tag:theconversation.com,2011:/nz/topics/spoken-language-evolution-50950/articlesSpoken language evolution – The Conversation2021-08-19T18:01:21Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1662432021-08-19T18:01:21Z2021-08-19T18:01:21ZBat pups babble and bat moms use baby talk, hinting at the evolution of human language<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416565/original/file-20210817-27-17iivj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C74%2C4128%2C2541&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A babbling pup produces distinct syllables, visualized in this composite image.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/782534">Michael Stifter and Ahana Fernandez</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Mamama,” “dadada,” “bababa” – parents usually welcome with enthusiasm the sounds of a baby’s babble. Babbling is the first milestone when learning to speak. <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Phonological+Development%3A+The+First+Two+Years%2C+2nd+Edition-p-9781118342831">All typically developing infants babble</a>, no matter which language they’re learning. </p>
<p>Speech, the oral output of language, requires precise control over the lips, tongue and jaw to produce one of the basic speech subunits: the syllable, like “ba,” “da,” “ma.” <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Phonological+Development%3A+The+First+Two+Years%2C+2nd+Edition-p-9781118342831">Babbling is characterized by universal features</a> – for example, repetition of syllables and use of rhythm. It lets an infant <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Emergence-of-the-Speech-Capacity/Oller/p/book/9780805826296">practice and playfully learn</a> how to control their vocal apparatus to correctly produce the desired syllables.</p>
<p>More than anything else, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/evolution-of-language/2347BC6741639875250495BA3435056F">language defines human nature</a>. But its evolutionary origins have puzzled scientists for decades. Investigating the biological foundations of language across species – as I do in bats – is a promising way to gain insights into key features of human language.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=FZy7JlIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">I’m a behavioral biologist</a> who has spent many months of 10-hour days sitting in front of bat colonies in Panama and Costa Rica recording the animals’ vocalizations. My colleagues and I have found striking parallels between the <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/10.1126/science.abf9279">babbling produced by these bat pups and that by human infants</a>. Identifying a mammal that shares similar brain structure with human beings and is also capable of vocal imitation may help us understand the cognitive and neuromolecular foundations of vocal learning.</p>
<h2>Vocal learning in other animals</h2>
<p>Scientists learned a great deal about vocal imitation and vocal development by studying songbirds. They are among the best-known vocal learners, and the learning process of young male songbirds <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.neuro.22.1.567">shows interesting parallels</a> to human speech development. Young male songbirds also practice their notes in a practice phase reminiscent of human infant babbling.</p>
<p>However, songbirds and people possess different vocal apparatus – birds vocalize by using a syrinx, humans use a larynx – and their brain architecture differs. So drawing direct conclusions from songbird research for humans is limited.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416572/original/file-20210817-17-s2xcgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="brown bat on tree with its mouth open while vocalizing" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416572/original/file-20210817-17-s2xcgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416572/original/file-20210817-17-s2xcgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416572/original/file-20210817-17-s2xcgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416572/original/file-20210817-17-s2xcgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416572/original/file-20210817-17-s2xcgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416572/original/file-20210817-17-s2xcgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416572/original/file-20210817-17-s2xcgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A greater sac-winged bat pup babbling in its day roost.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/782536">Michael Stifter</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Luckily, in Central America’s tropical jungle, there’s a mammal that engages in a very conspicuous vocal practice behavior that is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-006-0127-9">strongly reminiscent of human infant babbling</a>: the neotropical greater sac-winged bat, <em>Saccopteryx bilineata</em>. The pups of this small bat, dark-furred with two prominent white wavy stripes on the back, engage in daily babbling behavior during large parts of their development.</p>
<p>Greater sac-winged bats possess a large vocal repertoire <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-004-0768-7">that includes 25</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2008.05.018">distinct syllable types</a>. A syllable is the smallest acoustic unit, defined as a sound surrounded by silence. These adult bats create <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-004-0768-7">multisyllabic vocalizations and two song types</a>. The territorial song warns potential rivals that the owner is ready to defend their home turf, while the courtship song lets female bats know about a male bat’s fitness as a potential mate.</p>
<p>Of particular interest to me and my colleagues, the greater sac-winged bat is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2009.0685">capable of vocal imitation</a> – the ability to learn a previously unknown sound from scratch by ear. It requires acoustic input, like human parents talking to their infants, or in the case of the greater sac-winged bat, adult males that sing.</p>
