Language and Nature

Reviewevidence suggests that it arose within the past 100 000 years 2. So far, no equivalent to human language has been found in other animal species, including apes and songbirds 3. However, some of the systems required for language, such as the production of ordered sound sequences, have analogues in other species, such as vo-cal-learning songbirds 3 (Box 1). Furthermore, there is overwhelming evidence that the capacity for language has not evolved in any significant way since human ancestors left Africa, approximately 50 000–80 000 years ago 2. Although there are some individual differences in the capacity to acquire language, there are as yet no firmly established group differences (Box 2). If so, then the human language faculty emerged suddenly in evolutionary time and has not evolved since.