The Origin of Language from a Multidisciplinary Perspective

Abstract

Until the late twentieth century, the origin of human language was widely regarded as an enduring mystery. However, the veil has begun to lift as advances in linguistics, evolutionary biology, primatology, archaeology, brain and cognitive engineering, genetics, and artificial intelligence (AI), particularly in large language models, have enabled genuinely interdisciplinary approaches. This convergence has made it possible to formulate more plausible hypotheses about language origins and to develop strategies for empirically evaluating some of them. This study surveys and critically assesses recent debates and findings concerning four core issues in language evolution: (1) which properties of human language are unique compared with those of animal communication; (2) when language emerged in human evolution; (3) whether language evolution is best explained primarily by biological processes or by gene–culture coevolution; and (4) what selective pressures most strongly shaped the evolution of language.