<p>The only other non-human mammal that scientists have <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4535550">documented babbling is the pygmy marmoset</a>, a small South American primate species that is not capable of vocal imitation. The greater sac-winged bat offered the first possibility to study pup babbling in detail in a species that can imitate the vocalizations of others. But just how similar is bat babbling to human infant babbling?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416567/original/file-20210817-15-vuosuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="woman kneels behind video camera pointed at tree in tropical environment" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416567/original/file-20210817-15-vuosuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416567/original/file-20210817-15-vuosuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416567/original/file-20210817-15-vuosuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416567/original/file-20210817-15-vuosuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416567/original/file-20210817-15-vuosuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416567/original/file-20210817-15-vuosuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416567/original/file-20210817-15-vuosuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fernandez spent long days in the field recording the vocalizations of greater sac-winged bat pups in their day roosts.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/782539">Michael Stifter</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Hundreds of hours of bat babbling</h2>
<p>To answer that question, I monitored the vocal development of wild pups in eight colonies. During the day, <em>S. bilineata</em> find shelter and protection in tree crevices and outer walls of buildings. They’re very light-tolerant, and adults like to stay several centimeters apart from one another, making it easier for us to observe and record particular individuals.</p>
<p>To be able to recognize specific bats, I marked their forearms with colored plastic bands. I followed 20 pups from birth until weaning. Starting around 2.5 weeks of age, and continuing until weaning around 10 weeks old, pups babble away between sunrise and sunset in the day roost. It’s very loud, audible even to the human ear because some babbled syllables are within our hearing range (others are too high for us to hear). For each pup, I recorded babbling bouts – some of which lasted as long as 43 minutes – and the accompanying behaviors throughout their entire development. In contrast, adult bats produce <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-004-0768-7">vocalizations that last no more than a few minutes</a>.</p>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="10" data-image="" data-title="Excerpt of a babbling bout of a Saccopteryx bilineata pup, in real-time." data-size="244600" data-source="Ahana A. Fernandez" data-source-url="https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/782535" data-license="CC BY-ND" data-license-url="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">
<source src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/2247/babbling-excerpt-1-real-speed-black-background-credit-ahana-fernandez.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
</audio>
<div class="audio-player-caption">
Excerpt of a babbling bout of a Saccopteryx bilineata pup, in real-time.
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" rel="nofollow" href="https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/782535">Ahana A. Fernandez</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a><span class="download"><span>239 KB</span> <a target="_blank" href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/2247/babbling-excerpt-1-real-speed-black-background-credit-ahana-fernandez.mp3">(download)</a></span></span>
</div></p>
<p>Scientists have known for a while that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-006-0127-9">pups learn how to sing by</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2009.0685">vocally imitating adult tutors while babbling</a>. But our new study <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/10.1126/science.abf9279">provides the first formal analysis</a> that their babbling really does share many of the features that characterize babbling in human infants: duplication of syllables, use of rhythm and an early onset of the babbling phase during development.</p>
<p>Just as human infants produce sounds that are recognizable as what are called canonical adult syllables – those with mature features that sound like what an adult speaker produces – bat pups’ babbling consists of syllable precursors that are part of the adult vocal repertoire.</p>
<p>And just as human babbling includes what are probably playful sounds produced as the infant explores their voice, bat babbling includes so-called protosyllables that are only produced by pups.</p>
<p>Moreover, pup babbling is universal. Each pup, regardless of sex and regional origin, babbled during its development.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DN-9a4MVA1Q?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The pup (on the right, with darker fur) sits beside the mother bat and engages in babbling behavior in the day roost. <em>Credit: Michael Stifter</em></span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Baby talk, from mom to pup</h2>
<p>During my first field season, I noticed that during babble sequences, mothers and pups interacted behaviorally and vocally. Mothers produced a distinct call type directed at pups while babbling.</p>
<p>We humans alter our speech depending on whether we are addressing infants or adults. This infant-directed speech – also known as motherese – is a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.277.5326.684">special form of social feedback for the vocalizing infant</a>. It’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.24.1.14">characterized by universal features</a>, including higher pitch, slower tempo and exaggerated intonation contours. The timbre – the voice color – <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2017.08.074">also changes when people speak “motherese”</a> compared to when talking to other adults. Timbre is what makes a voice sound a bit cold and harsh or warm and cozy. Could it be that female bats also changed their timbre, depending on whom they directed their calls to?</p>
<p>The results were clear: For the first time, we’d found a non-human mammal that changes the color of voice depending on the addressee. <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2020.00265">Bats also use baby talk</a>!</p>
