Editing Origin of language (section)

=== Problems of reliability and deception ===
{{further|Signalling theory}}

From the perspective of signalling theory, the main obstacle to the evolution of language-like communication in nature is not a mechanistic one. Rather, it is the fact that symbols—arbitrary associations of sounds or other perceptible forms with corresponding meanings—are unreliable and may as well be false.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Zahavi |first=A. |date=May 1993 |title=The fallacy of conventional signalling |journal=Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |volume=340 |issue=1292 |pages=227–230 |bibcode=1993RSPTB.340..227Z |doi=10.1098/rstb.1993.0061 |pmid=8101657}}</ref><ref>Zahavi, A. and A. Zahavi 1997. ''The Handicap Principle: A Missing Piece in Darwin's Puzzle''. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|9780190284589}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Smith |first=J. Maynard |year=1994 |title=Must reliable signals always be costly? |journal=Animal Behaviour |volume=47 |issue=5 |pages=1115–1120 |doi=10.1006/anbe.1994.1149 |issn=0003-3472 |s2cid=54274718}}</ref> The problem of reliability was not recognized at all by Darwin, Müller or the other early evolutionary theorists.

Animal vocal signals are, for the most part, intrinsically reliable. When a cat purrs, the signal constitutes direct evidence of the animal's contented state. The signal is trusted, not because the cat is inclined to be honest, but because it just cannot fake that sound. Primate vocal calls may be slightly more manipulable, but they remain reliable for the same reason—because they are hard to fake.<ref name="Goodall1986">{{Cite book |last=Goodall |first=Jane |url=https://archive.org/details/chimpanzeesofgom00good |title=The chimpanzees of Gombe: patterns of behavior |publisher=Belknap |year=1986 |isbn=978-0-674-11649-8 |location=Cambridge, MA}}</ref> Primate social intelligence is "[[Machiavellian intelligence|Machiavellian]]"; that is, [[self-serving]] and unconstrained by moral scruples. Monkeys, apes and particularly humans often attempt to deceive each other, while at the same time remaining constantly on guard against falling victim to deception themselves.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Byrne |first1=Richard W. |title=Machiavellian intelligence : social expertise and the evolution of intellect in monkeys, apes, and humans |last2=Whiten |first2=Andrew. |publisher=Clarendon |year=1988 |isbn=978-0-19-852175-4 |location=Oxford}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=de Waal |first=Frans B. M. |year=2005 |title=Intentional Deception in Primates |journal=Evolutionary Anthropology |volume=1 |issue=3 |pages=86–92 |doi=10.1002/evan.1360010306 |s2cid=221736130}}</ref> Paradoxically, it is theorized that primates' resistance to deception is what blocks the evolution of their signalling systems along language-like lines. Language is ruled out because the best way to guard against being deceived is to ignore all signals except those that are instantly verifiable. Words automatically fail this test.<ref name="Knight1998" />

Words are easy to fake. Should they turn out to be lies, listeners will adapt by ignoring them in favor of hard-to-fake indices or cues. For language to work, listeners must be confident that those with whom they are on speaking terms are generally likely to be honest.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Power |first=Camilla |title=Approaches to the evolution of language: social and cognitive base |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-521-63964-4 |editor-last=Hurford |editor-first=James R. |pages=111–129 |chapter=Old wives' tales: the gossip hypothesis and the reliability of cheap signals |editor-last2=Studdert-Kennedy |editor-first2=Michael |editor-last3=Chris Knight}}</ref> A peculiar feature of language is [[Displacement (linguistics)|displaced reference]], which means reference to topics outside the currently perceptible situation. This property prevents utterances from being corroborated in the immediate "here" and "now". For this reason, language presupposes relatively high levels of mutual trust in order to become established over time as an [[evolutionarily stable strategy]]. This stability is born of a longstanding mutual trust and is what grants language its authority. A theory of the origins of language must therefore explain why humans could begin [[Signalling theory|trusting cheap signals]] in ways that other animals apparently cannot.

