The Evolution of Language: From Speech to Culture | Gifford Lectures 2019 | Prof Mark Pagel | Pt 1
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- 'Wired for Culture: the origins of the human social mind, or why humans occupied the world' - The Gifford Lectures 2019
Lecture 1: 'The evolution of language: from speech to culture'
All animals communicate, but language is uniquely human. In this talk, Mark Pagel will show how human languages evolve very much like biological species and even adapt to their hosts - human speakers. He will discuss when language emerged, whether Neanderthals and other hominins were capable of speech, and ask the question of why only humans seem to have language. Professor Pagel will show how language has been more important to human success than have our genes, and that many of our genetic traits exist because of language. Finally, we will explore why are there so many languages and what does the future hold for them.
Dates: 23, 24, 28, 29 October 2019
Location: Sir Charles Wilson Lecture Theatre, University of Glasgow
Mark Pagel is a Fellow of the Royal Society and Professor of Evolutionary Biology at Reading University in the UK. He is best known for his work on building statistical models to examine the evolutionary processes imprinted in animal and human behavior, from genomics to the emergence of complex systems - to language and culture. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the award-winning Oxford Encyclopedia of Evolution and co-author of The Comparative Method in Evolutionary Biology which is regarded as a classic in the field. He is widely published in Nature and Science. His book 'Wired for Culture: Origins of the Human Social Mind' was one of the Guardian newspaper’s best science books of 2012.
The University of Glasgow, changing the world since 1451.
www.gla.ac.uk/
Talk starts at 11:00
thanks
Doing God's work
I just listened to an interview of an archeologist by stefan milo on neaderthals and symbolism. It has been proven that neanderthals had some kind of symbolism, and as they interbred with us, it is extremely unlikely that they did not have some kind of language. Carvings, pigments, even constructions of larger size for nonpractical but symbolic reasons have been proven for neanderthals.
I agree. I was just watching the following talk last night (interestingly enough)... th-cam.com/video/4uUilIN-8gk/w-d-xo.html ... and the content of the two differing discussions just bifurcated around [31:40]. As well... regarding neanderthals... "We interbred with them, so it 'seems'..." leaves me cold. Unless it was merely semantics, this fact is beyond dismissal. Hope the remainder of the lecture was helpful to some.
It is established that language emerged already in homo erectus. Neanderthals definitely were able to speak.
I remember hearing that Neanderthals buried their dead. If that's true surely that indicates some kind of non-literal thinking?
I think Language is like everything, there are degrees of development. More of a continuum. So, I think it is highly likely that Neanderthals were capable of a form of communication that was somewhat close to what we call language - more so later in their period than earlier and that this sits on some sort of continuum between literalism and semiotics and full blown language. There is a leap with modern humans but that may have more to do with the size of our community units - we lived in larger communities - more people, more ideas to transfer.
I too share the same algorithm. Until we meet again. I wish you well.
Nice presentation! But if language is the pinnacle of the Sapiens evolution towards sophisticated communications capabilities it sounds quite odd that the speaker refuses to even consider the hypotethis that Neanderthal's communication capabilities stuck somewhere between Erectus and Sapiens. Little adherence to evolutionary thinking It seems and thin argumentative support for that kind of positioning.
Dogs and cats given ASL buttons who learn to communicate w humans through them have TONs of things to say, even pondering things like “why dog?” “Why love me?”
i believe Pagel is missing a crucial point, and that is the evolution of the human vocal tract (HVT). I would argue that it required much more time for the HVT to have evolved to the state it is in today than he's suggesting with his 200,000 year time frame. It is most likely that the HVT's emergence began with H erectus, and it began because H erectus was using some sort of vocal communication in an increasing manner. Which necessarily means that Neanderthal had some sort of vocal communication as well, and given Neanderthal's brain size, it would argue, at least, for language. The Neanderthal vocal tract is sufficiently evolved to produce language. I emphasize the evolution of the vocal tract for this reason: when it began to evolve, humans lost the ability to breath and drink at the same time. In all other terrestrial mammals, the nasal tract can link with the trachea, which allows one to breath and swallow at the same time, but when the HVT began to evolve, this link was broken. It eventually led to a condition where any human risks choking with every bite or sip he or she takes. Now, why on Earth would such a hazardous condition be increased over time? It would seem to be counter-evolutionary, in fact. But it was occurring because of one simple fact. Vocal communication had become so important to the species that it had supplanted the dangers of the new shape of the HVT. So, does vocal communication mean language? No, at least not right away. There was most likely a long evolutionary process that had to occur with both the vocal tract and the brain before modern language finally emerged. So, in that respect, 200,000 years might be plausible, but only if we're talking about full-blown modern language.
