# Origins of Language

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Category: Languages
Slides: 32
Updated: 2026-05-15T22:18:27.542Z
Tags: languages, origins, language

## Summary

No fossil preserves a sentence. No artefact records the first word. The origin of language is the central problem of human evolution and the one for which direct evidence is most absent. Key sections include: Origins of Language.; Opening The hardest question.; Chapter I Defining the thing.; Chapter II Chomsky's claim.; Chapter III UG and its critics.; Chapter IV Bickerton's hypothesis.; Chapter V Tomasello's account.; Chapter VI The speech gene.; Chapter VII The descended larynx.; Chapter VIII The bones we have..

## Slide Outline

1. Origins of Language.
2. Opening The hardest question.
3. Chapter I Defining the thing.
4. Chapter II Chomsky's claim.
5. Chapter III UG and its critics.
6. Chapter IV Bickerton's hypothesis.
7. Chapter V Tomasello's account.
8. Chapter VI The speech gene.
9. Chapter VII The descended larynx.
10. Chapter VIII The bones we have.
11. Chapter IX The Blombos signal.
12. Chapter X Hands before voice.
13. Chapter XI The musilanguage hypothesis.
14. Chapter XII The pidgin-creole evidence.
15. Chapter XIII The Nicaraguan miracle.
16. Chapter XIV The window.
17. Chapter XV The recursion question.
18. Chapter XVI What apes can.
19. Chapter XVII The unlikely cousins.
20. Chapter XVIII Two systems.
21. Chapter XIX Broca and Wernicke.
22. Chapter XX The dispersal and language.
23. Chapter XXI An honest disclaimer.
24. Chapter XXII The instinct argument.
25. Chapter XXIII Counting and language.
26. Chapter XXIV Language and thought.
27. Chapter XXV The grooming hypothesis.
28. Chapter XXVI Twenty essentials.
29. Chapter XXVII Watch & read.
30. Chapter XXVIII The defensible summary.
31. Chapter XXIX The frontier.
32. The end of the deck.

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