I wrote:
>> After all, concluding that homo habilis had essentially modern
>> language capabilities on the basis of these cranial endocasts is
>> stretching it just a little, don't you think?
and Jim Foley responded:
>And who has ever said that?
Glenn has been arguing precisely that.
Jim continued:
>I think every reference I've seen on the
>subject has been of the opinion that if habilis had language, it was
>rudimentary compared to ours.
from the Encyclopedia of Human Evolution:
Brain damage to the primary oral-motor area produces paralysis of
the muscles of sound production. Damage to the adjacent Broca's
area may produce problems in producing the complex sounds
sequences of words, without producing paralysis and may also disrupt
grammar and syntax. Individuals with damage to Broca's area are
often unable to use grammatical information, but can still understand
the meanings of content words, such as nouns and verbs. Their speech
is halting, laboured and telegraphic in style, and often lacks verb
tenses or case markings. (p. 120)
So if Broca's Area was used for the same thing in Homo habilis as in modern
humans, then Homo habilis must have had syntax and grammar. They did not speak
haltingly ("Mammoth there"), they spoke with syntax and grammar ("I believe the
mammoth is in that direction.").
Now they could have used Broca's Area for something besides syntax and grammar,
but if they didn't use it for the same thing as we do, extrapolating language
from Broca's Area is inappropriate in the first place.
In Christ,
robert van de water
associate researcher
UCLA