<p>[<em>Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>Our results introduce the greater sac-winged bat as a promising candidate for cross-species comparisons about the evolution of human language. Babbling is like a behavioral readout of the ongoing vocal learning happening in the brain. When pups babble, they imitate the adult song – and provide us with insight about when learning is taking place. It offers the unique possibility to study the genes that are involved in vocal imitation.</p>
<p>And since bats share their basic brain architecture with people, we can translate our research findings from bats to humans. I’m fascinated that two mammal species that are so different share striking parallels in how they reach the same goal: to acquire a complex adult vocal repertoire – namely, language.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166243/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ahana Aurora Fernandez does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Vocal imitation is a key part of how humans learn to speak. New research shows that bats babble to learn and use baby talk to teach, just like people do.Ahana Aurora Fernandez, Postdoctoral Researcher in Behavioral Ecology and Bioacoustics, Museum für Naturkunde, BerlinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1285142019-12-11T19:03:31Z2019-12-11T19:03:31ZExamining how primates make vowel sounds pushes timeline for speech evolution back by 27 million years<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306429/original/file-20191211-95149-1bal81j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=303%2C720%2C4251%2C2916&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Baboons make sounds, but how does it relate to human speech?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/baboon-relaxed-sitting-tree-1536555830?studio=1">Creative Wrights/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sound doesn’t fossilize. Language doesn’t either.</p>
<p>Even <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_writing">when writing systems have developed</a>, they’ve represented full-fledged and functional languages. Rather than preserving the first baby steps toward language, they’re fully formed, made up of words, sentences and grammar carried from one person to another by speech sounds, like any of the perhaps <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-do-human-beings-speak-so-many-languages-75434">6,000 languages spoken today</a>.</p>
<p>So if you believe, as we linguists do, that language is the foundational distinction between humans and other intelligent animals, how can we study its emergence in our ancestors?</p>
<p>Happily, researchers do know a lot about language – words, sentences and grammar – and speech – the vocal sounds that carry language to the next person’s ear – in living people. So we should be able to compare language with less complex animal communication.</p>
<p>And that’s what we and our colleagues <a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/12/eaaw3916">have spent decades investigating</a>: How do apes and monkeys use their mouth and throat to produce the vowel sounds in speech? Spoken language in humans is an intricately woven string of syllables with consonants appended to the syllables’ core vowels, so mastering vowels was a key to speech emergence. We believe that our multidisciplinary findings push back the date for that crucial step in language evolution by as much as 27 million years.</p>
<h2>The sounds of speech</h2>
<p>Say “but.” Now say “bet,” “bat,” “bought,” “boot.”</p>
<p>The words all begin and end the same. It’s the differences among the vowel sounds that keep them distinct in speech.</p>
<p>Now drop the consonants and say the vowels. You can hear the different vowels have characteristic sound qualities. You can also feel that they require different characteristic positions of your jaw, tongue and lips.</p>
<p>So the configuration of the vocal tract – the resonating tube of the throat and mouth, from the vocal folds to the lips – determines the sound. That in turn means that the sound carries information about the vocal tract configuration that made it. This relationship is the core understanding of speech science.</p>
<p>After over a half-century of investigation and of developing both anatomical and acoustical modeling technology, speech scientists can generally model a vocal tract and calculate what sound it will make, or run the other way, analyzing a sound to calculate what vocal tract shape made it.</p>
<p>So model a few primate vocal tracts, record a few calls, and you pretty much know how human language evolved? Sorry, not so fast.</p>
<h2>Modern human anatomy is unique</h2>
<p>If you compare the human vocal tract with other primates’, there’s a big difference. Take a baboon as an example.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306195/original/file-20191210-95173-1t2mbr7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306195/original/file-20191210-95173-1t2mbr7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306195/original/file-20191210-95173-1t2mbr7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=329&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306195/original/file-20191210-95173-1t2mbr7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=329&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306195/original/file-20191210-95173-1t2mbr7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=329&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306195/original/file-20191210-95173-1t2mbr7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306195/original/file-20191210-95173-1t2mbr7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306195/original/file-20191210-95173-1t2mbr7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The vocal tract of a baboon has the same components – including the larynx, circled in green – as that of a person, but with different proportions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Laboratory of Cognitive Psychology (CNRS & Aix-Marseille University) and GIPSA-lab (CNRS & University Grenoble-Alpes)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>From the baboon’s larynx and vocal folds, which is high up and close to their chin line, there’s just a short step up through the cavity called the pharynx, then a long way out the horizontal oral cavity. In comparison, for adult male humans, it’s about as far up the pharynx as it is then out through the lips. Also, the baboon tongue is long and flat, while a human’s is short in the mouth, then curves down into the throat.</p>
<p>So over the course of evolution, the larynx in the human line has moved lower in our throats, opening up a much larger pharyngeal cavity than found in other primates.</p>
