Dating the origin of language using phonemic diversity.

Language is a key adaptation of our species, yet we do not know when it evolved. Here, we use data on language phonemic diversity to estimate a minimum date for the origin of language. We take advantage of the fact that phonemic diversity evolves slowly and use it as a clock to calculate how long th...

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Autores principales:	Charles Perreault, Sarah Mathew
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2012
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/55b13b09aa464dd4bac5f846c4c826b5
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id	oai:doaj.org-article:55b13b09aa464dd4bac5f846c4c826b5
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:55b13b09aa464dd4bac5f846c4c826b52021-11-18T07:20:35ZDating the origin of language using phonemic diversity.1932-620310.1371/journal.pone.0035289https://doaj.org/article/55b13b09aa464dd4bac5f846c4c826b52012-01-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmid/22558135/?tool=EBIhttps://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203Language is a key adaptation of our species, yet we do not know when it evolved. Here, we use data on language phonemic diversity to estimate a minimum date for the origin of language. We take advantage of the fact that phonemic diversity evolves slowly and use it as a clock to calculate how long the oldest African languages would have to have been around in order to accumulate the number of phonemes they possess today. We use a natural experiment, the colonization of Southeast Asia and Andaman Islands, to estimate the rate at which phonemic diversity increases through time. Using this rate, we estimate that present-day languages date back to the Middle Stone Age in Africa. Our analysis is consistent with the archaeological evidence suggesting that complex human behavior evolved during the Middle Stone Age in Africa, and does not support the view that language is a recent adaptation that has sparked the dispersal of humans out of Africa. While some of our assumptions require testing and our results rely at present on a single case-study, our analysis constitutes the first estimate of when language evolved that is directly based on linguistic data.Charles PerreaultSarah MathewPublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleMedicineRScienceQENPLoS ONE, Vol 7, Iss 4, p e35289 (2012)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Charles Perreault Sarah Mathew Dating the origin of language using phonemic diversity.
description	Language is a key adaptation of our species, yet we do not know when it evolved. Here, we use data on language phonemic diversity to estimate a minimum date for the origin of language. We take advantage of the fact that phonemic diversity evolves slowly and use it as a clock to calculate how long the oldest African languages would have to have been around in order to accumulate the number of phonemes they possess today. We use a natural experiment, the colonization of Southeast Asia and Andaman Islands, to estimate the rate at which phonemic diversity increases through time. Using this rate, we estimate that present-day languages date back to the Middle Stone Age in Africa. Our analysis is consistent with the archaeological evidence suggesting that complex human behavior evolved during the Middle Stone Age in Africa, and does not support the view that language is a recent adaptation that has sparked the dispersal of humans out of Africa. While some of our assumptions require testing and our results rely at present on a single case-study, our analysis constitutes the first estimate of when language evolved that is directly based on linguistic data.
format	article
author	Charles Perreault Sarah Mathew
author_facet	Charles Perreault Sarah Mathew
author_sort	Charles Perreault
title	Dating the origin of language using phonemic diversity.
title_short	Dating the origin of language using phonemic diversity.
title_full	Dating the origin of language using phonemic diversity.
title_fullStr	Dating the origin of language using phonemic diversity.
title_full_unstemmed	Dating the origin of language using phonemic diversity.
title_sort	dating the origin of language using phonemic diversity.
publisher	Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publishDate	2012
url	https://doaj.org/article/55b13b09aa464dd4bac5f846c4c826b5
work_keys_str_mv	AT charlesperreault datingtheoriginoflanguageusingphonemicdiversity AT sarahmathew datingtheoriginoflanguageusingphonemicdiversity
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Dating the origin of language using phonemic diversity.

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