Today, there are about 7,000 different languages in use around the world. Without it, we would find it almost impossible to communicate and our history would be very different. English and Chinese Mandarin are the two languages used by the greatest number of people. However, it is likely that over time, this number is probably going to decrease as humans in different countries interact more and TV is beamed to more and more countries. It is not too unusual to be told that someone learned English for example, by watching English/American TV shows and movies.
But, how did it all start? We believe that humans arose in East Africa about 120,000 to 150,000 years ago and began their long migration to all parts of the world. So, could all our languages also have a common “ancestor,” a root language from which all others developed? Scientists looking at this question have calculated that if we have around 7,000 languages today, then tracing back over time, it is thought that it could have taken about 100,000 years to reach the present number.
What was happening 100,000 years ago? It is pretty close to the earliest migration of Homo sapiens. It is important to note that not all researchers agree with each other over this and of course, it is almost impossible to find out for sure. Some say that the first language if indeed there was a first, could have occurred much earlier. This would mean that such hominid species such as Homo heidelbergensis who were around about 600,000 years ago may have had some form of language. Others even suggest we should go as far back as 2.3 million years and attribute language skills to Homo habilis. I said this was a difficult question to answer.
However, we do have a little hard evidence to help us. It is thought that Neanderthals could also have had a language. This would mean that they and us (Homo sapiens) could have inherited it from a common ancestor about half a million years ago. The evidence for this is that both species have the same gene, FOXP2, which is essential for language and is present in the same position in both species. It is interesting to note that a close present-day species, the chimpanzee, has no such gene.
However, we cannot jump to conclusions because language requires more than one gene and it has been discovered that Neanderthals may have regulated its version of the FOXP2 gene differently than Homo sapiens. It is a mystery that may never be solved.
John Pullen 