A NEW THEORY ON THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE

Adults tend to talk to babies in a particular singsong way. Vowels are lingered over, phrases are repeated in high pitched voices, and questions carry exaggerated inflections. This is “motherese”, the distinctive speech that human adults across the globe instinctively use when addressing babies. According to a new theory, it holds a key to the emergence of language.

In a paper published in Behavioural and Brain Sciences, Dean Falk, a physical anthropologist from the Florida State University, proposes that early moms to keep their infant calm created an important root for the human language.

Kate Wong discussing Falk’s work (Kate Wong, Baby Talk Beginnings. Scientific American 291, 1, 12, 2004) concluded: it seems certain that we have not heard the last word on the first words.

BM&L-October 2004