At 29:43 the speaker is being fairly chauvanistic about what constitutes language, specifically in that homo erectus and neanderthals' tool kits were too crude to be evidence of "real" language. Contrast his position with any of the recent lectures by Daniel Everett for a very different take.
Daniel L. Everett’s gradualist views on evolution of language and his conjecture that language could have originated with Homo Erectus are not mainstream. Mark Pagel was measured and delivered the generally accepted theory on the origin of language as a technological toolkit of Homo Sapiens.
I wanted to like the lecture but failed. I don’t think one should be able to conclude that Neanderthals did not have language based on the evidence he presented. He also claims language helped us steer around the world. However, even Homo Erectus was practically everywhere and Neanderthals were well adapted to harsh weather conditions of Eurasia while we waited for hundreds of thousands years for better conditions. And I don’t think there is even a slight connection between language and the genes like milk digesting and high altitude genes. I was surprised he didn’t connect bipedalism to language but then realized it would undermine his position on language capabilities of other homo species.
I agree. Chimpanzees point and coordinate attacks and hunts in the wild. They have gestures for "let's groom", "give me some space", "hop on my back" (for a kid), "danger that way", etc. Deaf humans use sign language. Language is not dependent on sound obviously. But my point is that if we have signs of communicative complexity in chimps then it probably exploded in the australopith/homo line.
Also, yea, he just pointed out that boom in brain size and moved on. As if it wasn't like a "hint hint! Language probably evolved around here".
Stone tools seem simple, until you try to make them.
I was recently listening to a master flint knapper explain that language would definitely be required in order to teach the skills of knapping.
Exactly. Dan Everett’s hypothesis that homo erectus already could communicate using language seems to me to be more plausible. He addresses the precise issue of tool making and describes an experiment showing it would’ve been impossible to learn how to do it without receiving verbal instructions
Speech in h sapiens can be traced back to 200,000 ya, and the "rich, symbolic" expression dates to at most 40,000 ya, then there had to be a significant time period well over 100,000 years when there was speech and no rich, symbolic visual representation. So how does the absence of this representation demonstrate that H. Neanderthalensis did not have speech? H. naledi is dated well before the 200,000 ya but they had complex funerary rituals. How does that cut? Cultural practices, including visual art, it's not very strong evidence in favor of language, however defined. It's apparent absence is even weaker evidence.
Just because the "rich, symbolic" expression found in cave paintings dates to 40,000 ya does not mean that other ephemeral means of symbol representation were not used e.g. a stick in the soil/sand, charcoal on tree bark or etchings in wood etc etc. We could have been using these other methods way before cave-paintings which are particularly well preserved because of their location.
The chart at 57:30 supports Prof. Pagel's assertion that homo sapiens left Africa about 200,000 years ago. However, the map at 59:30 suggests that homo sapians did not really get out of Africa until roughly 50,000 years ago. So what was happening in that 150,000 year gap? Also, what happened at 50,000 years to open the flood gates?
Bonjour Les "Lecture" de JEAN LUC MARION de décembre 2023 seront bientôt diffusées sur le net ? Merci !!!!
"There" is consonant-vowel or consonant-diphthong (or consonant-vowel-consonant if in your dialect you pronounce "r" every time it occurs, and does anyone pronounce the final "e" as a distinct sound?). "TH" is a simple consonant represented by a combination of two letters (the Roman alphabet doesn't have a single sign for it, so a "digraph" is used; likewise for the simple consonant represented by "sh"). In my dialect (standard British English), "R" is only pronounced at the beginning of a syllable, so for me, "there" is just one syllable: consonant-diphthong, therefore (according to context) two or three sounds, NOT five sounds.