<p>About 50 years ago, researchers seized on that observation to formulate what they called the laryngeal descent theory of vowel production. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.164.3884.1185">In a key study</a>, researchers developed a model from a plaster cast of a macaque vocal tract. They manipulated the mouth of an anesthetized macaque to see how much the vocal tract shape could vary, and fed those values into their model. Then finally they calculated the vowel sound produced by particular configurations. It was a powerful and groundbreaking study, still copied today with technological updates.</p>
<p>So what did they find?</p>
<p>They got a schwa – that vowel sound you hear in the word “but” – and some very close acoustic neighbors. Nothing where multiple vowels were distinct enough to keep words apart in a human language. They attributed it to the lack of a human-like low larynx and large pharynx.</p>
<p>As the theory developed, it claimed that producing the full human vowel inventory required a vocal tract with about equally long oral and pharyngeal cavities. That occurred only with the arrival of anatomically modern humans, about 200,000 years ago, and only adults among modern humans, since babies are born with a high larynx that lowers with age.</p>
<p>This theory seemed to explain two phenomena. First, from the 1930s on, several (failed) experiments had <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.162.3852.423">raised chimpanzees in human homes</a> to try to encourage human-like behavior, particularly language and speech. If laryngeal descent is necessary for human vowels, and vowels in turn for language, then chimpanzees would never talk.</p>
<p>Second, archaeological <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_modernity">evidence of “modern” human behavior</a>, such as jewelry, burial goods, cave painting, agriculture and settlements, seemed to start only after anatomically modern humans appeared, with their descended larynxes. The idea was that language provided increased cooperation which enabled these behaviors.</p>
<h2>Rethinking the theory with new evidence</h2>
<p>So if laryngeal descent theory says kids and apes and our earlier human ancestors couldn’t produce contrasting vowels, just schwa, then what explains, for instance, Jane Goodall’s observations of clearly contrasting vowel qualities in the <a href="https://youtu.be/BF0qIy4ZnSU">vocalizations of chimpanzees</a>?</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BF0qIy4ZnSU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Chimpanzees shift between vowel sounds before maxing out in a scream.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But that kind of evidence wasn’t the end of the laryngeal descent idea. For scientists to reach agreement, especially to renounce a longstanding and useful theory, we rightly require consistent evidence, not just anecdotes or hearsay.</p>
<p>One of us (L.-J. Boë) has spent upward of two decades assembling that case against laryngeal descent theory. The multidisciplinary team effort has involved <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wocn.2014.07.002">articulatory and acoustic modeling</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wocn.2013.04.001">child language research</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1006/jpho.2002.0170">paleontology</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3726/b12405">primatology</a> and more. </p>
<p>One of the key steps was our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0169321">study of the baboon “vowel space.”</a> We recorded over 1,300 baboon calls and analyzed the acoustics of their vowel-like parts. Results showed that the vowel quality of certain calls was equivalent to known human vowels.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306253/original/file-20191211-95138-1hyal6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306253/original/file-20191211-95138-1hyal6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306253/original/file-20191211-95138-1hyal6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306253/original/file-20191211-95138-1hyal6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306253/original/file-20191211-95138-1hyal6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306253/original/file-20191211-95138-1hyal6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306253/original/file-20191211-95138-1hyal6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306253/original/file-20191211-95138-1hyal6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A schematic comparing the vocal qualities of certain baboon calls (orange ellipses) with selected vowel sounds of American English, where the phonetic symbols / i æ ɑ ɔ u / represent the vowels in beat, bat, bot, bought, boot.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Louis-Jean Boë, GIPSA-lab (CNRS & University Grenoble-Alpes)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our latest review <a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/12/eaaw3916">lays out the whole case</a>, and we believe it finally frees researchers in speech, linguistics, primatology and human evolution from the laryngeal descent theory, which was a great advance in its time, but turned out to be in error and has outlived its usefulness.</p>
<h2>Speech and language in animals?</h2>
<p>Human language requires a vocabulary that can be concrete (“my left thumbnail”), abstract (“love,” “justice”), elsewhere or elsewhen (“Lincoln’s beard”), even imaginary (“Gandalf’s beard”), all of which can be slipped as needed into sentences with internal hierarchical grammar. For instance “the black dog” and “the calico cat” keep the same order whether “X chased Y” or “Y was chased by X,” where the meaning stays the same but the sentence organization is reversed.</p>
<p>Only humans have full language, and arguments are lively about whether any primates or other animals, or our now extinct ancestors, had any of language’s key elements. One popular scenario says that the ability to do grammatical hierarchies arose with the speciation event leading to modern humans, about 200,000 years ago.</p>
<p>Speech, on the other hand, is about the sounds that are used to get language through the air from one person to the next. That requires sounds that contrast enough to keep words distinct. Spoken languages all use contrasts in both vowels and consonants, organized into syllables with vowels at the core.</p>
