1. Evolution of Brain and Language V
Later developments:
From 100,000 BP to 1,000 BP
Language spread and diversification
The Indo-European family and other families

2. Outline of Topics for the Course
1. Introduction
2. Linguistic structure
From 5 million years BP to 1 million years BP
How/why the brain grew so large
4. Early stages of language evolution:
      From 3,000,000 BP to 100,000 BP
5. Later stages: From 100,000 BP to Present
Language spread and diversification
The Indo-European family and other families
6. The last few hundred years
Cultural evolution
The exponential progress of recent times

3. Some old questions about evolution of language
Monogenesis or polygenesis?
Sudden or gradual?
Is there a language gene?
If so, must have been a sudden mutation
As we have seen, it was a gradual development

4. Implications of the gradual evolution of language
Monogenesis vs. polygenesis
Not a meaningful question
Language gene?
Altogether unlikely

5. From Australopithecus to Homo Thousands of years ago (logarithmic scale)
| | | | | | | |
________
Australopithecus
_______
Habilenes
________________
Homo erectus
_________________
Homo heidelbergensis
______________________________
Homo neanderthalensis
_______________________________
Homo sapiens
m e a t e a t i n g
c o o k i n g
| | | | | | | |

6. From Australopithecus to Homo Thousands of years ago (logarithmic scale)
| | | | | | | |
________
Australopithecus
_______
Habilenes
________________
Homo erectus
_________________
Homo heidelbergensis
______________________________
Homo neanderthalensis
_______________________________
Homo sapiens
m e a t e a t i n g
c o o k i n g
P r e – l a n g u a g e
| | | | | | | |

7. From Homo erectus to Homo sapiens Thousands of years ago (logarithmic scale)
| | | | | | | |
__________________
Homo erectus
______________
Homo heidelbergensis
_______________________________
Homo neanderthalensis
____________________________________
Homo sapiens
c o o k i n g
? a few words ?
primitive syntax (?)
complex phonology
| | | | | | | |

8. clear speech production
Development of Language within genus Homo Thousands of years ago (logarithmic scale)
| | | | | |
_________________
Homo heidelbergensis
_________________________________________
Homo neanderthalensis
H o m o s a p i e n s
a few words
p r i m i t i v e s y n t a x (?)
clear speech production
complex grammar
| | | | | |

9. Further observations
Further complexities in phonology (beyond simple syllable structure) may only have developed after 100 kya
And after the spread of some Homo sapiens out of Africa
In that case, such further developments – complex phonology and complex grammar – may have developed in different places independently
We therefore have both monogenesis and polygenesis
Monogenesis of early proto-language
In East Africa
Simple syllable structure
Relatively small vocabulary
Simple grammar
Polygenesis for complex phonology and grammar

10. Ways of expanding the phonological system
Multiple (non-identical) syllables
Oceania, subsaharan Africa
Tones
Southeast Asia
Consonant proliferation by means of “gutteral” features
Glottalization and pharyngealization
Caucasus region
Afro-asiatic
Combination of strategies
Eurasiatic

11. Ways the grammatical system has been expanded
Syntax only (no morphology)
Southeast Asia
Agglutination – suffixes only
Northern Eurasia
Very complex morphology (“polysynthesis”)
North America
Combination of strategies
Eurasiatic, Afroasiatic

12. Implications
The fact that different strategies were adopted in different regions reinforces the suggestion that these strategies were adopted fairly recently – after the diaspora of Homo sapiens out of Africa

13. Methodology for recent (since 100 kya) developments
There is no help from paleontology
There is no historical record, until a few thousand years ago
Comparative Linguistics
A new set of techniques developed specifically for language
Started in 1776 (the traditional accepted date)
Speech of Sir William Jones to the Asiatic Society, Calcutta
Works from the present, goes back in time
Reconstruction of earlier forms
Based on systematic phonoligical correspondences

14. Sir William Jones, 1786
“The Sanscrit Language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure, more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists. There is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothick and the Celtick, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family, if this were the place for discussing any question concerning the antiquities of Persia.”

15. ‘two’ and ‘three’ in English, Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit
duo
dúo
dva
THREE
three
tres
treîs
tráyas

16. Words and their phonological components
toy
boy t- o b- -y Vo Fr Vl Ap Cl Lb Ba Sv

17. Words and their phonological componentsdo to d- u t- -w
Vd – Voiced
Ap – Apical
Cl – Closed
Lb – Labial
Vo – Vocalic
Hi – High
Ba – Back
Sv – Semivocalic Vd Ap Sv Cl Vo Ba Lb Hi

18. “Wheel” PIE *kwekw-lo-m ‘wheel’
From the sound kwekwe made by a chariot wheel
Skt cakra-
Borrowed into English as chakra
Gk küklo-
Borrowed into English as cycle
Germanic:
Gothic hal-
Old English hweogol
Modern English wheel

19. From *kwe-kwe-lo to cakra (Skt) and wheel (Engl)
kwe-kwe- ‘sound of chariot wheel’
*kwe-kwe-lo
k e k e r o k w e k o l
c e k r o x w e x o l
c a k r a h w e o g o l
h w e e l

20. CUP and its relatives PIE *keu-p- Sanskrit kūpa ‘hole, pit, cavity’
Greek kupe ‘hole, hollow’
kupellon ‘cup, goblet, beaker’
Latin cūpa ‘tub, vat, cask’
cupellus ‘cup’
Late Latin cuppa
Fr. coupe, Sp copa, It. coppa
Old English cuppe (borrowed from Late Latin)
English cup
German kopf ‘head’

21. HEAD and relatives Lat caput ‘head’ PIE *kap- (related to *keu-p-)
With suffix *-ut- for ‘head’
Lat caput ‘head’
It. capo
Fr chef
Borrowed into Middle Engl > Mod Engl - chief
Later borrowing into Mod Engl - chef
English borrowings from other Latin forms:
capital, capitol, capillary, chapter, captain

22. Joseph Greenberg (1915-2001) Language typology
Multilateral comparison’
The Languages of Africa, 1963
Language in the Americas, 1987
All native American languages can be classified into three large families
Indo-European and Its Closest Relatives: The Eurasiatic Family,
Also did important work on
Indo-Pacific (1971)
Australian

23. World etymologies – survivals from proto-sapiens I – very old words for family members
mama
papa
(t)ata ‘father, elder brother, father’s brother, grandfather’
(k)aka “elder brother, mother’s brother, grandfather’
(n)ana
(j)aja

24. World etymologies II Ruhlen & Bengtson, Global Etymologies (they give 27)
BU(N)KA ‘knee, to bend’ (English bow, elbow)
ČUN(G)A ‘nose; to smell’ (English snout, sniff)
K’OLO ‘hole’ (English hole)
KUAN ‘dog’ (English hound)
KU(N) ‘who?’ (English who, when; Latin quis)
KUNA ‘woman’ (English queen; Sanskrit gnā ‘goddess’)
MALIQ’A ‘to suck(le), nurse; breast’ (English milk)
MANO ‘man’ (English man; Sanskrit mánu)
POKO ‘arm’ (English bough)
TIK ‘finger; one’ (English toe, Latin dig(-itus) ‘finger’)

25. T h a t ‘ s i t f o r t o d a y