Our speaker is confusing letters (written symbols) and consonants (actual sounds). We say that K is a consonant, but what we mean is that K is a symbol (written sign) that stands for a consonant (actual sound). I think that when discussing matters of this kind we need to bear such distinctions in mind, otherwise we can say all sorts of things that are misleading or simply wrong.
So when Pagel says that "there" is "consonant-consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel" he is confusing our modern spelling system with the sounds that people actually make: not FIVE sounds but just two (like me) or three (like him). My point is that language is, in the first place, what people say, not what people write. A five-sound word would be something like "acids", "tripped", "spotty". Speakers of different dialects might happily squabble about the number of sounds in "conservation" or "integer" or "laboratory", but in doing so they will realise that however we speak, the spelling is merely a conventional use of symbols.
The reason why this bothers me is that I would expect a person who is talking about the origin of language to understand this distinction at a basic level. The fact that he is confusing such distinctions is, to say the least, worrying. Does he think his audience is too stupid to understand the distinction between real things and the symbols we use to represent them, or is he disguising a tendentious argument?
I believe he does think his audience and anyone watching this is that stupid.
It was a deliberate simplification to illustrate the combinatorial explosion in word composition.
"Telecommunication" is not used for the number 2 because it doesn't MEAN two. It has its own meaning. If you were an ancient Roman, when talking about "two" you would probably say "secundus" or "secunda" or "secundum", or "secundorum" or "secundarum" or "secundis"... This was perfectly normal for many generations. The root "sec", in all its various forms, means "that which follows" or (in the plural) "those which follow", being understood as whatever comes after the first.
The point here is, how does a culture conceptualise the notion of "two"? If "two" just means a number, then Latin has a set of suitable short words based on the root "du-": duo, or duae, or duarum or... But if "two" means "one more than one" Latin provides another word, or range of related words, based on the root "sec-". English cannot do this, so it is easy for speakers of English to assume that other people are somehow culturally defective in not having a simpler vocabulary. The opposite, however, may truly be the case.
The problem here is not that "telecommunication" is a LONG word. The word exists because we know the meaning of its elements: tele (distance) + communication (getting together). We realise what it means. The fact that it is a long word in itself does not matter, because it says several things that would otherwise have to be expressed in a number of words: "getting together over distance". How is "getting together over distance" better than "telecommunication"? Long words exist for this reason. When we find a briefer way to express the same idea, "telecommunication" will be no doubt replaced by a shorter word. Until then, it does its job. The fact remains that "long" words are usually combinations of elements that stand for sequences of individual words, and therefore sequences of concepts. Short words are not so good at that: usually, you just have to "know" what they mean. "Long" words, therefore, will continue to occur.
Starts at 11:08
Many claims that are highly debatable (at best).
"We exert a sort-of "natural selection" on words and cultural phenomena". There is always purpose behind human selection, there is never purpose behind natural selection, so human selection is not a kind of natural selection. Even Darwin understood this, because he explicitly contrasted natural selection with domestication in his book The Origin of Species.
Even well-bred, at times brilliant people can be narrow-minded, prejudiced and ignorant. This is sad!😞
Like professor
11:17 hell of introduction
Excelent!!!!what does he think about denisovans....and how does he believe that simbolysm is only our? ???
"Theory of mind"
Lots of animals have that.
When one walks into the garden, birds land on the feeder to remind you to feed them.
When one points to foos on the wall they go to the food,
they don't land on your finger (well some doves do, but they were a one-off).
Skip to 11:15
Excellent concepts
Entiendo que los neandertales no sólo vivieron en Europa, también lo hicieron en Asia
Fantastic series. I know the word evolution may be a turn off for many. Dogma has a way of dimming illumination and discovery.
Words don't compete, biological organisms compete. Words are tools. Tools do not compete or do anything apart from their use by persons.
Only humans have theory of mind, so I suppose all those studies that show the opposite are wrong then? Not going debunk or refute those findings even a little bit? Ok so not convincing enough evidence for you so, discarded. Considering its such a controversial topic maybe it would have demanded a bit of attention. Although you seem to state the claim that "homo sapiens" hold the exclusive ability of language and speech as an objective universally accepted fact as well, which, well, it's not, but whatever.