<p>Apes and monkeys can “talk” in the sense that they can produce contrasting vowel qualities. In that restricted but concrete sense, the dawn of speech was not 200,000 years ago, but some 27 million years ago, before the time of our last common ancestor with Old World monkeys like baboons and macaques. That’s over 100 times earlier than the emergence of our modern human form.</p>
<p>Researchers have a lot of work to do to figure out how speech evolved since then, and how language finally linked in.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The authors have also published a <a href="https://theconversation.com/la-parole-ne-serait-pas-apparue-avec-homo-sapiens-et-ce-sont-les-singes-qui-nous-le-disent-128708">version of this article in French</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128514/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Researchers say it’s time to finally discard a decades-old theory about the origins of human language – and revise the date when human ancestors likely were able to make certain speech noises.Thomas R. Sawallis, Visiting Scholar in New College, University of AlabamaLouis-Jean Boë, Chercheur en Sciences de la parole au GIPSA-lab (CNRS), Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/959902018-05-08T14:17:48Z2018-05-08T14:17:48ZStudying chimpanzee calls for clues about the origins of human language<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218089/original/file-20180508-34006-g309sg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C20%2C952%2C672&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nisarg Desai observes wild chimps known as Sandi, Ferdinand and Siri in Tanzania.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Wilson</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Freud, Wilkie and the other chimpanzees peacefully fed and rested in the sun-dappled Tanzanian forest. Mzee Hilali stood next to me, writing notes on the chimpanzees’ behavior, as he had been doing for over 30 years as a field assistant for <a href="http://www.janegoodall.org/">Jane Goodall’s long-term study at Gombe National Park</a>.</p>
<p>Suddenly, a strange, high-pitched call sounded from where some other chimpanzees were feeding, about a hundred meters from us. Hilali turned to me, and with a little laugh, said, “Nyoka.” This was the Swahili word for “snake.” </p>
<p>Freud climbed down from his tree and walked quickly toward where the call had sounded, with Hilali following close behind. As I slowly made my way through the undergrowth to catch up with them, Hilali called to me: “Chatu!” “Python!”</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217732/original/file-20180504-166877-17honyi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217732/original/file-20180504-166877-17honyi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217732/original/file-20180504-166877-17honyi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217732/original/file-20180504-166877-17honyi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217732/original/file-20180504-166877-17honyi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217732/original/file-20180504-166877-17honyi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217732/original/file-20180504-166877-17honyi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217732/original/file-20180504-166877-17honyi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A glint of snake scales in the vine tangle.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Wilson</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When I caught up with Hilali, he was pointing to a tangled mass of leaves and vines on the forest floor. I looked closely – most of the snake lay hidden from view, but the one visible stretch of black and tan scaly hide was too big to be anything but a python. </p>
<p>From years of experience, Mzee Hilali knew instantly that this particular chimp call meant they’d found a snake. Does this mean that chimpanzees have a “word” for snake? Do chimpanzees have a language of their own? <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=cvK1qxAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">I’ve been working</a> with a team of students and Tanzanian field assistants to record and analyze chimpanzee vocalizations in an effort to answer questions like this. Ultimately we hope to learn more about how human language first evolved.</p>
<h2>Clues to the origins of language</h2>
<p>Chimpanzees are among human beings’ <a href="http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/genetics">closest living relatives</a>, and they share with us many unusual traits. Like humans, chimps <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/srep34783">make and use tools</a>; join together in groups to <a href="https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/04/chimpanzees-monkeys-brains-animals-predators/">hunt animals like monkeys</a>; <a href="https://kibalechimpanzees.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/why-do-chimpanzees-fight-with-their-neighbors/">defend group territories</a>; and sometimes <a href="http://blog.michael-lawrence-wilson.com/2014/09/19/chimpanzee-violence/">gang up on and kill their enemies</a>. </p>
<p>One trait that seems to set humans apart from every other species, however, is a <a href="http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121016-is-language-unique-to-humans">fully developed language</a>. <a href="https://www.khanacademy.org/science/biology/behavioral-biology/animal-behavior/a/animal-communication">Other animals communicate</a>, but only humans appear able to talk about an unlimited variety of topics. Language enables us to make plans, negotiate with and teach one another.</p>
<p>How and why language evolved remains a mystery. Much of the evidence of human evolution comes from fossils, but fossil bones don’t tell us much about soft tissues or the sounds early human ancestors made. <a href="https://doi.org/10.3378/027.083.0202">Studying the communication patterns of our living relatives</a> can help solve the mystery. </p>
