How did we get language?

"CLONEBEAR COOL-IDIOTKA,VD PC" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

How did we get language?

Why can't adults pick up a language with no effort?

The language centre of the brain works better when young. Like many things it's is easier to learn
when you are young as you are less influenced by local culture and have fewer fixed ideas about
the world.

One of the main problems with learning a language is that many people know their own language so
well that they mentally think/talk to themselves in that language. It becomes so familiar that when
they learn another language they don't simply listen and speak that language, instead, in their
head, they translate it back to their native language in order to understand it.

Over time it just simply becomes much harder to break with the norms you have established. Try
folding your arms, without realising it you will fold them in a familiar way. Now fold them the
other way and it will feel very wierd, almost uncomfortable because you are so used to doing it one
way, even though there is no right or wrong way to fold your arms you will feel that it is wrong.

<< How did we get language?

Why can't adults pick up a language with no effort?

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I theorize that we gained the ability to communicate long ago. Animals use sounds to be able to
communicate with one another, and I believe the selection pressure which caused the human race to
develop language was the presence of predators, and the lack of food. These negative factors usually
cause the greatest development. Here is what I think:

Food supply is short, and as we know, the body needs a variety of different minerals and vitamins to
survive. With only a certain kind of food, or with just water, we would perish. Humans need a
variety of foods for different compounds (carbohydrates, proteins).. etc...

In a tribe of pre-humans (Cro-Magnon, [censored] Habilis), the women do none of the hunting. They stay in
the dwellings to take care of the young, or their own belly (pregnancy). Meanwhile, the male goes
out to hunt for the female and himself.

If the female can't express what vital nutrients she needs: she dies. If she is in need of water,
she has to be able to communicate this to her mate so he can fetch it for her, as it takes hours to
obtain these kind of supplements, and without them death would shortly come.

Anyway, a random mutation produces a female who can communicate with the male, even in simple
monotones, what kind of food he or she needs, so the male can fetch it for her (which can take
days). She survives, because she has the much needed nutrients, and breeds (passes on that gene that
allows her to communicate) because she can do this. Other females who cannot do this die out.
Evolution continues, and now we have turned spoken word into the written word, and now even to the
typed text, as I utilize at this very moment.

Strange, eh? Just a theory, don't flame me if you think or know I am wrong, I am just trying to take
a stab at it. Anyone else have any other ideas?

-Ian "[email hidden]" "Efficiency is intelligent laziness." - David Dunham

CLONEBEAR COOL-IDIOTKA said:

How did we get language?

Why can't adults pick up a language with no effort?

There are two competing hypotheses - one is that we have an innate "language acquisition device"
that is a kind of cognitive module from when we first evolved language. This enables infants to
infer the structure of an underdetermined syntax and grammar from adult examples, but which once
trained does not allow the later acquisition of another language easily or as fully as those learned
early. This is the Chomsky-Pinker approach.

Another, and to my mind more satisfying, version is that we are generally unspecialised at learning
*anything*, and that our *languages* are so structured as to be learnable by a "naive" brain; they
have become so because they evolved by a cultural selection process - those that became too baroque
for naive brains to learn either simplified or became extinct. This case rests on neurological
evidence, and the difference to artificial languages (like maths) that are learned at the ages after
the natural languages are learned. This is the view put forward by Terence Deacon.

The question why language evolved is answered by Deacon thus: apes and primates in general have a
symbolic capacity roughly equivalent to the encephalisation quotient of their brain:body ratio.
Primates have this in a greater ratio than most mammals. But the human ratio is off the primate
scale. Deacon argues that we coevolved with languages; in effect we evolved to adapt to
communicating with each other. The book is _The symbolic species_ and I recommend it.
--
John Wilkins DARK IN HERE, ISN'T IT? wilkins.id.au

CLONEBEAR COOL-IDIOTKA said:

How did we get language?

Why can't adults pick up a language with no effort?

Throw an adult into a situation where she has no choice but to learn a language and she'll pick it
up with amazing rapidity. Berlitz utilizes this with their "total immersion" approach to teaching
languages.

If you must learn quickly how to say "I am hungry" or "I am thirsty" or "Where's the bathroom?"
you'll do it with no effort, no matter what the language.