==== The "mother tongues" hypothesis ====
The "mother tongues" hypothesis was proposed in 2004 as a possible solution to this problem.<ref name="Fitch2004">{{Cite book |last=Fitch |first=W. T. |title=Evolution of communication systems: a comparative approach |publisher=MIT Press |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-262-15111-5 |editor-last=Griebel |editor-first=Ulrike |location=Cambridge, MA |pages=275–296 |chapter=Kin selection and 'mother tongues': a neglected component in language evolution |editor-last2=Oller |editor-first2=D. Kimbrough |chapter-url=https://homepage.univie.ac.at/tecumseh.fitch/media/files/FitchKin2004_large.pdf}}</ref> [[W. Tecumseh Fitch]] suggested that the Darwinian principle of "[[kin selection]]"<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hamilton |first=W. D. |year=1964 |title=The genetical evolution of social behaviour. I, II |journal=Journal of Theoretical Biology |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=1–52 |bibcode=1964JThBi...7....1H |doi=10.1016/0022-5193(64)90038-4 |pmid=5875341 |s2cid=5310280}}</ref>—the convergence of genetic interests between relatives—might be part of the answer. Fitch suggests that languages were originally "mother tongues". If language evolved initially for communication between mothers and their own biological offspring, extending later to include adult relatives as well, the interests of speakers and listeners would have tended to coincide. Fitch argues that shared genetic interests would have led to sufficient trust and cooperation for intrinsically unreliable signals—words—to become accepted as trustworthy and so begin evolving for the first time.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Knight |first=Chris |title=The Evolutionary Emergence of Language |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-521-78157-2 |pages=99–120 |chapter=Play as Precursor of Phonology and Syntax |doi=10.1017/cbo9780511606441.007 |s2cid=56418139}}</ref>

Critics of this theory point out that kin selection is not unique to humans.<ref name="Tallerman2013">{{Cite book |last=Tallerman |first=Maggie |title=The evolutionary emergence of language: evidence and inference |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2013 |isbn=978-0-19-965485-7 |editor-last=Botha |editor-first=Rudolf P. |pages=77–96 |chapter=Kin selection, pedagogy and linguistic complexity: whence protolanguage? |editor-last2=Everaert |editor-first2=Martin}}</ref> So even if one accepts Fitch's initial premises, the extension of the posited "mother tongue" networks from close relatives to more distant relatives remains unexplained.<ref name="Tallerman2013" /> Fitch argues, however, that the extended period of physical immaturity of human infants and the postnatal growth of the human brain give the human-infant relationship a different and more extended period of intergenerational dependency than that found in any other species.<ref name="Fitch2004" />

==== The "obligatory reciprocal altruism" hypothesis ====
Ib Ulbæk<ref name="Ulbæk1998" /> invokes another standard Darwinian principle—"[[reciprocal altruism]]"<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Trivers |first=R. L. |year=1971 |title=The evolution of reciprocal altruism |journal=Quarterly Review of Biology |volume=46 |pages=35–57 |doi=10.1086/406755 |s2cid=19027999}}</ref>—to explain the unusually high levels of intentional honesty necessary for language to evolve. "Reciprocal altruism" can be expressed as the principle that ''if you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours''. In linguistic terms, it would mean that ''if you speak truthfully to me, I'll speak truthfully to you''. Ordinary Darwinian reciprocal altruism, Ulbæk points out, is a relationship established between frequently interacting individuals. For language to prevail across an entire community, however, the necessary reciprocity would have needed to be enforced universally instead of being left to individual choice. Ulbæk concludes that for language to evolve, society as a whole must have been subject to moral regulation.

Critics point out that this theory fails to explain when, how, why or by whom "obligatory reciprocal altruism" could possibly have been enforced.<ref name="Knight2006" /> Various proposals have been offered to remedy this defect.<ref name="Knight2006" /> A further criticism is that language does not work on the basis of reciprocal altruism anyway. Humans in conversational groups do not withhold information to all except listeners likely to offer valuable information in return. On the contrary, they seem to want to [[Signalling theory|advertise to the world]] their access to socially relevant information, broadcasting that information without expectation of reciprocity to anyone who will listen.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dessalles |first=Jean L. |title=Approaches to the evolution of language: social and cognitive base |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-521-63964-4 |editor-last=James R. Hurford |pages=130–147 |chapter=Altruism, status and the origin of relevance |editor-last2=Michael Studdert-Kennedy |editor-last3=Chris Knight}}</ref>

==== The gossip and grooming hypothesis ====
Gossip, according to [[Robin Dunbar]] in his book ''[[Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language]]'', language does for group-living humans what [[Social grooming|manual grooming]] does for other primates—it allows individuals to service their relationships and so maintain their alliances on the basis of the principle: ''if you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours''. Dunbar argues that as humans began living in increasingly larger social groups, the task of manually grooming all one's friends and acquaintances became so time-consuming as to be unaffordable.<ref name="Dunbar1996">{{Cite book |last=Dunbar |first=R. I. M. |title=Grooming, gossip and the evolution of language |publisher=Faber & Faber |year=1996 |isbn=978-0-571-17396-9 |location=London}}</ref> In response to this problem, humans developed "a cheap and ultra-efficient form of grooming"—''vocal grooming''. To keep allies happy, one now needs only to "groom" them with low-cost vocal sounds, servicing multiple allies simultaneously while keeping both hands free for other tasks. Vocal grooming then evolved gradually into vocal language—initially in the form of "[[Gossip|gossip".]]<ref name="Dunbar1996" /> Dunbar's hypothesis seems to be supported by adaptations, in the structure of language, to the function of narration in general.<ref>{{Cite book |last=von Heiseler |first=Till Nikolaus |url=https://www.academia.edu/9648129 |title=Evolution of Language |publisher=World Scientific |year=2014 |editor-last=Cartmill |editor-first=R. L. C. |location=London |pages=114–121 |chapter=Language evolved for storytelling in a super-fast evolution|doi=10.1142/9789814603638_0013 |isbn=978-981-4603-62-1 }}</ref>