Animals don't have "Theory of Mind?"
You haven't been around dogs or horses. When they want something, that you can get but they can't, they'll let you know. They know you. When you point to something, they'll look to or for it.
Darwin fits the definition, God, perfectly: He (His work) is immortal; He is worshipped by many, like you; His doctrine is infallible; and He is believed over material evidence.
Two things:
one, you are mixing up human Nature for religious nature;
two, you posit science, as the infallible source of all truth.
Thats animal perceptual association ,not mans conceptual/logical mind.
@@subjectandpredicate7172 Look out at reality, not inward. Focus your mind.
@@subjectandpredicate7172 Science is infallible within a context of knowledge.
Since most infrequent words are just Latin words, "demanate" is a bad example of a made up word because if there was ever a need for a word meaning "to remove sea crows" that word would be demanate. One could argue that it is a real word, as much as eructate is, just so infrequent that it has not been used yet.
Incredible topic and under 10k views. Meanwhile a dude falling down the stairs get 20M hits. Gotta laugh!
Its really amazing to listen you sir...I am student of archaeology and my interest in each and every branch of this subject.. Thank you for this series
With language👄💬, Manual dexterity and cortical control of sex man saved his existence on the planet, with language👄💬 we fought and loved each other✋ that's why we say God is love❤ and 🐶dog is bow!
cooperation and sharing are possible without language, in fact it's their presence that makes language possible. So it is false to say that it's language that makes them possible. A vocabulary is a shared body of words. It's not possible to have a language without the sharing of words and meanings.
It was a well-explained lecture. Thank you very much.
You forget that the Mediterranean dried out several times, so, who is to say that we didn't spread out of the Mediterranean. After all the Med had the optimal temperature, whereas Africa was and is hot as hell.
Why on earth did he apologize for the use of the word “man” at around 19:45 ?
I'm assuming he would have preferred to use the word "humans" as it is non gender specific.But yeah,it seems like an unnecessary thing to say as it was Darwin who said it and not him.
@@dharma_star It troubles me, that the culture wars are seeping into the sciences.
Oh dear,
"in 1879 he (Darwin) wrote that "I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God. - I think that generally ... an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind".[103][197]"
Agnosticism is confusion on principle. Its more destructive to the mind than theism.
@@TeaParty1776 Whose mind, yours or mine?
And how would you test such an assertion?
I regard agnosticism as both intellectually honest and spiritually open. To that extent it is a healthy perspective, not damaging at all.
@@gedofgont1006 Mans mind is his basic method of survival in the concrete material universe. Its not a toy for intellectual subjectivists. Mind requires certainty for its functioning. Even a false certainty is better than a principled rejection of certainty. Such an intellectual habit will stop the mind from functioning.
@@gedofgont1006 The human mind is the same mental power in all, despite individual free will. This is known by common human experience, prior to testing. Testing is relative to common human experience. There is no mystical testing.
The heavy reliance [on/of] ~ needing to repetitively tell and refer to the Tower Of Babel story, just to explain a point, is no different to the sound of a squawking parrot or a boobrookling pigeon.
Several inaccuracies. Not suitable for an academic lecture.
28:12
He is a linguist. "The rewards they want is food." Should it read "are food"?
1:15:48
"...I think (!) they (neanderthals) lived a very literal existence..."
A rather poorly thought out adjective, given his disbelief in Lingua neanderthalia. But that is not surprising, when he doesn't even know the etymology of the word, "language," demonstrated earlier in this drivel.
What about the development of languages other than European languages ?
He is the most condescending, arrogant person ever. Enforcing his theories through rhetorical language abuse like Cato does not make them right. But this „Why we have language and others (implied: definitely) had/ have not“ is beyond your capacity to prove.
But do you know what is a Scottish kiss?
underneath your kilt?
Book of urantia.....better than hoy bible.....to understand our evolution!!!!
Indo-European is much older than Hebrew.
IE is a theory. There doesn't exist IE language, IE people, or IE literature. If you find some, let me know, otherwise please do not bother to reply.
