Genomic study: our capacity for language emerged at least 135k years ago

The article doesn&#x27;t say what the headline says. At all. Never in the article does it say that &quot;our capacity for language emerged 135,000 years ago&quot;. What the article says is that they have genomically traced our species back to around 135,000 years ago to the point where we started splitting off in different groups, and as we all have the capacity for language we must have had it at the point of split as well (before that all could be said to be in the same local group. Possible, what with those population bottlenecks and everything).<p>There&#x27;s nothing in there saying there wasn&#x27;t language before, nor why it shouldn&#x27;t have been present much earlier. Early enough that e.g. Neanderthals could equally well be covered.

It looks like they actually say <i>at least</i> 135K years ago, as that is the latest it could have happened.

This appears to be an argument for <i>terminus ante quem</i> and useful in that sense but it ignores the possibility there is a far earlier <i>terminus post quem</i> when the actual language capacity emerges.<p>I think it true(ish) that in a model strongly aligned to a single root language the point of segmentation is the last point language seen in all post-fragmented states can exist. But I don&#x27;t see why that is also the first point. It&#x27;s just the one we can detect genetically. There will be some subsequent genetic evidence perhaps to a specific structural change in the brain, or vocal chords, or something else, indicative of language emergence.<p>If holographically defined families tools pre-date this time, then abstract concepts were being communicated, even if not vocally. Show-and-tell has limits and I would argue strongly suggest concepts inherent in language existed to communicate how to do the tool making.

I recommend the book “Why Only Us?” by Chomsky and Berwick on this topic. It gets quite technical in places but I still got quite a lot of out it.

The paper <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.frontiersin.org&#x2F;journals&#x2F;psychology&#x2F;articles&#x2F;10.3389&#x2F;fpsyg.2025.1503900&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.frontiersin.org&#x2F;journals&#x2F;psychology&#x2F;articles&#x2F;10....</a> appears in Frontiers in Psychology.

Does beginning a submission title with &quot;Genomic study:&quot; provide an air of credibility? As in, before any reference to what is being studied, genomic study is mentioned. I&#x27;m actually curious.

I wonder, if it is possible to detect what exactly changed in brain, as this could be a clue to create GAI.<p>Even strict list of changed genes could be extremely helpful for AI progress.

It is impossible to figure this out and it&#x27;s dumb to try to give a number. We don&#x27;t think Neanderthals could speak? They also had languages.

I&#x27;d say those guys back then started fuddling around with the definition of genocide about that time too.

Existence of language requires 2 mutation trees, one for hearing, one for sound making. Could this be why it took so long?