Critics of this theory point out that the efficiency of "vocal grooming"—the fact that words are so cheap—would have undermined its capacity to signal commitment of the kind conveyed by time-consuming and costly manual grooming.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Power |first=C. |title=Approaches to the Evolution of Language: Social and Cognitive Bases |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1998 |editor-last=Hurford |editor-first=J. R. |pages=111–129 |chapter=Old wives' tales: the gossip hypothesis and the reliability of cheap signals |editor-last2=Studdert-Kennedy |editor-first2=M. |editor-last3=Knight |editor-first3=C.}}</ref> A further criticism is that the theory does nothing to explain the crucial transition from vocal grooming—the production of pleasing but meaningless sounds—to the cognitive complexities of syntactical speech.

==== Ritual/speech coevolution ====
The ritual/speech coevolution theory was originally proposed by social anthropologist [[Roy Rappaport]]<ref>Rappaport, R. A. 1999. "Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity." Cambridge University Press.</ref> before being elaborated by anthropologists such as Chris Knight,<ref>Knight, C. 1998. Ritual/speech coevolution: a solution to the problem of deception. In J. R. Hurford, M. Studdert-Kennedy and C. Knight (eds), Approaches to the Evolution of Language: Social and cognitive bases. Cambridge University Press, pp. 68–91.</ref> Jerome Lewis,<ref>Lewis, J. 2009. "As well as words: Congo Pygmy hunting, mimicry, and play." In R. Botha and C. Knight (eds), The Cradle of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 236–256.</ref> Nick Enfield,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Enfield |first=N. J. |year=2010 |title=Without social context? |url=http://pubman.mpdl.mpg.de/pubman/item/escidoc:527132:11/component/escidoc:527220/Enfield_Science_Language%20Evolution_2010.pdf |journal=Science |volume=329 |issue=5999 |pages=1600–1601 |bibcode=2010Sci...329.1600E |doi=10.1126/science.1194229 |s2cid=143530707 |hdl-access=free |hdl=11858/00-001M-0000-0012-C777-5}}</ref> Camilla Power<ref>Power, C. 1998. "Old wives' tales: the gossip hypothesis and the reliability of cheap signals." In J. R. Hurford, M. Studdert Kennedy and C. Knight (eds), Approaches to the Evolution of Language: Social and Cognitive Bases. Cambridge University Press, pp. 111 29.</ref> and Ian Watts.<ref>Watts, I. 2009. Red ochre, body painting, and language: interpreting the Blombos ochre. In R. Botha and C. Knight (eds), The Cradle of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 62–92.</ref> Cognitive scientist and robotics engineer [[Luc Steels]]<ref>Steels, Luc. 2009. "Is sociality a crucial prerequisite for the emergence of language?" In Rudolf P. Botha and Chris Knight (eds), ''The prehistory of language''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-19-954587-2}}</ref> is another prominent supporter of this general approach, as is biological anthropologist and neuroscientist [[Terrence Deacon]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Deacon |first=Terrence William |url=https://archive.org/details/symbolicspeciesc00deac |title=The symbolic species: the co-evolution of language and the brain |publisher=W. W. Norton |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-393-03838-5 |location=New York}}</ref> A more recent champion of the approach is the Chomskyan specialist in [[linguistic syntax]], Cedric Boeckx.<ref name="Boeckx">Boeckx, C. (2023) What made us "hunter-gatherers of words". Front. Neurosci. 17:1080861. {{doi|10.3389/fnins.2023.1080861}}.</ref>

These scholars argue that there can be no such thing as a "theory of the origins of language". This is because language is not a separate adaptation, but an internal aspect of something much wider—namely, the entire domain known to anthropologists as human [[symbolic culture]].<ref>Knight, C. 2010. The origins of symbolic culture. In Ulrich J. Frey, Charlotte Störmer and Kai P. Willfuhr (eds) 2010. ''Homo Novus'' – A Human Without Illusions. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, pp. 193–211.</ref> Attempts to explain language independently of this wider context have failed, say these scientists, because they are addressing a problem with no solution. Language would not work outside its necessary environment of confidence-building social mechanisms and institutions. For example, it would not work for a nonhuman ape communicating with others of its kind in the wild. Not even the cleverest nonhuman ape could make language work under such conditions.

