A 2026 book by anthropologists Chris Knight and Jerome Lewis, published by Yale University Press, revisits the long-forbidden question of how human language began. With no physical evidence of the earliest spoken languages, the authors combine linguistic theory with archaeological, ethnographic and cultural clues—especially from Africa—to argue for a social rather than sudden genetic origin of language.
The origins of writing and speech remain profoundly different mysteries. The earliest known writing consists of marks carved into clay tablets in ancient Mesopotamia, dating to the 4th millennium B.C. By contrast, no physical evidence survives from the earliest languages thought to have been spoken in Africa, the birthplace of Homo sapiens.
This lack of evidence has left scholars with considerable room for speculation. Thinkers in the ancient world, including Plato, debated whether language arose from nature or was created entirely by humans. By the 19th century, anthropologists had grown frustrated by the abundance of argument and scarcity of evidence.
Knight and Lewis note that the founding regulations of the Paris Linguistic Society prohibited discussion of the origins of language in 1866. “Those who theorize about the origins of language run the risk of being dismissed as eccentrics,” they write. “Sometimes the brave heretic risks his reputation by trying to reopen the debate.”
Linguistics
The best-known, though controversial, modern attempt to address the question began with linguist Noam Chomsky in the 1960s. The authors draw extensively on Knight’s earlier work, including his 2016 book Decoding Chomsky, and discuss Chomsky’s contributions in detail.
In 1987, Chomsky wrote in Language and Knowledge: “There’s a long history of research into the origins of language, asking how they came from things like the sounds of apes.” In his view, however, such research was “a complete waste of time.”
Chomsky argued that language rests on “principles quite different from animal communication systems.” Human gestures might have evolved from animal communication, he suggested, but human language itself did not.
This position was reinforced by research on young chimpanzees that began in 1973 with Pan troglodytes known as Nim Chimpsky—a pun on Chomsky’s name. Nim was taught by his human trainers to make dozens of hand signs in exchange for food and other rewards, but he did not learn to communicate in American Sign Language. As Knight and Lewis report, the longest recorded sequence of Nim’s signs was: “Give me an orange, eat an orange, eat an orange, eat an orange, eat an orange.”
Chimpanzee Nim Chimpsky was taught to make hand signals for food and other rewards. Credit: Mel Finkelstein/NY Daily News Archive/Getty
In Chomsky’s account, human language emerged suddenly through a single genetic mutation rather than through Darwinian natural selection or gradual adaptive cultural processes. Knight and Lewis say this transformed linguistics into a scientific challenge within anthropology by defining language as “a particularly interesting and mysterious aspect of the natural world, to be studied using the usual methods of the natural sciences.”
They also point out the difficulty of applying conventional scientific methods to language: “There are no measuring instruments, magnifying glasses, telescopes, or other instruments that can determine the meaning of words.”
A social origin
Knight and Lewis reject Chomsky’s position and present a complex combination of scientific and cultural evidence for their own theory. Much of this evidence comes from prehistoric and modern Africa, where Lewis spent 30 years studying hunter-gatherers, particularly the Bayaka people of Central Africa.
“To qualify as science, a hypothesis must suggest testable predictions,” the authors write. Because direct evidence of events in the distant past cannot exist, researchers must “construct tests from a wide range of obvious clues.” These include “the recurring structure of magical myths, initiation rites, hunter taboos, patterns of menstrual prohibition, lunar and solar influences, and, importantly, archaeological evidence of symbolism in the form of red ocher pigments and ornaments.” The book examines all of these clues in a discussion that is wide-ranging and sometimes meandering, but engaging.
Anthropologists often propose that speech and language arose from hunting or warfare, but Knight and Lewis challenge both explanations. Hunter-gatherers hunting in forests, they argue, “do everything in their power not to have to speak loudly” and risk alerting their prey. Instead, they use sign language to warn one another when animals such as gorillas, antelopes, leopards and elephants are nearby.
Source: www.nature.com
