Vocal communication is not uncommon in the animal world at a very basic level these vocal communications could be called language even if they are far removed from the sophisticated language skills employed by human beings.

Though it is almost impossible to discern the complexity of communication in other animals including apes, birds, and sea mammals it is assumed that communication is limited to the most basic and vital for the survival of each species. Fear, warning, and mating availability are amoung the vocal communications that we know of and they are for the most part differentiated from each other by pitch, volume, and urgency heard in the pace of the communication.

Humans today still employ these most primitive techiques when communicating these basic signals but in more sophisticated language pitch, volume, and pace is all but replaced by precision found in the development of various vowel and consonant sounds and their combination to create words which can convey more than just primitive and instictive communication.

So just how has our language evolved into the technical and sophisticated device we take for granted every day ?

My interest in this topic really began when I first heard a Xhosa African on television. Anyone who has ever heard the Xhosa spoken language couldn't help but be struck by 'clicking' and 'clucking' sound used as a consonant which litters the language amonst the more familiar vowel/consonant sounds we're used to. Aparently Xhosa has 15 distinct 'clicking' sounds but as with many unfamiliar things they all sound the same to me.

Xhosa is not the only language that uses this 'clicking' but all that do (to my knowledge) are found in Southern Africa. Which raises a very interesting question in my mind. Given that this part of Africa is very close to where we humans first evolved, were our earliest ancestors as likely to 'cluck' as they were to grunt or go 'Ugh' ?

It should be noted that most of us still use similar sounds today to communicate we just don't associate it with language. Some of us tut, some click like a camera when they wink. and some cluck their tongue while shaking their head. All of these are communications but what differentiates Xhosa and similar Southern African languages from this is the incorporation into phonetic language.

At some point when communication skills are developing, variations in pitch, volume, and pace are insuffericient to communicate the expanding range of concepts that an increasingly sophisticated social grouping needs to express to develope further. The initial language innovation would not be to develope sophisticated precision vowel/consonant words but to instead find new and distinct sounds like 'clicking' until combinations using all sounds, pitch, volume, and pace have been exhausted and the neccessity to develope a more sophisticated language becomes an imperative if social development is to continue.

In effect these 'clicking','clucking' sounds are the missing link in our language developement which has been discarded, for the most part, by our early ancestors over time.

As mentioned above we still use 'tuts', 'clucks', and 'clicks' today but we seem to use them only to accompany and emphasise strong visual signals. At some point when language became the primary form of social interaction superceding visual signals we discarded these sounds choosing instead the sounds familiar to us all. We probably used single syllable word combinations first to describe the concepts that needed to be communicated most often. This is almost the same in any language. Sun, moon, star, food, drink, good, bad, all on syllable whereas as rarer or extremely sophisticated concepts must use the multi-syllabic combinations that are left over.

Xhosa shows that this 'clucking' was not abandoned by all and simply incorporated into the language as any other consonant sound we use today.

I don't know if anyone has any thoughts on this. I know I'd be interested in reading them.

Great post John.

I too have been struck by the Xhosa speach

What about looking at the way babies aquire speach?
now its been a long time since I read this, but they start out with sounds that require little effort the first sound is "P" "Paa" just blowing air over the lips.

Obviously there are experts who can join this topic, but I always imagined that primitive languages would develop using primitive speach patterns, such as that displayed by babies.

I would imagine that there is a realtionship between xhosa speach and the simple sounds a baby coulld make. (not that I am saying xhosa is "primitive" to all you PC'ers out there)

[edit on 24-8-2005 by Netchicken]

Thanks for the reply there Netty.

I did a quick check beforte I posted the above (mainly to try and find an audio file for those unfamiliar with how Xhosa sounds[ unsuccessfully]) and one thing I missed out which directly relates to what you're saying is that apparently it takes Xhosa children up to 5 years to acquire the 'clicking' sound.

So it's not easy at all which probably indicates why other groups of people abandoned it for the sounds we're more used to.

Interesting concept, and probably true.

Another question would be could Neanderthals speak this way? Because that wuld give them a far more comlex vocabulary than we had expected of them.

I think Neanderthals probably used clicks, whistles, and hand signals as well as pitch, volume, and pace but I doubt they used them in a sophisticated way. Perhaps a few nouns like food and fire and and few verbs like hunt and eat which must have been essential for basic communication.

Just to note that Neanderthals weren't direct ancestors of modern humans but a sub species of a common ancestor.

Again whistling is quite interesting too. Humans still whistle to communicate whether it's a wolf whistle to attract the attention of a pretty girl or other whistles to grab attention or alert each other to danger.

Dolphins use clicks as well as 'song'. 'Song' is nothing but pitch, volume and pace but the clicks add another dimension to their communication. Because of the nature of their enviroment which means that audio signals are very effective they too have fewer visual signals than other mammals. Which could be a sign of their own "language" evolution and hrowing intelligence.

Thankyou very much for that post Jeremiah25. Far from simply repeating any points I may have made you've run with it and turned up more interesting associated subjects which have certainly given me pause for thought.

I am especially intrigued by what you've written about misunderstood "primitive" languages and it's going to give me something to think about today.

My initial thoughts on this topic are that that misunderstanding is couple to a large degree by cultural arrogance. The forces of evolution act on everything which involves life and language is no different but because many of us look around us and see that evolution has led to us we arrogantly ignore the fact that evolution doesn't always pick the best long term solution only the best short term solution.

A language's sophistication is no guarentee of it's survival when so many other factors (eg military, agricultural) are dominant when cultures clash and cultural priorities might not be recognised, misunderstood, or ignored.

In many ways the dominance of English recently has led us all to become culturally homogeneous and if that continues then who could say that what we have lost and will lose isn't important.