It's only difficult to learn a language if you must do it from a language grammar book.

[email hidden]

[email hidden] (CLONEBEAR COOL-IDIOTKA,VD PC) wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

How did we get language?

Why can't adults pick up a language with no effort?

I don't know how we got language. I'm not sure we'll ever have enough evidence to figure this out.
But from an evolutionary psychology perspective, I think that it's useful to make a distinction
between modern human language, with its use of symbolism and abstract concepts, and more primitive
types of language that don't involve the capacity for this sort of thing.

I think it's useful to make this distinction, because by so doing we can consider certain hypotheses
about the mechanisms by which our ancestors may have outcompeted various rival hominid species.

DV

"dkomo" <[email hidden]> wrote in message

Quoted message said:

Throw an adult into a situation where she has no choice but to learn a language and she'll pick it
up with amazing rapidity. Berlitz utilizes this with their "total immersion" approach to teaching
languages.

Though it is very rare for an adult to pick up a new language well enough to pass for a
native speaker.

[email hidden] (darth_versive) wrote in
:"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

[email hidden] (CLONEBEAR COOL-IDIOTKA,VD PC) wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

How did we get language?

Why can't adults pick up a language with no effort?

I don't know how we got language. I'm not sure we'll ever have enough evidence to figure this out.
But from an evolutionary psychology perspective, I think that it's useful to make a distinction
between modern human language, with its use of symbolism and abstract concepts, and more primitive
types of language that don't involve the capacity for this sort of thing.

I think it's useful to make this distinction, because by so doing we can consider certain
hypotheses about the mechanisms by which our ancestors may have outcompeted various rival hominid
species.

I agree that language requires symbolism (the book I refer everybody to is "The Symbolic Species" by
Terence Deacon). In this respect language differs from the (quite complex) communication systems
used by other animals - and this may be the distinction you are making. The question then is how you
get from more simple communication to the symbolic processing required for language. There has to be
a "proto-language", but as you point out there needs to be a mechanism that makes this "proto-
language" useful in competition with rival species that don't have it.

Yours,

Bill Morse

Am just to comment on the original subject:-question:

The scope of the question is so vast that I will limit myself to making an EPT (anthropocentric and
all that) comment only.

We got language because of both the more or less obvious intrinsic (~ referring to physiological patterning-
potentials) and extrinsic (environmental/niches for the taking) opportunity type pressures, and
because it ALSO serves us in our frequently being faced with and challenged to cope with various
kinds of life-situations of an adverse character.

Importantly, some such "adversity type" environmental pressures causes conditioned-in chronic states
[most generally and basically thanks to the very early in phylogy taken opportunity for individuals
to become capable of retaining and 'receiving automatic personal advice' from their own past
experiences (threats narrowly escaped and opportunities just missed or taken)] that deserve to be
labelled CURSES (alt. CCKHHURSES).

The acronym CURSES defines (CCKHHURSES only more thoroughly so - especially in context of EPT --the
"explanatory philosophical terminology" of which it part), and of course refers to, actively
suppressed highly charged experience-storing neural states that normally tend to form whenever the
individual are in a "selective Hibernation imploring type situation" ([censored] for short). This
expression/acronym describes individuals encountering physically inescapable stressor of a kind that
sooner or later would become responded-to (according to primary instinctive-genetic instruction) by
futile and self-defeating distress WERE IT NOT prevented from happening by precisely enough targeted
inhibitory firing by neurons that "block" the output from distress-motivating/distressor-
representing neurons at the core of CURSES type memories (specifically and by definition "conditioned-
in" by [censored]).

A to me too blunt and unpalatable way of talking about the same "personality and society shaping"
insidious factor is to use Arthur Janov's term "primal Pain". Other existing terms and expressions
are either to bland, not self-defining enough, or too indirect or round-about in character, for my
taste. The acronym CURSES (or CCKHHURSES), on the other hand, hits my spot.
%-)

Language, produced by the so called dominant hemisphere, serves an AEVASIVE (obviously both socially
and self-regulatory but importantly also CURSES-controlling) function by acting like a neural sponge
by as if soaking-up reticular activation type signals (sent via/by reticular type fibres/neurons)
from circuit-locations where CURSES have been "put" by [censored] [simultaneously seriously and sEPTic-
humorously concEPTualized].

