“Comparing our brains with bird brains or dolphin brains is almost beside the point, because our brains are in effect joined together into a single cognitive system that dwarfs all others. They are joined by an innovation that has invaded our brain and no others: language.” (View Highlight)
Daniel Dennet
Our language enables us to share knowledge, ideas, values, and everything else that goes into human culture. We share both horizontally, from person to person and community to community, and vertically, from one generation to the next. The result is that each new generation can acquire and build upon the discoveries and ideas of previous generations. No other species does that to anything close to the degree that we do. (View Highlight)
Archeological evidence suggests that language emerged in our Homo sapiens ancestors somewhere in the range of 80,000 to 50,000 years ago. That is also a period in which our species underwent an evolutionary change that resulted in a slower rate of brain development, a prolonged juvenile period, and delayed adulthood. My theory (not just mine) is that the prolonged juvenile period, with the accompanying prolonged period of brain plasticity, set the occasion that enabled the evolution of human language. (View Highlight)