Language like people came out of Africa

All languages stem from the same source, claim scientists, after tracing origins of speech to sub-Saharan Africa around 150,000 years ago

By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent
www.telegraph.co.uk
14 Apr 2011

Using sophisticated analysis of hundreds of languages, the researchers have managed to trace back their beginnings to the same place and the same time.

They now believe that language may have been one of the "tools" that boosted humanity and led to the colonisation of the whole planet.

"We think that this language was a stepping stone in civilisation which led to better co-ordination and co-operation that might have led us to expand," said Dr Quentin Atkinson, at the University of Auckland and Oxford University.

"It could have also led to competition that would have given us a push."

Dr Atkinson analysed 504 languages to see how many phonemes – particular sounds – they contained.

To his surprise he found a direct correlation between the age of the civilisation and the number of phonemes in its language.

So while many African languages had more than 100 phonemes, Hawaiian language had as few as 13. English, French and German had about 45 each.

The analysis, which used the World Atlas of Language Structure as the main resource, relies on the theory that older civilisations have picked up more linguistic diversity as they age – from genes to language.

It then used this to extrapolate back the origins of language to Africa.

It pinpointed the time as around 150,000 years ago as this was when cave art – one of the earliest forms of communication – began.

It is thought that early man then left Africa around 80,000 years go – taking with him some of the diversification but not all of it.

In general, the areas of the globe that were most recently colonised incorporate fewer phonemes into the local languages whereas the areas that have hosted human life for millennia still use the most phonemes, the report concluded.

"The evidence suggests that there was a single origin of language rather than a number that happened independently," said Dr Atkinson.

"I was pretty surprised."

The research is published in the journal Science.