Evolutionary Aesthetics: Chapter 5: Language

I. An Introduction to the (Possible) Origins of Language

If language is an instinct, it must have biological origins — or else we must attribute mystical origins to it. But language is so distinctly human that it is difficult for many to understand how this ability could have evolved. If there is any one thing uniquely human, it is language. So where did language come from? How are we to understand it as an instinctual, evolutionary phenomenon if only humans have it? I begin with the origins of language because some…