The Origin of Human Speech: Culture, Biology, and Evolution Working Together

This research shows that human language did not emerge all at once, but was constructed over time. It developed from abilities already present in other species, such as communication and social interaction, which were expanded and reorganized by culture and life in human society. The study highlights that language is the result of a combination of biology and culture, shaped by how humans think, learn, and relate to each other.

Since humans developed the capacity to use language, the desire to understand where it came from and how it formed throughout evolution has also arisen. Although human language is highly sophisticated and has unique characteristics, recent research shows that language is not entirely exclusive to our species.

Some animals also exhibit complex forms of communication, leading to the idea that human language may have developed from capabilities shared with other species.

This research describes a scientific framework for studying how language evolved. This framework combines cultural and biological factors, because language does not depend solely on genes or solely on social learning, but on the interaction between the two.

The authors illustrate this idea using three case studies, each addressing a different aspect of human language: the ability to learn sounds, the emergence of the structural rules of languages, and the social foundations of communication.

The first case study analyzes how humans learn to produce speech sounds. This ability is called vocal learning. It involves the capacity to listen to, imitate, and adjust sounds over time. In humans, this ability is essential for learning to speak, but it didn't develop only in our species.

Some birds, such as songbirds, as well as bats, elephants, cetaceans, and pinnipeds, also exhibit this ability. By observing these animals and combining genetic studies, neurobiological research, and ancient DNA analysis, scientists propose that our vocal capacity arose from the modification and recombination of older biological systems that existed before human language evolved.

The second case study explores the emergence of linguistic structure. This includes patterns and rules, such as grammar, syntax, and word organization. This characteristic is considered one of the most important hallmarks of human language.

Scientists studied how languages ​​arise in conditions where they did not previously exist, for example, in communities with spontaneously created sign language. They also conducted laboratory experiments that mimic the cultural evolution of language over several generations and compared human linguistic behavior with that of other species, such as primates and birds.

This approach shows that linguistic structure depends on a combination of biological, cognitive, and cultural factors. Some of these capacities appear in isolation in other species, but only in humans do they come together in a way that allows for highly structured language.

The third case study focuses on the social basis of communication. Human language is not just a system of sounds and rules; it is also driven by the social need to share information, teach, cooperate, and create bonds.

Although animals like songbirds also learn communication socially and transmit signals between generations, humans demonstrate a particularly strong and spontaneous motivation to share knowledge, which is rarely observed in other species. This motivation may have been a decisive step in the emergence of language.

Together, the case studies show that human language likely arose from the combination and transformation of capabilities already present in other species, but reorganized throughout human evolution.

Furthermore, cultural transmission, that is, learning from others and passing on knowledge, played a role as important as biological evolution. Therefore, the authors propose that language should be understood on three time scales: the individual scale, when each person learns the language; the cultural scale, when language changes across generations; and the evolutionary scale, when biological changes make new forms of communication possible. These scales do not function in isolation, but influence each other.

The research also suggests that reward systems in the brain may have played an essential role. This means that language development may have been favored because communicating well brings social and emotional benefits, such as group acceptance, cooperation, and survival. Thus, the intrinsic motivation to communicate may have been as important as the physical and cognitive capacity to produce sounds and create linguistic structures.

Overall, this approach shows that understanding the evolution of language requires collaboration from diverse scientific fields, such as biology, linguistics, psychology, genetics, and anthropology. This integration helps to build a more complete picture of how one of the most important skills of the human species was formed.

READ MORE:

What enables human language? A biocultural framework

INBAL ARNON,  LIRAN CARMEL, NICOLAS CLAIDIÈRE, W. TECUMSEH FITCH, SUSAN GOLDIN-MEADOW, SIMON KIRBY, 

KAZUO OKANOYA, LIMOR RAVIV, LUCIE WOLTERS, and SIMON E. FISHER 

SCIENCE, 20 Nov 2025, Vol 390, Issue 6775

DOI: 10.1126/science.adq8303

Abstract:

Explaining the origins of language is a key challenge in understanding ourselves as a species. We present an empirical framework that draws on synergies across fields to facilitate robust studies of language evolution. The approach is multifaceted, seeing language emergence as dependent on the convergence of multiple capacities, each with their own evolutionary trajectories. It is explicitly biocultural, recognizing and incorporating the importance of both biological preparedness and cultural transmission as well as interactions between them. We demonstrate this approach through three case studies that examine the evolution of different facets involved in human language (vocal production learning, linguistic structure, and social underpinnings).