I’m fascinated by the origins of our language. I feel like I’m always building up more of the picture of how it came about, and today’s podcast features two new pieces.

Piece one: Some linguists hold to social interactionism, or the idea that young humans acquire language in a social context. And what do you know: apes appear to use simplified gestures to their young.

The other piece is lip smacking. Macaques smack their lips, and that’s the kind of coordinated fine mouth movement that could have provided the bridge from grunts to discrete sounds.

Language appears to have left its traces in other species, leading all the way up to us.

One-off show: Here
Subscribe via iTunes: Here
Show notes: Here