Part of the sum total selective pressures behind our upright-walking promoting pelvis, arises from
that the time of birth became a significant additional source of [censored] (-type experiences); a source
whose complementary theoretical significance derives from that our births occurs at a both most
helpless (hence more often selective Hibernation reliant) and formative stage of development; And,
that therefore, this particular kind of CURSES, having been thus naturally put into the _brains_
(reconcEPTualized as "actentions selection systems"😉 of our human and prehuman ancestors, were as if
strategically positioned for being a factor of our phylogeny strongly leveraged into having an
insidiously evolutionary speed increasing impact within the more or less directly language-dependent
cultural aspects of human life.

I am afraid that the evolution _and function_ of language can not be optimally understood without
this particular EPT (Evolution Philosophical/Theoretical) perspective being incorporated into any
attempt to understand it.

P

From "Robert Karl Stonjek"@bigpond.net.au Thu Sep 25 12:02:59 2003 Return-Path: <"Robert Karl
Stonjek"@bigpond.net.au> Received: from mta05ps.bigpond.com (mta05ps.bigpond.com [144.135.25.159])
by darwin.ediacara.org with ESMTPœ id h8PG2v1x023939 for <[email hidden]>; Thu, 25
Sep 2003 12:02:59 -0400 (EDT) Received: from adsl ([144.135.25.78]) by mta05ps.email.bigpond.com
(iPlanet Messaging Server 5.2 HotFix 1.14 (built Mar 18 2003)) with SMTP id
<[email hidden]> for [email hidden]; Thu, 25 Sep 2003
20:47:26 +1000 (EST) Received: from cpe-144-137-29-160.vic.bigpond.net.au ([144.137.29.160]) by
psmam04bpa.bigpond.com(MAM REL_3_3_2d 98/821292); Thu, 25 Sep 2003 20:47:26 +0000 Date: Thu, 25 Sep
2003 20:47:37 +1000 From: <Robert.Karl.Stonjek> Subject: Article] Cleverness may carry survival
costs To: "Sci.bio.evolution Send" <[email hidden]> Reply-to: Robert Karl Stonjek
<[email hidden]> Message-id: <002801c38352$6fbcb1a0$0100000a@adsl> MIME-version: 1.0 X-
MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1106 X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express
6.00.2800.1106 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT X-
Priority: 3 X-MSMail-priority: Normal Status: RO

Cleverness may carry survival costs

13:50 24 September 03

Being smart is not always a good thing in the evolutionary race, suggests a new study by Swiss
researchers

If intelligence were always a positive attribute, it would always be selected for by natural
selection. But it is not - people and animals have their dolts as well as their Einsteins.

To evolutionary biologists, that diversity means that theoretically, there must be some cost to
being smart. Now for the first time, researchers have shown that in fruit flies at least, it doesn't
always pay to be clever.

When Frederic Mery and colleagues at the University of Fribourg, pitted fast-learning fruit fly
larvae against their more dimwitted cousins in scarce food conditions - the slower fruit flies came
out on top.

"This shows that just having a better ability to learn involves a cost, even when you aren't using
it," Mery told New Scientist.

Read the rest at NewScientist newscientist.comnews.jspOpen ↗

Kind Regards, Robert Karl Stonjek.

William Morse <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

[email hidden] (darth_versive) wrote in :"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

[email hidden] (CLONEBEAR COOL-IDIOTKA,VD PC) wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

How did we get language?

Why can't adults pick up a language with no effort?

I don't know how we got language. I'm not sure we'll ever have enough evidence to figure this
out. But from an evolutionary psychology perspective, I think that it's useful to make a
distinction between modern human language, with its use of symbolism and abstract concepts, and
more primitive types of language that don't involve the capacity for this sort of thing.

I think it's useful to make this distinction, because by so doing we can consider certain
hypotheses about the mechanisms by which our ancestors may have outcompeted various rival
hominid species.

