Crucial Feature of Human Language Emerged More Than 135,000 Years Ago
18 March 2025
By Tessa Koumoundouros
Humans speak more than 7,000 languages today. As different as they all seem, researchers argue in a new review that they all stem from a single linguistic family tree that emerged before our species split into distinct populations 135,000 years ago.
By 100,000 years ago, this verbal revolution was cemented into the behavior of Homo sapiens, archeologically visible in our use of symbolism in body decorations and engravings.
"Every population branching across the globe has human language, and all languages are related," says MIT linguist Shigeru Miyagawa.
"I think we can say with a fair amount of certainty that the first split occurred about 135,000 years ago, so human language capacity must have been present by then, or before."
Fragments of grey to red egg shells with engraved lines
Engravings on 60,000 year old eggshell suggest humans were using symbolic meanings. (Texier et al, PNAS, 2010).
More:
https://www.sciencealert.com/crucial-feature-of-human-language-emerged-more-than-135000-years-ago