The Coevolution of Language and Technology: Does Language Play a Role in Shaping the Evolution of Humans?
By MEHDI BAQRI, Orlando, Florida, the USA
There is an apparent incompatibility between both ends of the spectrum concerning the study of language: both the strictly Darwinian framework as well as the strictly semiotic view assume language as either an exclusively biological or cultural phenomenon.
However, approaching language in one way or the other disregards its multifaceted nature. Rather, treating language as a composite biocultural complex interlaces the networks populating the biosphere with the threads tying together the semiosphere (Sinha 3; Markoš 312; Lotman 209). Situating language as an artifact within a biocultural niche enables its unification with a rigid evolutionary framework, thereby allowing for the elision of supposedly independent biological and cultural evolutions into a single co-evolutionary process (Sinha 3; Gong and Shuai 22). Language, then, can be understood as both a distinctive part of the biological human being and the foundational human social institution, and through analyzing the relationship between biology and culture within the context of language, one can determine the role of language in shaping the evolution of humans.
In examining the relationship between language and human evolution, there first rises the challenge of reconciling the biological uniformity of language-performing structures and abilities in humans with the incredible cultural diversity of the languages themselves. Essentially, to mirror rapid linguistic change, humans must have evolved a flexible and malleable learning system, a somewhat evolved genetic predisposition towards accommodating the continuous cultural evolution of language (Baronchelli et al. 5). Such a function would explain both current global linguistic variety and the ease with which people learn their language. Furthermore, the evolution of language would have required the use of preexisting biological structures, such as the brain, with constraints on these neural systems correspondingly shaping linguistic change (5). Thus, linguistic diversity is not only allowed for by an evolved genetic adaptation for cultural linguistic evolution, but is shaped by non-linguistic constraints tied to the perceptual, cognitive, and pragmatic abilities of humans which in turn both influence and are influenced by linguistic evolution (5).
It is within the context of these constraints on the neural capacities of humans, and therefore on the evolution and diversification of language itself, that the development of technology arises as a plausible selective mechanism. Technology, as created and used by humans throughout history, is the base of what anthropologist Boivin called the “material culture” of humans, consisting of a set of relationships among environments, organizations, objects, and organisms (Peebles). In a strict sense, any temporal change in material culture can be seen as both a result of the process of descent with modification and another evolutionary step (Apel and Darmark 15). Therefore, the more an organism changes and regulates its environment—through developing new items, artifacts, and skills—and by extension the environment of its future offspring, the greater its need to transmit information from parent to child (Laland, Odling-Smee, and Feldman 142). Such activities create a stable environment in which related technologies that would be advantageous for later generations could be consistently socially transmitted and culturally reproduced (142). Technology, or the material culture, would therefore depend upon language as its medium of diffusion, with small changes in both material and symbolic cultures building on one another to create an “accumulatory culture” (142).
This relationship between language and technological innovation in culture is further reflected in the shared social context of human language and technology. For example, both cases give relative importance to “innate capacities, heritable predispositions, environmental context, and social learning” (Stout, Eight Possible Relations 160). In addition, social interaction plays a significant role in language acquisition and tool use and the learning of complex skills in general (160). Within the broader context of learning and practice, the relationship between language and technology is almost complementary. On one side, the evolutionary importance of technical skill acquisition would have favored intentional vocal communication by language, in that linguistic communication plays a key role in facilitating the transmission of valuable technologies and skills throughout a group (172). At a deeper, more cultural level, language plays a rather fundamental role in establishing the cultural context of skill learning and certain technologies, almost creating a social glue bringing together kinship ties and craft identities (175). On the other side, toolmaking, as a technological skill and behavior, would have greatly improved both the ability of humans to focus on singular objects and events as well as their joint attention skills, traits that are essential in language learning and acquisition (175). At this level, both linguistic and technological behaviors appear to be tied together, based on shared cognitive mechanisms supporting social transmission and cultural reproduction.
The interlacing of the technological material culture with the symbolically mediated linguistic culture is evident in languages around the world that are made unique by the presence of technologies that set their cultures apart. For example, when university students from the Mongolian Republic of Tuva were asked what Tuvan words are untranslatable into any other language, they suggested “khoomei” (throat singing, the most distinctive Tuvan music form), because it is a skill so deeply tied to the Tuvan environment that it can only be performed or understood by a native, and “khoj ozeeri”, the Tuvan technique for killing sheep (Rymer). “Khoj ozeeri” is an unusually intimate method of slaughter that, to Tuvan natives, both “implies a relationship to animals that is also a measure of a people’s character,” and demonstrates a fundamental virtue of Tuvan culture (Rymer). Words such as “khoomei” and “khoj ozeeri”—that are so exclusively embedded within one language and can’t be translated to or found in any other—highlight an important reality, in that the objects, artifacts, or skills they represent not only are situated in their distinct physical reality, but are also an integral part of the conceptual, symbolic reality. Thus, it can be seen that technologies that once performed solely biological or social functions, such as unique slaughtering methods or music forms, as part of the material culture, utilized a symbolic medium to be transmitted both vertically down generations and horizontally to other individuals, and in doing so, effectively merged together and acted with language to become one compound culture.