I agree that language requires symbolism (the book I refer everybody to is "The Symbolic Species"
by Terence Deacon). In this respect language differs from the (quite complex) communication
systems used by other animals - and this may be the distinction you are making. The question then
is how you get from more simple communication to the symbolic processing required for language.
There has to be a "proto-language", but as you point out there needs to be a mechanism that makes
this "proto-language" useful in competition with rival species that don't have it.

Yours,

Bill Morse

I personally was speaking not so much about the question of "how we get" from the more simple proto-
language to the more complex symbolic human language, in terms of neuroscience or cognitive
psychology, etc. This type of question is what I had in mind when I said, "I'm not sure we'll
ever have enough evidence to figure this out." But regardless of whether we can ever figure this
out, this question isn't within my own particular area of interest, as interesting as it might be
to others.

Instead, I was speaking more about questions relating to the latter part of your statement:
questions such as how a difference in capacity for using language could have been manifested on the
ground, such as what particular mechanisms could have been involved in translating this differential
capacity for language into a competitive advantage for certain hominid species. That is, what was
the function of language within these hominid societies? What sorts of behavior patterns did it
allow them to engage in which gave them a selective advantage over other hominid species which
lacked that particular level of language use?

DV

I might just *try* to clear up something of what I meant [in the previous post] by the
paragraph below.

Quoted message said:

Part of the sum total selective pressures behind our upright-walking promoting pelvis,

By that cryptic parlance I implicitly meant that: The key new mutations, that gave rise to the
physioanatomy enabling upright walking, also gave rise to an additional adversity type evolutionary/life-
situational pressure in that the pelvic structure dependent birth-canal became narrowed.

Other adverse evolutionary/life-situational challenges, that arrived with our ancestors becoming
bipedal, are: re-timing of the birthing event toward a more immature and still more helpless
individual being born, and a bigger brain (by the way, specifically in context of the neurological
and physiological pressures of being born, both these changes are classifiable as additional
adversity type pressures).

The required 'neuro-hormonal machinery', prominantly exemplified by the surge in the release of
opioids (in both mother and baby) during the time of birth, were since long already
'phylogenetically put' in place (and might not even have had to be mutationally boosted).

And so, the evolutionary subprinciple, and phylogenetic potential and de facto path of patterning in
the direction of ambi-advantageously adaptive phenotypes [as it happened most especially in the 'de
facto direction' of people -- us late examples of the genus/lineage labeled "[censored] [X]", did as if
make itself most substantially manifest.

Thereof our AEVASIVE (more or less EPT but at least lingual if not logical 😉 evolution-
philosophical/theoretical discussions.

Quoted message said:

arises from that the time of birth became a significant additional source of [censored] (-type
experiences); a source whose

complementary

Quoted message said:

theoretical significance derives from that our births occurs at a both

most

Quoted message said:

helpless (hence more often selective Hibernation reliant) and formative stage of development;

And, that therefore, this particular kind of CURSES
[i.e., our to bipedalism transiting ancestor's on average more traumatic births], having been thus
naturally put into the _brains_ (reconcEPTualized as "actentions selection systems"😉 of our
human and prehuman ancestors, were as if strategically positioned for being a formative factor
of our phylogeny.

A factor (selective pressure) THAT insidiously but strongly accelerated the speed of our evolution
in the direction of our current AEVASIVE brains/behaviours and cultures.

P

[email hidden] (darth_versive) wrote in
:"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

William Morse <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I agree that language requires symbolism (the book I refer everybody to is "The Symbolic Species"
by Terence Deacon). In this respect language differs from the (quite complex) communication
systems used by other animals - and this may be the distinction you are making. The question then
is how you get from more simple communication to the symbolic processing required for language.
There has to be a "proto-language", but as you point out there needs to be a mechanism that makes
this "proto-language" useful in competition with rival species that don't have it.

Quoted message said:

I personally was speaking not so much about the question of "how we get" from the more simple proto-
language to the more complex symbolic human language, in terms of neuroscience or cognitive
psychology, etc. This type of question is what I had in mind when I said, "I'm not sure we'll
ever have enough evidence to figure this out." But regardless of whether we can ever figure this
out, this question isn't within my own particular area of interest, as interesting as it might be
to others.