<p>If some features of chimpanzee communication resemble language, we can study chimpanzees further to find clues for why those features evolved. If chimpanzee communication doesn’t share much in common with human language, then the key steps in language evolution must have occurred after our lineages separated (around <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1600374113">7.9 million years ago</a>) for reasons unique to our human lineage.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217982/original/file-20180507-46341-ghx3q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217982/original/file-20180507-46341-ghx3q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217982/original/file-20180507-46341-ghx3q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217982/original/file-20180507-46341-ghx3q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217982/original/file-20180507-46341-ghx3q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217982/original/file-20180507-46341-ghx3q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=713&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217982/original/file-20180507-46341-ghx3q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=713&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217982/original/file-20180507-46341-ghx3q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=713&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Michael Wilson with microphone during his dissertation research in Kibale National Park, Uganda, waiting for the chimp known as Light Brown to vocalize.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Becky Sun</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Recording in the forest</h2>
<p>To investigate chimp communication, my colleagues and I follow chimpanzees through the forest as they go about their lives. We carry a hand-held “shotgun” microphone and a digital recorder, waiting for them to call.</p>
<p>Usually we pick a particular chimp to follow each day, trying to get equal numbers of calls per individual. In addition to recording new calls, we’ve been working to build an archive of recordings from other researchers, going back to the 1970s. The archive currently contains over 71 hours of recordings.</p>
<p>Snake alarm calls are intriguing, but because chimps don’t encounter large snakes very often, it is hard to do a systematic study of them. (<a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=sbOSgw0AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Cathy Crockford</a> and colleagues have done some interesting experiments, though, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-014-0827-z">playing back recordings of these calls</a> to see how chimpanzees respond and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2011.11.053">presenting them with model snakes</a>). One thing chimpanzees do every single day, though, is eat. Chimpanzees spend most of their time looking for food and eating it. And when they find food, they often give a particular kind of call: the rough-grunt.</p>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="2" data-image="" data-title="A chimpanzee rough-grunt." data-size="24334" data-source="" data-source-url="" data-license="" data-license-url="">
<source src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/1163/ms220-food-grunt.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
</audio>
<div class="audio-player-caption">
A chimpanzee rough-grunt.
</div></p>
<p>Biologist <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=pezyHCAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">Lisa O'Bryan</a> <a href="https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2013/07/08/uncovering-the-secrets-of-chimpanzee-communication/">studied rough-grunt calls</a> for her dissertation research with me. They vary from low, noisy grunts to higher-pitched calls. Some researchers have proposed an intriguing possibility: Maybe chimpanzees make <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2005.08.068">distinct kinds of rough-grunt calls in response to particular foods</a>, rather like words that name certain food items.</p>
<p>But Lisa has found that when eating any one kind of food, chimpanzees can produce a range of different rough-grunts. Rough-grunts thus tell other chimps that the caller is eating, but <a href="https://doi.org/10.1121/1.5035852">they don’t say what’s for dinner</a>.</p>
<p>Just as a particular alarm call informs others that a snake has been found, the thin, wavering tones of a copulation scream announce that a mating has just taken place. </p>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="1" data-image="" data-title="A chimpanzee copulation scream." data-size="14930" data-source="" data-source-url="" data-license="Author provided" data-license-url="">
<source src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/1162/nl201-cop-scream.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
</audio>
<div class="audio-player-caption">
A chimpanzee copulation scream.
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span><span class="download"><span>14.6 KB</span> <a target="_blank" href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/1162/nl201-cop-scream.mp3">(download)</a></span></span>
</div></p>
<p>Why female chimpanzees sometimes give such a scream just as they finish mating remains unknown. Because the data collected by Mzee Hilali and other field assistants since the 1970s <a href="https://evolutionaryanthropology.duke.edu/research/pusey-lab/jane-goodall-institute-research-center">have been entered into a computer database</a>, we can readily examine thousands of different mating events.</p>
<p>My student <a href="https://cbs.umn.edu/academics/departments/eeb/graduate/graduate-student-directory#Massaro">Tony Massaro</a> has been analyzing these data to try to tease out what factors make females more likely to produce these calls. Such calls aren’t particularly word-like, but they do play an important role in communication. Like many wordless sounds that people make – think laughter, screams and crying – listeners hearing the sounds can infer quite a bit about the caller’s situation.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BF0qIy4ZnSU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Jane Goodall demonstrates how chimpanzees pant-hoot.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When Jane Goodall gives public talks, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BF0qIy4ZnSU">she often begins by giving a pant-hoot</a>: a loud call that begins with an introduction, followed by a build-up, a climax and a let-down. Pant-hoots are loud and enable chimpanzees to communicate over long distances through the forest.</p>
