ERC Starting Grant · 2018
Gestural Origins: Linguistic Features of pan-African Ape Communication
Understanding the origins of language speaks to the fundamental question of what it means to be human. Other species’ communication contains rich information exchange; but humans do more than broadcast information. Language is used to communicate goals to partners, it goes beyond information: it has meaning. Only great ape gestures show similarly systematic meaningful communication; they are essential to understanding how human language evolved. Beyond meaning, two core features of human language are social learning and syntactic structure. These are universals, present across cultures. We all learn words and how to use them from others, leading to languages and dialects. We all use syntax;…
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