How Unique is Human Language?

This chapter concentrates on the internalist (cognitive) perspective and the biological foundations of language. A fundamental question in the study of language origins is which aspects of the language capacity are inherited from other species and which evolved later and only in humans. According to the saltationists, the only uniquely human component of the language faculty is the computational mechanism of recursion that enabled syntax, which, it is claimed, arose in a single, relatively sudden evolutionary leap. This chapter takes the broader biological approach and looks at the whole set of mechanisms, including the vocal/motor, auditory/perceptual and central neural, that are involved in the processing and acquisition of language. The chapter begins by reviewing Hockett’s comparison of human language with other animal communication systems. It then looks beyond the communication code and compares the cognitive capacities across living species today, with a view to understanding the evolutionary path to human language.