The First Word

How Animals Illuminate Our Past

Many researchers believe that for language to have evolved, there first had to be a need to speak, as opposed to having language evolve suddenly and then finding there was a lot to talk about. In this view, language ability was not an accident, nor was it brought about by a sudden enabling mutation for grammar. If language ability evolved in the same adaptive way as most other abilities, then the search for the origins of language includes a search to uncover what was so advantageous to communicate. It is helpful in this search to study what goes on in the minds of nonlinguistic creatures.

Animals that demonstrate relatively advanced cognitive abilities suggest what the minds of our prelinguistic ancestors may have been like. Many species that demonstrate complicated thinking have a fair amount in common with humans – dolphins, elephants, and crows all have long lives, extended infancy, complicated systems of communication, and societies where individuals have distinct roles. Female elephants, for example, live years beyond their reproductive age and pass on learning to youngsters, such as how to interact with other elephants, as well as information about water holes or fruit trees.

Elephants also appear to use sounds like words. Researchers found that individual elephants produce distinct sounds for different purposes, like greeting a fellow member of the clan they haven’t seen for a while. Similarly, dolphins use echolocation clicks and purposeful types of whistles, and appear to name themselves with a “signature whistle.” Whenever they meet another dolphin they produce a distinct, individual sound, which develops in their first year of life. And there is evidence that dolphins exchange signature whistles when separating. A team of researchers in Scotland found that wild dolphins recognized that a signature whistle referred to a particular dolphin even when its voice was completely distorted.

Vervet monkeys make three different word-like alarm calls when they see a threat from ground, tree, or air, warning their group to take appropriate defense. Some researchers think that these alarm calls may be “protowords,” a primitive form of language. When animals make alarm calls, they are connecting a particular sound to a referent in the world. Every species of animal that researchers have studied so far can link sound and a referent. Humans have built on this ability by using this ancient platform for sound and referent to evolve human language.