalb Millionen Jahren biologische und mentale Merkmale aufwies, die auf eine Begabung zur Sprache schließen lassen. Gerade auch angesichts seiner technologischen Fertigkeiten (etwa die Herstellung von Werkzeugen und sogar hochseetauglichen Booten) spricht vieles dafür, dass er tatsächlich eine Art von Sprache gesprochen hat. Daraus darf man folgern, dass die Neandertaler und der homo sapiens in eine bereits linguistische Welt hineingeboren wurden.

Daniel L. Everett ging 1977 nach Brasilien, um das Volk der Pirahã zu missionieren, verlor jedoch unter dem Einfluss ihrer Lehren seinen christlichen Glauben. Ab 1978 Studium der Linguistik und Anthropologie an der Universität Campinas in Brasilien. 1989 bis 1999 Lehrtätigkeit an der University of Pittsburgh, 2006 bis 2010 an der Illinois State University. Seit 2010 Professor an der Bentley University Waltham. Zahlreiche linguistische Forschungsreisen zu den indigenen Völkern Brasiliens. 2017 erschien: How Language Began: The Story of Humanity’s Greatest Invention. Publikationen in deutscher Sprache: Das glücklichste Volk. Sieben Jahre bei den Pirahã-Indianern am Amazonas (2010); Die größte Erfindung der Menschheit. Was mich meine Jahre am Amazonas über das Wesen der Sprache gelehrt haben (2013).

Gesprächsleitung: Prof. Dr. Gisbert Fanselow,, Professor für Linguistik an der Universität Potsdam.

Eine Gemeinschaftsveranstaltung mit dem Institut für Linguistik der Universität Potsdam

[jmiddlefinger]

What a fascinating lecture. I’m not in academia, but was a professional cryptologist linguist for around a decade and have been a lifelong student of language and culture and really have appreciated you sharing this das information with us.

[mwmcbroom]

Everett has some solid ideas and I'm glad to see him skewer archeologists who have clung to a belief of recent language emergence. It took many thousands of generations for the human vocal tract to have evolved, so its emergence during the time frame of H. Erectus makes most sense.

I did my graduate work in Linguistics on this subject, namely the biological origins of language and language evolution. One thing I uncovered is the critical role the female played. It's amazing how chauvinistic paleoanthropologists and archeologists are when they discuss the evolution of human behavior. They always talk about the production of weapons -- axes, spears, arrows, etc. Even throwing stones. But they never mention what the females of the species were doing. Which to me is foolish. The males were the hunters, but the females were the gatherers. Ask yourself this: which requires the greater use of language, hunting or gathering? Successful hunters don't talk much. They must be very quiet when they stalk their game, and they don't typically talk until they they've killed their prey, at which point they can celebrate. So the males are part-time users of language. But the females can chatter to their hearts' content, sharing information about which berries are edible, for example, and which aren't. Or which areas have more berries than others. I'm sure they foraged in groups and that these groups were often out of sight from each other, but they stayed in touch using language. So it was my assertion (and continues to be) that the females of the species were the prime movers of language and language emergence. There's even lots of scientific evidence gathered from modern humans to back up this theory of mine, which indicates a residual level of these same differences that likely first emerged with H. Erectus.

[chochonubcake]

My wife and I communicate via the thermostat all the time.

[muins]

A tiny wild bird began roosting in my roof-mounted heater box on top of my house. It introduced itself with a loud tweet,
which was it normal tweet, only loud. It sounded exactly like a human would say the word "tweet", except in a higher tone.
I responded to the bird's tweet with, "Hi little birdie." We developed a relationship. Imagine that you could only say "tweet".
You would find ways of expressing yourself. You could say it with an inquisitive tone. You could be scolding. You could
express excitement. You would also be able to express satisfaction or dissatisfaction, all of which that bird did during the
7 months it roosted up there. The heater ducts connect to each room, and the bird would listen to me as I went from room to room.
The kitchen is the furthest room from the heater box, and the bird would tweet the loudest when I went into the kitchen. There is
much more to this story, including how it figured out my billiards practice, and how it listened to, and responded to music.
How it would prompt me to play music. How it would greet me in the morning, and "tuck" me into bed at night. Only after I
stopped making noise while getting into sleeping position, would it go out hunting for food. It was a music junky, and pretty
damn smart about it. So much so, that I was convinced I had gone nuts. I bought a recorder and recorded some of it's tweets
before it flew away. I also got an "ear" witness, which was very important to me since I was worried I was hallucinating the
entire experience. Of course, human projection was my concern throughout the 7 months, but living with an animal, you learn things
and communications happens. And my point is that you don't need a large vocabulary to express yourself.

