When did human language originate? This mystery has long troubled the scientific community, like a thick fog that is always difficult to dispel. After all, as the most core cognitive feature of human civilization, the origin of language is like a key that is deeply related to our deep understanding of our own evolutionary process.
Recently, a new research result based on genome analysis has brought a new perspective and clues to this ancient and mysterious topic. The study shows that humans' unique language ability has existed quietly at least 135,000 years ago, and language has been widely used as a systematic social communication tool, dating back to about 100,000 years ago. The research paper, titled "Linguistic capacity was present in the Homo sapiens population 135 thousand years ago", was published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology.
The evolutionary history of modern Homo sapiens can be traced back to 230,000 years ago. However, for a long time, the scientific community has had significant differences in its judgment on the time of language origin based on different research paths. Paleontologists try to infer the time of the emergence of language ability through hyoid fossils, while archaeologists speculate based on the complexity of stone tools. However, these traditional research methods have caused many academic controversies, suggesting that they may have certain limitations. This new study takes a different approach. Given that the industry generally believes that all human languages may have originated from the same source, the research team believes that the key issue is to clarify when regional groups began to spread around the world.
"The logic of our research is actually very simple. Every group branch on the earth has a language, and all languages are related to each other." Shigeru Miyagawa, a professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the leader of this new study, explained. Therefore, the research team took a different approach and cleverly integrated genomic data with language evolution models to try to accurately locate the "base point moment" of human language ability. Miyagawa further added: "Based on the indications of the geographical differentiation of early human groups by genomic data, it can be said with considerable certainty that the first geographical differentiation of human groups occurred about 135,000 years ago, so human language ability must have existed at that time or earlier." In other words, since all migrating human groups have a language system, the acquisition of this language ability must have been earlier than or synchronized with the population differentiation event.
In addition to Shigeru Miyagawa, the paper's collaborators include Rob DeSalle, principal investigator at the American Museum of Natural History's Institute for Comparative Genomics, Ian Tattersall, curator emeritus of human origins; Vitor Augusto Nóbrega, a faculty member in linguistics at the University of São Paulo, Mercedes Okumura of the Department of Genetics and Evolutionary Biology, and Remo Nitschke of the University of Zurich (who participated in this research while working at the University of Arizona's Department of Linguistics).
During the research process, the team comprehensively analyzed 15 different genetic research results published in the past 18 years. Among them, 3 studies were based on hereditary Y chromosome data, 3 studies explored mitochondrial DNA, and the other 9 were whole genome studies. Through in-depth mining of these multi-dimensional data, the research team built a solid chain of evidence. These research data together show that humans had their initial geographical differentiation about 135,000 years ago. This key node undoubtedly marks an important turning point in the evolutionary history of Homo sapiens.
As Homo sapiens groups began to migrate to different regions, the mechanism of geographic isolation gradually took effect, triggering the continuous accumulation of genetic variation. These variations include both traces of natural selection that adapt to different ecological environments and neutral genetic drift characteristics. The researchers reversed the accumulation rate of these genetic differences and tried to locate the "language ability benchmark" before population differentiation. Shigeru Miyagawa pointed out: "These studies as a whole provide us with a lot of strong evidence about when geographical differentiation began. By establishing a quantitative relationship between genetic differences and the time dimension, we were able to deduce the last time window for the Homo sapiens population to maintain genetic homogeneity."
In fact, as early as 2017, other research teams had tried to get involved in this field. However, at that time, research data in the field of genetics was relatively scarce, which greatly limited the depth and breadth of the research. With the passage of time and the rapid advancement of technology, the academic community has continued to delve deeper into related fields and accumulated more and more research results. Today, the rich published data provides scientists with a broader research perspective. After comprehensively analyzing these massive data, the researchers were pleasantly surprised to find a key time point: about 135,000 years ago, it may be an important period when human groups first experienced geographical differentiation.
Commenting on the new study, Shigeru Miyagawa said: "This new study was made possible by two significant advances. On the one hand, we now have more previous research results to draw on than ever before, and on the other hand, the time frame of the study has become more precise, which makes our conclusions more accurate and reliable." As of now, there are more than 7,000 human languages confirmed in the world, each of which is a vivid manifestation of human cultural diversity. Like many linguists, Shigeru Miyagawa firmly believes that there is a close and undeniable connection between all human languages, and has continued to explore this view through a series of in-depth studies throughout his career. For example, in his 2010 book "Why Agree? Why Move?", he deeply analyzed the previously underexplored similarities between English, Japanese and some Bantu languages, successfully revealing some language features that were previously underappreciated.