Instead, I was speaking more about questions relating to the latter part of your statement:
questions such as how a difference in capacity for using language could have been manifested on
the ground, such as what particular mechanisms could have been involved in translating this
differential capacity for language into a competitive advantage for certain hominid species. That
is, what was the function of language within these hominid societies? What sorts of behavior
patterns did it allow them to engage in which gave them a selective advantage over other hominid
species which lacked that particular level of language use?

Deacon also addresses this question in his book, but I have to admit I found his explanation
unconvincing. He argues that symbolic processing evolved in response to the development of a
contractual relationship between a man and a woman - in response to marriage. Once symbolic
processing started, the development of language snowballed. I tend to agree with the "snowball"
part, as witnessed by the rapid increase in hominid brain size. And I do think that the necessity
for greater parental investment on the part of the male to raise children who required greater
education is part of the equation. But I tend to favor the idea that the overall increase in
importance of cultural transmission which included tool use and trade in addition to better
communication led to the emergence of rudimentary symbolic processing.

One of the key competitive advantages of cultural transmission is that it allows for Lamarckian
evolution - the inheritance of acquired characteristics - on top of the power of Mendelian (genetic)
evolution. The behavior pattern is that of education, which (as you may notice) remains one of the
chief concerns of [censored] sapiens.

Yours,

Bill Morse

William Morse <[email hidden]> wrote, snipping out one sentence:

Quoted message said:

One of the key competitive advantages of cultural transmission is that it allows for Lamarckian
evolution - the inheritance of acquired characteristics - on top of the power of Mendelian
(genetic) evolution.

No, it doesn't. Cultural evolution is the evolution of cultural phenotypes, not biological
phenotypes, and the former do not inherit acquired characters.
--
John Wilkins wilkins.id.au For long you live and high you fly, and smiles you'll give and tears
you'll cry and all you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be

William Morse <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

[email hidden] (darth_versive) wrote in

<snip>

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I personally was speaking not so much about the question of "how we get" from the more simple
proto-language to the more complex symbolic human language, in terms of neuroscience or
cognitive psychology, etc. This type of question is what I had in mind when I said, "I'm not
sure we'll ever have enough evidence to figure this out." But regardless of whether we can ever
figure this out, this question isn't within my own particular area of interest, as interesting
as it might be to others.

Instead, I was speaking more about questions relating to the latter part of your statement:
questions such as how a difference in capacity for using language could have been manifested on
the ground, such as what particular mechanisms could have been involved in translating this
differential capacity for language into a competitive advantage for certain hominid species.
That is, what was the function of language within these hominid societies? What sorts of
behavior patterns did it allow them to engage in which gave them a selective advantage over
other hominid species which lacked that particular level of language use?

Deacon also addresses this question in his book, but I have to admit I found his explanation
unconvincing. He argues that symbolic processing evolved in response to the development of a
contractual relationship between a man and a woman - in response to marriage. Once symbolic
processing started, the development of language snowballed. I tend to agree with the "snowball"
part, as witnessed by the rapid increase in hominid brain size. And I do think that the necessity
for greater parental investment on the part of the male to raise children who required greater
education is part of the equation. But I tend to favor the idea that the overall increase in
importance of cultural transmission which included tool use and trade in addition to better
communication led to the emergence of rudimentary symbolic processing.

One of the key competitive advantages of cultural transmission is that it allows for Lamarckian
evolution - the inheritance of acquired characteristics - on top of the power of Mendelian
(genetic) evolution. The behavior pattern is that of education, which (as you may notice) remains
one of the chief concerns of [censored] sapiens.

Yours,

Bill Morse

Regarding the subject of your first paragraph, this would also fall into the category I mentioned
above (outside of my area of interest). I'm sure it's an important topic of interest to many, but I
just don't get into the "how it evolved" question. I'm more interested in its effects on behavior
once it *had* evolved, however that happened. And how a differential capacity for language was
manifested on the ground among different hominid species.

It is primarily the subject of your second paragraph which interests me. I wouldn't use the term
"Lamarckian" myself, though, since that term has biological connotations, as opposed to cultural
ones. And this relates to the study of education and behavior, as you mentioned.