Just checking, the Hebrew seems to be 3600 years old, the Cucuteni civilization is about 8000 years old and it's probably a preindoeuropene language and civilization. Seems to be part of the Thracians living from Anatolia to the Baltic sea and from the south Germany to all the north Black Sea. But would be not the only big civilization undermined in the world history. Just saying that Machu Picchu is a 700 years old is ridiculous or the Egyptian pyramid was built 5000 years ago using wooden tools... But you have right, Hebrew is more important than whatever.... The history and linguistic research is a myth well protected from the reality.
...after 15 minutes of introduction and accolades that no viewer gives a damn about.
Animals communicate but do not have language…
GOD DISPERSED PEOPLE INTO 70 DIFFERENT LANGUAGES AFTER THE TOWER OF BABEL. TODAY THERES MORE THAN 200 LANGUAGES.
1:03:10
"...everything about his body is designed to lose heat..."
He's black!
I love the lecture, but it could be called, “Fuck other species”
Better than nailing yourself to a cross.
@@TeaParty1776 this is a deep meaning. Just look to yourself : a spirit nailed to your body cross. And suffering...maybe not yet enough to understand the deep meaning. But the time will be showing finally the truth. When I was younger I thought that the older people are closer to the church and religion because they are worry for the moments after the death. I needed another 40 years to understand that it's just, not for everyone, the level of wisdom you gain looking around you for longer.
@@ionelghiorghita688 I dont have the vaguest idea about whether you agree or disagree w/me. What is your point? Be explicit and principled.
Darwin was a wonderful creation of God!
The question about hebrew as a mother language makes no sens. This man need to know that hebrews didn't invent the phones of hebrew alfabet, so hebrew digs in a cradle of semitic languages, from east africa toward western india. The thing we answer to this question, it's that hebrew language was relatively well preserved through 4000 years, so like the sanskrit language, they both still carrying anciant archeologic logos called etymas (double consonnant, oldest trace of words), and so both language are till witnesses of the mother tongue (mother tongue of western languages).
They have the same origin, whether people want to believe it or not. The story of Noah is more than a story of the flood, and the Tower of Babel is more than just a bunch of people building something tall.
Both give clear examples of the dispersal of people groups, who were named for and still are called by those original names and their languages all reflect the common origin. Yes, the people groups from Shem, Ham and Japheth all populated the East and Central Asia and this is not only proven genetically, but linguistically and archeologically. Even Spencer Welles conceded that a man from Central Asia carried the oldest Y chromosome from one single male, not saying it was Japheth.
Whether you believe a boat saved 8 people in the deluge or you do not believe it, the most important thing to remember is that while the Bible gives names to people to be understood by the context of their actions or attributes, it does not necessarily mean that individual's proper name.
Allow me to give an example.
In the Elder Futhark Runes of ancient Scandinavia, there are several that are indeed recognizable. For instance, let's look at Kenaz. At first you would think Kenaz is out of place because it is a Hebrew name. Kenaz means torch in Elder Futhark but fire in Hebrew. Why is this important? One of the future statements given by Noah to Japheth, he said that Japheth would be enlarged, and is bright. One of the sons of Japheth was Ashkenaz, which was until the late 1800s, still called by the Jews on maps...Eastern Europe. The name Ashkenaz literally means "a fire that spreads". That is why we call Eastern European Jews as Ashkenazi.
That is just one example.
In Elder Futhark, the rune Ansuz means "primordial God" and in Sumer, An is the name of the primordial God. The Scandinavians just added suz to the the end. Also, the Elder Futhark has Laguz and Uruz, the second being the image of a bull, the Aurochs, which was the symbol for the city Ur in Sumer. And Laguz is Lagash, which means water, but the city itself sat on the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.
How many words are there now to compare origins of Scandinavian and Hebrew? Why do those same names appear in the Bible that many still call those people place names by today?
Gomer is the father of the Cimmerians. They are traceable throughout history and appear also in the writings of the Greek historians. Not only that, but even Japheth shows up in northern India.
This is no coincidence, Hebrew and Scandinavian have the same common origin.
@@moorek1967 you have right. I didn't know why they are looking the same! 🙄
As long as the Thracian culture is avoided as a subject we will not be able to explain a lot of the Greek, Mycenaean, Ethruscan or Cucuteni culture which was the origin of the European culture, completely opposite of the semitic culture. All of this was matriarchal cultures, the women was an important part of the cultures having the right to decide for them bodies and life. Something similar was the North American native lifestyle, a culture of freedom , all of this inconvenient for the new controlled world called the " Judeo-Christian" culture.