Correspondingly, technology has long been seen as a prime factor in the uniquely human evolution tying together dexterous hands, culture, and brain size (Stout, “Tools and Brain Size” 1). The earliest evidence of hominid technological activity comes from stone tools and marked bones dating back almost 2.6 million years in present day Ethiopia (1). In the following 2.4 million years of the Lower Paleolithic, there was a dramatic technological progression from basic stone chips to adroitly designed bifacial cutting tools that was paralleled by an approximately threefold increase in brain size—a coincidence that very heavily implies a relationship between material culture and human evolution (1). The nature of this relationship was examined in a positron emission tomography study of functional brain activation during experimental toolmaking performed by subjects with varying degrees of expertise (Stout et al., “Neural Correlates” 1939). The results of this experiment documented increased demands for effective visuomotor coordination and hierarchical action organization, as well as the activation of numerous brain regions indicative of higher-order thinking, as the level of toolmaking advanced (1939). Furthermore, they showed the relevance of resonance mechanisms, causal reasoning, and mentalizing in the acquisition and application of tool-related skills, suggesting the origin of human biological and social cognition as being directly tied to a developing material culture (Stout et al., “Technology and Social Cognition” 1329).
A more colloquial example demonstrating technology’s role as a selective force on the evolution of humans is in the advent of cooking—a technological skill—as examined by anthropologist Wrangham (Forbes). Wrangham pointed to the relatively small tooth size in humans, as compared to other mammals, claiming that such teeth could have only evolved if early humans had developed the ability to cook their food (Dunbar 448). The key is that by cooking their food, early humans allowed their mammalian stomachs to more efficiently process and extract nutrients, and in doing so, drastically reduced the time and strength required for eating (448). Furthermore, the lessened energy spent in the action of eating itself would have enabled muscle protein in the human jaw to weaken—protein that had been anchored to the skull’s crest, inhibiting both brain size and the ability to articulate speech-like sounds (Forbes). As a result, coinciding with the transition to mostly cooked food was the emergence of the Homo erectus, a human with a much larger brain and no crest on the skull, indicating that a weakened jaw and smaller teeth had become uniform throughout the species (Forbes). Thus, advancing technology, such as in the development of cooking, can be seen as a significant factor influencing the shape and course of human evolution.
Such a view—that technology was a major component of and selective force on human evolution—was shared by Darwin in his attempt to explain the emergence of the initial modern human. The process would have begun with a particular individual within a group inventing a new tool, perhaps a weapon or a hunting method (Alter 251). Advantageous technology such as this would have been taken up by other members, ultimately benefiting the larger group by enabling it to outcompete and supplant others (251). Thus, not only would the innovation itself have been selected for, but the chances for survival and reproduction of the whole group would have increased (251). However, this entire process would depend upon the social and cultural transmission of the innovation or skill throughout the group, which could only have been achieved by communication and social learning through the symbolic medium of language (Laland, Odling-Smee, and Feldman 142).
In the previous examples, it is clear that technology is developed by humans in response to environmental pressures primarily aimed at survival and reproduction. As mentioned, to be vertically passed down from generation to generation and to be horizontally spread throughout a group, technology requires the use of symbolically mediated communication in the form of language. This reveals a rather reciprocal relationship between language and technology, whereby the material culture tailors language so that technology can be better culturally reproduced, while the malleability of the language itself determines which aspects of the material culture can be integrated into the symbolic culture of a people. In this sense, both technology and language simultaneously promote and constrain one another, acting almost as one. Furthermore, it is clear that technology is directly tied to the evolution of the human species. Therefore, if technology and language are related such that language can constrain and manipulate technology, and technology itself acts as a selective force on the evolution of humans, it is only logical that language too acts as a selective force determining the shape and course of human evolution. Language then, by enabling technology to thrive and spread within a people so that they can outcompete others, can be seen in the human evolutionary past as an effective driving force that was at least partially responsible for dictating the outcome of the human species.
It can be argued that symbols—and language—have quite literally changed the type of organism we are (Deacon). Just as our ancestors’ physical characteristics evolved to the pressures posed by tool making and the incorporation of cooking into their diet, so too did their mental capacities evolve within the context of a cultural web of communication by language. In a sense, language came to represent the unique struggles and environmental context to which early humans adapted to in order to survive. As technology became increasingly relevant in determining the success and advantages of various groups, language, a means of symbolically mediated communication, arose as vital to the diffusion of advantageous technology. As a result, the demands posed by the bio-cultural niche of language would have dictated the technology used by a people, selectively favoring the biological and social capacities that ensured successful implementation of the resource, and thereby shaping the course of human biological and social evolution. In short, we are simultaneously both biological organisms and symbolic savants, not only sitting at the zenith of biological evolution, but also fashioned in the reflection of the words we use.
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