DV

[email hidden] (John Wilkins) wrote in
:"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

William Morse <[email hidden]> wrote, snipping out one sentence:

Quoted message said:

One of the key competitive advantages of cultural transmission is that it allows for Lamarckian
evolution - the inheritance of acquired characteristics - on top of the power of Mendelian
(genetic) evolution.

No, it doesn't. Cultural evolution is the evolution of cultural phenotypes, not biological
phenotypes, and the former do not inherit acquired characters.

Well, hmmm...

My first short response is that my statement is about cultural transmission, which may not be what
you are referring to as cultural evolution. An example - the macaque who figured out that throwing
handfuls of grain mixed with sand into the water and scooping up the floating grain was more
efficient than laboriously picking out the grain from the sand. Now all the macaques in that tribe
practice the technique. This to me is certainly lamarckian. Perhaps you don't call this culture, but
prefer to call it simply learned behavior, with only the mode of learning being an element of the
cultural phenotype, not the actual learned content. I can live with that (or something like it), in
which case I would be happier with your statement that cultural phenotypes do not inherit acquired
characters. Of course, I would still disagree with the statement, but I would be happier with it :-)

I do think the question of malleability of cultures is an interesting one, and can give a longer
response with a little more explanation of your claim that cultural evolution is also Mendelian.

Yours,

Bill Morse

William Morse said:

[email hidden] (John Wilkins) wrote in :"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

William Morse <[email hidden]> wrote, snipping out one sentence:

Quoted message said:

One of the key competitive advantages of cultural transmission is that it allows for Lamarckian
evolution - the inheritance of acquired characteristics - on top of the power of Mendelian
(genetic) evolution.

No, it doesn't. Cultural evolution is the evolution of cultural phenotypes, not biological
phenotypes, and the former do not inherit acquired characters.

Well, hmmm...

My first short response is that my statement is about cultural transmission, which may not be what
you are referring to as cultural evolution. An example - the macaque who figured out that throwing
handfuls of grain mixed with sand into the water and scooping up the floating grain was more
efficient than laboriously picking out the grain from the sand. Now all the macaques in that tribe
practice the technique. This to me is certainly lamarckian. Perhaps you don't call this culture,
but prefer to call it simply learned behavior, with only the mode of learning being an element of
the cultural phenotype, not the actual learned content. I can live with that (or something like
it), in which case I would be happier with your statement that cultural phenotypes do not inherit
acquired characters. Of course, I would still disagree with the statement, but I would be happier
with it :-)

I do think the question of malleability of cultures is an interesting one, and can give a longer
response with a little more explanation of your claim that cultural evolution is also Mendelian.

Yours,

Bill Morse

Bill, before we go further, I have a paper on this you can read at the link below (via published
papers) entitled "The appreance of Lamarckism in the evolution of culture", in which I argue the
following claims:

1. Lamarckian evolution always relies on prior "darwinian" learning, because no epistemic system can
predict the future, only learn from the past. Anything that *looks* like Lamarckian evolution
must be in fact a version of Darwinian evolution at a deeper or earlier point.

2. Things in culture look Lamarckian because the wrong entities are being used as the benchmark
entities - biological entities like organisms are being used as the cultural items that acquire
something. But biological organisms in a biological evolutionary play do not acquire biological
genes because they are taught something; social entities like agents acquire cultural
inheritables, and *that* process is a "darwinian" one of inheritance of fitter cultural items
that went to *cultural* fixation by trial and error.

That said, I fully think the Japanese macaque was doing is cultural evolution. When, and only when,
that behaviour is acquired as a genetic disposition via the Baldwin Effect will it become
biological, and that isn't Lamarckian either.

And culture is not Mendelian - it does not have the ratios of recombination, nor dominant or
recessive forms, and so on. But it is likely to be particulate...
--
John Wilkins DARK IN HERE, ISN'T IT? wilkins.id.au

<< In a tribe of pre-humans (Cro-Magnon, [censored] Habilis), the women do none of the hunting. They stay
in the dwellings to take care of the young, or their own belly (pregnancy). Meanwhile, the male goes
out to hunt for the female and himself. >>

I think it is more likely that language is an outgrowth of a child's cry to be fed. The entire
mammal experience helps bond baby and mother. Language would be a natural part of this ( cry FOR
food, cry AGAINST what hurts)