Typical british nonsens. I rather listen to Dan Everett.
this guy is incredibly wrong on so many things. i had to stop at 32:00. This is horrible!
From Wikiedia,
"Darwin's first paper showed that the South American landmass was slowly rising, "
Darwin's wrong! Global warming points to higher oceanic levels.
Plate tectonics operate independently of global warming. You don't understand enough science to pass judgement on Darwin. Your bias toward superstition eliminates you from any adult activity regarding science and the real world.
Not such a keen argument, Keenan.
I hate the brand name, "Darwin," but not the man. Darwin was a believer in God. God mightn't have been the Biblical God, in totum, but, so what!
God, as far as I can tell, is the belief in life outside this phenomenal multiverse; life as a constant force, because we can find no other life in the multiverse. Life can't have evolved, because inanimate matter cannot produce animate spirit.
To believe verbatim a book is to believe a lie, since it cannot contain total truth. Neither the Bible nor Darwin can contain the whole truth. Those, who cheer lead for ultimate truth to be contained in any book, are lying, whether they know it or not.
"You don't understand enough science..."
Huh?
What a fool you are!
What's the cause of global warming?
You don't understand enough science to pass judgment on techtonics.
You don't understand enough science to pass judgment on my positings
I'll be glad, when these blokes have to work for their living, ploughing fields, growing food, etc.
That's not to say there won't be study, but these blokes won't be studying anything but the wooden handles of their ploughs and which ones give them fewer blisters
Why are you here then? Go watch agriculture and ploughing videos.
BS, why are you here, that's what I keep wondering; you and your religious worshippers of the flawed theist/agnostic/God believing Darwin.
Charles Darwin believes in God! Charles Darwin believes in God! Carles Darwin believes in God! Repeat after me, Charles Darwin...
That's one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
Dry your tears, ladies!
"out of Africa" is false
And wot about the immediate claim that has me worshipping the Biblical God, as if there aren't any other Gods and no definition of God!
Classic ignorance from the "thientithts."
In theory it's about empirical evidence; but in practice it's about clinging to the life raft, "thienth," and spewing the crudest vulgarities of emotion. Ha,ha!
It's the old one, two. "See, we holding the banner, "Thienth," so, whatever we thay, ith thientific and twue. And that meanth you can't have an opinion, unless it agreeth with outh!
Darwin is your God. He's always right, because he's God.
Trouble is, doesn't matter for how long you rub dirt together, you're not going to produce anything else
Have you read your book ? apparently a invisible magic sorcerer is needed to blow on the dirt. Genesis 2:7, The Lord God took a handful of soil and made a man. God breathed life into the man, and the man started breathing.
Darwin fits no definition of the word God. There is no church of Darwin on your block, no solicitating tax free money every Sunday for Darwin. Unlike the primitive man made Gods that know nothing of science, Darwin's writings were all about science. He also personally wrote his own book, unlike the god you have. I could go on but I am sure nothing will sink in with you.
That's a biblical extract, I couldn't quote. Been reading the Bible, have we?
Both the Bible and Darwin are unbelievable. The Bible because it is metaphorical; the other Holy Book, Darwin, because it is fantasy.
"Science," hallowed be thy name! tells us there is no other life in the multiverse, because there has been none empirically found. Is it possible tha Earth can be the only home of life in something as incomprehensibly large as the multiverse? Impossible, because something cannot come from nothing, neitther space nor time.
Can animate spirit be produced ininanimate matter? No! It doesn't matter how long you sit around banging dirt and gasses together, you will not produce animate spirit, which is organic matter.
A car runs by combustible fuel being combustef by a spark. Perfectly material, right?
But something must turn the key.
Your old fashioned, out of date materialism just doesn't cut it, sonny, in the dimensional realization of this existence.
God, as a true entity? Sure, why not, as a primitive understanding of both unknown material forces and super (more than) material reality.
Darwin existed. Never ever been somebody's make believe friend .. religion makes people stupid. Enjoy .