<p>Previous studies have found differences in the pant-hoots calls from different regions. For example, the pant-hoots from Gombe sound a bit different from those made by chimpanzees in Mahale, 160 km away. When I played recordings of a single Mahale pant-hoot call to chimpanzees in Kibale Forest, Uganda, the Kibale chimpanzees <a href="https://doi.org/10.1006/anbe.2000.1706">acted as if they had just heard an intruder</a>. If they were in a group with three or more males, they gave a loud vocal response and rapidly moved towards the speaker.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bd1bO-nK6NQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Response to simulated intruder with many males present.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If they were in a group with only one or two males present, though, they stayed quiet, and if they approached, did so slowly and cautiously.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4bY7GjmlGRQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Response to simulated intruder with only two males present.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For chimpanzees, correctly telling friend from foe is a matter of life or death, so it would make sense for chimpanzees in neighboring groups to have distinctive pant-hoot calls.</p>
<p>Cathy Crockford and colleagues found that pant-hoots from different communities within Taï Forest, Côte d'Ivoire, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1439-0310.2004.00968.x">also sound distinct</a>. If such group-level differences result from vocal learning, they would be rather like dialects in human languages.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217980/original/file-20180507-46347-12kfxla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217980/original/file-20180507-46347-12kfxla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217980/original/file-20180507-46347-12kfxla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217980/original/file-20180507-46347-12kfxla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217980/original/file-20180507-46347-12kfxla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217980/original/file-20180507-46347-12kfxla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1121&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217980/original/file-20180507-46347-12kfxla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1121&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217980/original/file-20180507-46347-12kfxla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1121&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nisarg going over how to use the recording equipment with Hashimu and Nasibu.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Wilson</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>My student <a href="https://cla.umn.edu/about/directory/profile/desai054">Nisarg Desai</a> has been testing whether this is also the case at Gombe. We’ve been working with a team of Tanzanian field assistants, Hashimu Issa Salala and Nasibu Zuberi Madumbi, to record calls from the Mitumba and Kasekela chimpanzees, and are starting to test for differences between groups.</p>
<p>We are in the early stages of this analysis.</p>
<h2>From calls to language isn’t a clear path</h2>
<p>Chimpanzees might be capable of some degree of vocal learning, but I’m struck by how subtle the differences in pant-hoot calls are from place to place. Chimpanzees make lots of different calls – pant-hoots, pant-barks, waa-barks, pant-grunts, rough-grunts, and so on – but across Africa, all chimpanzees produce a pretty similar set of calls in similar circumstances. In this respect, chimpanzee calls resemble human sounds like laughter and crying more than they resemble human words, which can vary drastically from place to place.</p>
<p>Chimpanzees communicate effectively with their various sounds, but in ways quite similar to those of other nonhuman primates. This suggests that our common ancestor with chimpanzees also had a fairly typical repertoire of vocal communication for a nonhuman primate. The really big changes in human language – such as a lifelong ability to learn to make entirely new sounds and a rich symbolic meaning of such sounds – likely evolved later, for reasons that we still don’t understand.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95990/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Wilson's research on chimpanzee vocal communication has been funded by the National Science Foundation and a McKnight Land-Grant Professorship and a Talle Faculty Research Award from the University of Minnesota.</span></em></p>Do chimpanzee talk to each other? Scientists follow and record chimpanzees in the wild to find out – and to fill in details about how human language might have evolved.Michael Wilson, Associate Professor of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of MinnesotaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/929122018-03-14T05:07:35Z2018-03-14T05:07:35ZThe slippery grammar of spoken vs written English<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209635/original/file-20180309-30994-91kk3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">We use different grammar when speaking or writing, but the difference is so subtle that linguists were blind to it for centuries.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>My grammar checker and I are on a break. Due to irreconcilable differences, we are no longer on speaking terms.</p>
<p>It all started when it became dead set on putting commas before every single “which”. Despite all the angry underlining, “this is a habit which seems prevalent” does not need a comma before “which”. Take it from me, I am a linguist.</p>
<p>This is just one of many challenging cases where grammar is slippery and hard to pin down. To make matters worse, it appears that the grammar we use while speaking is slightly different to the grammar we use while writing. Speech and writing seem similar enough – so much so that for centuries, people (linguists included) were blind to the differences.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-students-from-non-english-speaking-backgrounds-learn-to-read-and-write-in-different-ways-59910">How students from non-English-speaking backgrounds learn to read and write in different ways</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>There’s issues to consider</h2>
<p>Let me give you an example. Take sentences like “there is X” and “there are X”. You may have been taught that “there is” occurs with singular entities because “is” is the present singular form of “to be” – as in “there is milk in the fridge” or “there is a storm coming”. </p>
<p>Conversely, “there are” is used with plural entities: “there are twelve months in a year” or “there are lots of idiots on the road”. </p>