[elizppppppp]

Daniel Everette is great. Thanks for posting!

[tonywest]

The question about the source of language was not answered. Do we know if there was a single source or were languages developed in different places independently?

[B]

Love how this talk was rather compressed (compared to some I've watched/listened to by Professor Everett). As it was only one-half of the lecture's entire timespan, I appreciate that equal opportunity was given to Q&A. Engagement is key. Some presenters--to this day--are still figuring this out. Any future discussions accepted in tandem with an additional speaker, I would hope the absence of a moderator (the current working model) would be utilized as well. Sort of odd how the use of a moderater was ever necessary, outside of an actual debate setting. Civilized adults are without need of a conversational "chaperone." This discussion was informative, well paced, and enlightening. Presently, having read this comment "pre-post-pandemic"... hoping for a speaking tour from Dr. Everett in the U.S.... sooner than later. ;)

[mushtaqbhat]

A population group with sea faring technology immigrating to Crete surely must have had a fantastic communication technology to manage such a feat. It must have required a quite advanced social organisation that we were willing untill recent times to deny even to the Neanderthals. I think there is still a lot to discover about Erectus.

[cervantes]

Just love how oblivious the guy is standing in the way of the camera. Thanks for the upload, I found it very interesting.

[DarkMoonDroid]

Bless these German people for reaching across the language gap here.
💙

[dakrontu]

In terms of physical actions, even the simplest actions can involve a precise sequence of muscle movements. More complex actions are built from these simpler ones. So the ability to handle recursion must already exist in the brain regardless of the use of language. So when a rudimentary language ability comes along, due to having some apparatus to produce sounds, and social demands that make its use imperative, the only things that will stop the use of recursion are (a) the initial lack of complexity in the language as its usage starts up from ground zero and (b) the actual need for complexity that would only come about in larger more complex social groups with more individuals and more specialised tasks going on.

[casiandsouza]

Learning preceeds teaching and crosses species boundaries. The best teachers follow the student.

[gaylecheung]

Awesome presentation, as a layperson this is fabulous, ty!

[katherandefy]

I got curious about this subject during my research intro course and picked it for my topic of study. The depth and explanations of evidence seems seminal. Totally fascinating. Pierce and Everett are going in my study on paleolinguistics. Thanks for posting!! Exciting work.

[exoplanet]

Interesting distinction between language (which Erectus probably had) and speech (which they did not). I wonder if Erectus could have communicated with a form of sign language. ??

[MikeStallings]

Outstanding lecture and interesting guy. But chat GPT destroyed his theory that language is special and that no machine will be able to create it. I would love to hear his latest thinking.

[winstonsmith]

“He traveled thousands of miles up the Amazon alone in a canoe over a hundred years ago.” Okay. You got me.

[mogbaba]

Is it possible to make a sentence that only consists of verbs? Yes, Persian
How many verbs in one sentence? The record is 19 verbs

[josoece]

Of course there is universal grammar, but it is more related to the fact that our brain can process complicated things and we needed tools of expression to communicate ideas with each other, of course animals don`t have language, they simply cannot comprehend things like past, future or some string of events. SO they don`t need it. Power of our brain and complexity of human language go hand in hand and I believe they drove each other forward in evolution.

[lanegeorgeton]

Is the ability to predict and vocalize those predictions leading to progeny a normal thing or just a far flung hypothesis ?