{{quotation|Lie and alternative, inherent in language ... pose problems to any society whose structure is founded on language, which is to say all human societies. I have therefore argued that if there are to be words at all it is necessary to establish ''The Word'', and that The Word is established by the invariance of liturgy.|Roy Rappaport<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rappaport |first=Roy A. |title=Ecology, Meaning, and Religion |publisher=North Atlantic |year=1979 |isbn=978-0-913028-54-4 |location=Richmond, CA |pages=201–211}}</ref>}}

Advocates of this school of thought point out that words are cheap. Should an especially clever nonhuman ape, or even a group of articulate nonhuman apes, try to use words in the wild, they would carry no conviction. The primate vocalizations that do carry conviction—those they actually use—are unlike words, in that they are emotionally expressive, intrinsically meaningful, and reliable because they are relatively costly and hard to fake.

Oral and gestural languages consist of pattern-making whose cost is essentially zero. As pure social conventions, signals of this kind cannot evolve in a Darwinian social world—they are a theoretical impossibility.<ref>Zahavi, A. 1993. "The fallacy of conventional signalling." ''Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences'' 340: 227–230, published by Royal Society.</ref> Being intrinsically unreliable, language works only if one can build up a reputation for trustworthiness within a certain kind of society—namely, one where symbolic cultural facts (sometimes called "institutional facts") can be established and maintained through collective social endorsement.<ref>Searle, J. R. 1996. ''The Construction of Social Reality''. London: Penguin.</ref> In any hunter-gatherer society, the basic mechanism for establishing trust in symbolic cultural facts is collective ''ritual''.<ref>Durkheim, E. 1947 [1915]. "Origins of these beliefs". Chapter VII. In É. Durkheim, ''The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life: A study in religious sociology''. Trans. J. W. Swain. Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, pp.&nbsp;205–239.</ref> Therefore, the task facing researchers into the origins of language is more multidisciplinary than is usually supposed. It involves addressing the evolutionary emergence of human ritual, kinship, religion and symbolic culture taken as a whole, with language an important but subsidiary component.

In a 2023 article, Cedric Boeckx<ref name="Boeckx" /> endorses the Rappaport/Searle/Knight way of capturing the "special" nature of human words. Words are symbols. This means that, from a standpoint in Darwinian signal evolution theory, they are "patently false signals." Words are facts, but "facts whose existence depends entirely on subjective belief".<ref>Knight, C. 2010. The origins of symbolic culture. In Ulrich J. Frey, Charlotte Störmer and Kai P. Willfuhr (eds) 2010. Homo Novus – A Human Without Illusions. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, pp. 193–211.</ref> In philosophical terms, they are "institutional facts": fictions that are granted factual status within human social institutions<ref>Searle, J. R. 1996. "The Construction of Social Reality." London: Penguin.</ref> From this standpoint, according to Boeckx, linguistic utterances are symbolic to the extent that they are patent falsehoods serving as guides to communicative intentions. "They are communicatively useful untruths, as it were."<ref name="Boeckx" /> The reason why words can survive among humans despite being false is largely down to a matter of trust. The corresponding origins theory is that language can only have begun to evolve from the moment humans started reciprocally faking in communicatively helpful ways, i.e., when they became capable of upholding the levels of trust necessary for linguistic communication to work.

The point here is that an ape or other nonhuman must always carry at least some of the burden of generating the trust necessary for communication to work. That is, in order to be taken seriously, each signal it emits must be a patently reliable one, trusted because it is rooted in some way in the real world. But now imagine what might happen under social conditions where trust could be taken for granted. The signaller could stop worrying about reliability and concentrate instead on perceptual discriminability. Carried to its conclusion, this should permit digital signaling—the cheapest and most efficient kind of communication.

From this philosophical standpoint, animal communication cannot be digital because it does not have the luxury of being patently false. Costly signals of any kind can only be evaluated on an analog scale. Put differently, truly symbolic, digital signals become socially acceptable only under highly unusual conditions—such as those internal to a ritually bonded community whose members are not tempted to lie.{{citation needed|date=November 2024}}

Critics of the speech/ritual co-evolution idea theory include Noam Chomsky, who terms it the "non-existence" hypothesis—a denial of the very existence of language as an object of study for natural science.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Chomsky |first=Noam |year=2011 |title=Language and Other Cognitive Systems. What is Special About Language? |journal=Language Learning and Development |volume=7 |issue=4 |pages=263–278 |doi=10.1080/15475441.2011.584041 |s2cid=122866773}}</ref> Chomsky's own theory is that language emerged in an instant and in perfect form,<ref>Chomsky, N. 2005. 'Three factors in language design.' ''Linguistic Inquiry'' 36(1): 1–22.</ref> prompting his critics in turn, to retort that only something that does not exist—a theoretical construct or convenient scientific fiction—could possibly emerge in such a miraculous way.<ref name="Knight2008" /> The controversy remains unresolved.