Human speech is one of the most fascinating realms of study on earth, and the diversity of languages is overwhelming. In Human Language Evolution, author Dr. Owi Nandi explores the results of his long-term study delving into the origin of spoken language and his search for common patterns among all language families.

In an effort to compare and connect recent developments in linguistics and in the study of human evolution via genomic sequencing, Nandi's study shows how various languages use similar sounds for words with similar meanings. It also demonstrates that these similarities may have evolved from human facial expressions caused by emotions like fear, alertness, joy, pleasure, or pain. Covering thirty-four world languages, Nandi discusses the psychological background of an array of words-such as counting, evil, hurting, scratching, coughing, thinking, father-and compares those among other languages.

Seasoned with notes on psychological backgrounds, Human Language Evolution provides rich insight into the whys of universally conserved linguistic patterns in light of the 170,000-year history of modern mankind, transcending the reaches of traditional etymology.

HUMAN LANGUAGE EVOLUTION

As Coframed by Behavioural and Psychological UniversalismBy Owi Nandi

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2012 Owi Nandi
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4620-5782-5

Contents

Preface..................................................................................................................ixAcknowledgments..........................................................................................................xi1. An Introduction to the Evolution of Prehuman and Human Communication and Linguistics..................................12. Material and Methods..................................................................................................92.1. A short methodological history of the project.......................................................................92.2. Phonetic premises...................................................................................................102.3. Methods applied for the semantic fields in this work................................................................112.4. Linguistic scope....................................................................................................132.5. Arrangement of results and premises used............................................................................143. Language Phyla of the World...........................................................................................194. Overview of Language Phyla............................................................................................214.1. The African languages...............................................................................................214.2. Boreo-Indo-Pacific macrophylum (could also be termed Non-African macrophylum).......................................274.3. Eurasiatic-Amerindian superphylum...................................................................................274.4. Austro-Dené superphylum........................................................................................304.5. Palaeo-Sundic.......................................................................................................394.6. Sahaulic languages..................................................................................................425. Results of the Present Study for Different Semantic Fields and Potential Psychological Background.....................455.1. Semantic fields for the consonant pair b and p......................................................................455.2. Semantic fields for the consonant pair d and t......................................................................525.3. Semantic fields for the velar stop k and the uvular stop q..........................................................605.4. Semantic fields for the lateral approximant l.......................................................................1045.5. Semantic fields for the alveolar nasal n............................................................................1245.6. Semantic fields for the bilabial nasal m............................................................................1295.7. Semantic fields for the rhotic, often alveolar thrill r.............................................................1445.8. Semantic fields for the sibilant s..................................................................................1485.9. Semantic fields starting with u, v, or w............................................................................1585.10. Semantic fields with diphthongs as potential main information bearing phonetic structure...........................1676. Conclusions...........................................................................................................171Glossary.................................................................................................................173Appendix.................................................................................................................175Epilogue: Autobiographical Background of This Work.......................................................................195Bibliography.............................................................................................................203Index....................................................................................................................215

Chapter One

An Introduction to the Evolution of Prehuman and Human Communication and Linguistics

The evolution of communication occurs on a continuum beyond the origin of humans into apes, primates, mammals, and vertebrates. During most of the twentieth century, animals have been viewed as machinelike by mainstream biologists, but in more recent times, biologists have been amazed by preintelligent and intelligent behaviour across a wide evolutionary field of animals, including some octopuses (Hamilton, 1997), cichlid fishes (Bshary et al., 2002), birds like parrots and crows (for both, see Emery, 2006), rodents like degus (Tokimoto and Okanoya, 2004), lemurs (Santos et al., 2005), monkeys and especially apes (Tomasello and Call, 1997), dogs, elephants, dolphins, and whales, to list only some of them. The behavioural relatedness of body reactions in mammals was already outlined by Charles Darwin (1872) in one of his most important, though less known, books, The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals. A certain level of cognitive ability in a species is a prerequisite for the origin of a language.

Thus, together with behavioural reactions of an individual animal there have to be partner individuals who are able to read and interpret such a reaction. Such an interpretation of a behavioural reaction can be instinctive or further evolve into an intelligent interpretation. Some animals go beyond these abilities with their cognitive capabilities by managing to learn more abstract audiovisual signs. Thus dogs have been shown to be able to learn more than two hundred human words (Kaminski et al., 2004). Training methods for Grey parrots have been devised that enable the bird to use its capability to reproduce the sounds of human speech in order to acquire a cognitive vocabulary consisting of vocal labels for several exemplars, actions, numerical quantities, and characteristics like colour and shape, and the functional use of the word no (Pepperberg, 1983). Dolphins, chimpanzees, and bonobos have been compellingly shown to master even more difficult tasks in trials testing for understanding of human verbal or nonverbal communication. All these examples clearly show that selected animals have highly evolved cognitive skills that could have further evolved towards a traditionalized language during the evolution of hominids.

Our understanding of the evolution of modern Homo sapiens has received a boost from the sequencing and comparing of human genetic information (see, e.g., Cavalli-Sforza et al., 1994, Cavalli-Sforza and Seielstad, 1997, and Underhill and Kivisild, 2007). Information on maternal and paternal descendance can be obtained by sequencing mitochondrial or Y-chromosome genes, respectively.

According to these molecular studies, the cradle land of the modern Homo sapiens is in Africa. A mitochondrial Eve of all humans (Templeton and Sing, 1993, and Horai et al., 1995) should have lived approximately 170,000 years before present in the region of Kenia, Tanzania, or Ethiopia. In 2003, the bones of the earliest modern human, Homo sapiens, were unearthed in Ethiopia, about 225 kilometres northeast of the capital, Addis Ababa (Clarke et al., 2003, and Blench and...