Chapter 2: Origins of Human Language

2.1 Why Us?

• The language of bees
• Box 2.1: Hockett’s design features of human language
• Primate vocalizations
• Can language be taught to apes?
• Method 2.1: Minding the gap between behavior and knowledge
• 2.1 Questions to Contemplate

2.2 The Social Underpinnings of Language

• Understanding the communicative urge
• Skills for a complex social world
• Researchers at Work 2.1: Social scaffolding for language
• Method 2.2: Exploring what primates can’t (or won’t) do
• 2.2 Questions to Contemplate

2.3 The Structure of Language

• Combining units
• Structured patterns
• Box 2.2: The recursive power of syntax
• Are we wired for language structure?
• Language at Large 2.1: Engineering the perfect language
• 2.3 Questions to Contemplate

2.4 The Evolution of Speech

• The ability to speak: Humans versus the other primates
• Box 2.3: Practice makes perfect: “The “babbling” stage of human infancy
• Language without speech
• Box 2.4: What can songbirds tell us about speaking?
• 2.4 Questions to Contemplate

2.5 How Humans Invent Language

• Communicating from scratch
• When gestures replace language
• Language: It takes a village
• Streamlining signing
• The sensitive period and innate language ability
• Language at Large 2.2: From disability to diversity: Language studies and Deaf culture
• So where does language come from?
• 2.5 Questions to Contemplate

2.6 Language and Genes

• Williams syndrome: An island of preserved function?
• Specific language disorder: An island of impaired function?
• Box 2.5: Linguistic and nonlinguistic impairments in Williams and Down syndromes
• The new frontier: Tracing our ancestors’ genes
• 2.6 Questions to Contemplate

2.7 Survival of the Fittest Language?

• Language changes
• Box 2.6: Evolution of a prayer
• What’s adapting to what?
• What we still don’t know
• 2.7 Questions to Contemplate
• Digging Deeper: Language evolution in the lab  

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