<p>What about “there’s X”? Well, “there’s” is the abbreviated version of “there is”. That makes it the verb form of choice when followed by singular entities. </p>
<p>Nice theory. It works for standard, written language, formal academic writing, and legal documents. But in speech, <a href="https://www.linguisticsociety.org/resource/whats-difference-between-speech-and-writing">things are very different</a>. </p>
<p>It turns out that spoken English favours “there is” and “there’s” over “there are”, regardless of what follows the verb: “there is five bucks on the counter” or “<a href="https://www.facebook.com/Competitionplus/posts/10155520673433234">there’s five cars all fighting for that Number 10 spot</a>”. </p>
<h2>A question of planning</h2>
<p>This is not because English is going to hell in a hand basket, nor because young people can’t speak “proper” English anymore.</p>
<p>Linguists <a href="http://www.canterbury.ac.nz/arts/schools-and-departments/linguistics/contact-us/academic-staff/jennifer-hay.html">Jen Hay</a> and <a href="http://www.es.uzh.ch/en/aboutus/team/dschreier.html">Daniel Schreier</a> scrutinised examples of <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/language-variation-and-change/article/reversing-the-trajectory-of-language-change-subjectverb-agreement-with-be-in-new-zealand-english/BE27FC4303FD028EDE837465664821D0">old recordings of New Zealand English</a> to see what happens in cases where you might expect “there” followed by plural, (or “there are” or “there were” for past events) but where you find “there” followed by singular (“there is”, “there’s”, “there was”).</p>
<p>They found that the contracted form “there’s” is a go-to form which seems prevalent with both singular and plural entities. But there’s more. The greater the distance between “be” and the entity following it, the more likely speakers are to ignore the plural rule. </p>
<p>“There is great vast fields of corn” is likely to be produced because the plural entity “fields” comes so far down the expression, that speakers do not plan for it in advance with a plural form “are”.</p>
<p>Even more surprisingly, the use of the singular may not always necessarily have much to do with what follows “there is/are”. It can simply be about the timing of the event described. With past events, the singular form is even more acceptable. “There was dogs in the yard” seems to raise fewer eyebrows than “there is dogs in the yard”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-students-from-non-english-speaking-backgrounds-learn-to-read-and-write-in-different-ways-59910">How students from non-English-speaking backgrounds learn to read and write in different ways</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Nothing new here</h2>
<p>The disregard for the plural form is not a new thing (darn, we can’t even blame it on texting). According to an <a href="https://benjamins.com/#catalog/journals/eww.38.2.01bon/details">article</a> published last year by Norwegian linguist <a href="https://www.hvl.no/en/employee/?user=3612922">Dania Bonneess</a>, the change towards the singular form “there is” has been with us in New Zealand English ever since the 19th century. Its history can be traced at least as far back as the second generation of the <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/irish/page-4">Ulster family of Irish emigrants</a>.</p>
<p>Editors, language commissions and prescriptivists aside, everyday New Zealand speech has a life of its own, governed not so much by style guides and grammar rules, but by living and breathing individuals. </p>
<p>It should be no surprise that spoken language is different to written language. The most spoken-like form of speech (conversation) is very unlike the most written-like version of language (academic or other formal or technical writing) for good reason. </p>
<h2>Speech and writing</h2>
<p>In conversation, there is no time for planning. Expressions come out more or less off the cuff (depending on the individual), with no ability to edit, and with immediate need for processing. We hear a chunk of language and at the same time as parsing it, we are already putting together a response to it – in real time. </p>
<p>This speed has <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/spontaneous-spoken-language-9780199561254?cc=at&lang=en&">consequences</a> for the kind of language we use and hear. When speaking, we rely on recycled expressions, formulae we use over and over again, and less complex structures. </p>
<p>For example, we are happy enough writing and reading a sentence like: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>That the human brain can use language is amazing.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But in speech, we prefer:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is amazing that the human brain can use language. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Both are grammatical, yet one is simpler and quicker for the brain to decode. </p>
<p>And sometimes, in speech we use grammatical crutches to help the brain get the message quicker. A phrase like “the boxes I put the files into” is readily encountered in writing, but in speech we often say and hear “the boxes I put the files into them”. </p>
<p>We call these seemingly unnecessary pronouns (“them” in the previous example) “shadow pronouns”. Even linguistics professors use these latter expressions no matter how much they might deny it.</p>
<h2>Speech: a faster ride</h2>
<p>There is another interesting difference between speech and writing: speech is not held up on the same rigid prescriptive pedestal as writing, nor is it as heavily regulated in the same way that writing is scrutinised by editors, critics, examiners and teachers. </p>
<p>This allows room in speech for more creativity and more language play, and with it, faster change. Speech is known to evolve faster than writing, even though writing will eventually catch up (at least for some changes). </p>
<p>I would guess that by now, most editors are happy enough to let the old “whom” form rest and “who” take over (“who did you give that book to?”).</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92912/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andreea S. Calude receives funding from the Royal Society Marsden Grant and Catalyst Seeding Grant .</span></em></p>Spoken language evolves differently and faster than written language, and there are good reasons why this is the case.Andreea S. Calude, Senior Lecturer in Linguistics, University of WaikatoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.