talk with your hands

What is the origin of the language? Communication with the help of gestures - did it precede voice communication?

Yonat Ashchar and Noam Levitan

Is the origin of human language not in voice communication, but rather in hand gestures?

One of the things that sets humans apart from other animals is language. All animals have some form of communication, but none of them come close in complexity to human language.

When seeking to find the origins of language and investigate its development, it seems logical to examine the sounds that animals make in order to communicate with each other - perhaps they contain the elements of a kind of primitive language. But there is also a different theory, which suggests that our language developed precisely from non-vocal communication between animals - that is, that body gestures were the first step in the development of language.

Communication using gestures - directed movements of the hands towards another animal - is unique to apes and humans. Monkeys are content with facial expressions, making sounds and movements of the whole body. Those who support the theory of gestures as the source of language point out that babies use gestures before they learn to speak, that fossils of hominids (animals from the lineage that led to man) show an increase in brain volume before the creation of the structure that allows the production of words, and more. A fascinating fact about this is that in monkeys, the area of ​​the brain responsible for producing speech in humans (Broca's area) is responsible for producing and receiving body movements. There is even evidence that this region is responsible for the production of sign language in mute humans. In apes, this area is enlarged, and it is possible that the same brain mechanism responsible for hand movements in apes is the one that evolved into our language mechanism.

In a study conducted at Emory University's Yerkes Center for Primate Research, Atlanta, and recently published in the journal PNAS, the researchers attempted to test the gesture theory by examining the situations in which great apes use different gestures, vocalizations and facial expressions. Emi Pollick and her colleagues followed two groups of common chimpanzees and two groups of bonobos (another species of the chimpanzee genus), and recorded their behavior. They found that the voices and facial expressions of the two sexes were similar, and were also used in similar situations - for example, individuals of both sexes tend to scream in a similar way when another individual threatens or attacks them. On the other hand, there was a greater difference between the hand gestures used by the different sexes, and even the different groups of the same sex. A particularly large difference was observed between the different bonobo groups. In addition to this, the researchers discovered that the gestures were not always made in the same context, in contrast to facial expressions and voices.

The researchers concluded that while the facial expressions and voices are more instinctive, and are directly related to a certain situation or a certain emotion of the chimpanzee or bonobo (fear, joy, excitement, etc.), hand gestures are used to express a more complex message. The difference between the groups shows that the gestures are more sensitive to changes and culture-dependent - that is, the learned component in them is particularly important. The fact that they are used in different situations indicates that they do not have a direct, instinctive connection to a certain emotion. These two elements are the hallmarks of a primitive language, and the findings strengthen the theory that claims that the language of humans evolved from body gestures - which were certainly very similar to those used to this day among the rest of our flesh, the great apes.