Gesture as precursor to language: Evidence from bimodal bilingualism
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Two hypotheses frequently cited within the frameworks of language origin are (i) vocal origins and (ii) gestural origins (van Schaik, 2016). The vocal hypothesis argues that language arose among hominins as a result of vocal learning after hominins acquired the ability to learn vocalizations socially due to changes that occurred in ape vocalizations. The gestural hypothesis states the features of language evolved among apes in gestural communication and were later transferred to the vocal domain. Supporters of the gestural hypothesis point to the universal occurrence of co-speech gestures among humans (e.g., Corballis, 2013) and shared properties of human language and gestural communication in nonhuman primates (Meguerditchian, Cochet & Vauclair, 2011) as evidence. They further mention the advantages of speech over gesture for the universal presence of language in the auditory-oral modality, e.g., the ability to communicate in the dark or while making tools (Corballis, 2002). If we assume that language had gestural origins and that gesture and speech have co-existed for an extended period, it sounds plausible to predict that the human brain has then evolved to be capable of simultaneously not only producing speech and sign but also of doing so in two different (i.e., mismatching) orders. Investigating this claim requires that the language user have the extraordinary physical ability to produce a proposition via two output channels simultaneously in two typologically different languages.
En International Conference on the Evolution of Language (Evolang).