The other day I saw an article on "pre-human" language capacity

Creation vs. Evolution: The other day I saw an article on "pre-human" language capacity · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Neanderthals Spoke · Φιλολoγικά/Philologica: Homo erectus already had language - says you, Daniel Everett!

I tried to find the publication again today and could not find it.

Well, my memory of content is better than my memory of references.

Hitherto, so said the article, one considered language had appeared only with Homo sapiens 200 000 years ago. Why? The high position of the larynx would make impossible the pronunciation of vowels. Ergo, homo species prior to sapiens would not have been able to speak.

Now, one has found out that apes (with a high larynx) can pronounce vowels. Ergo, apes too "have language capacity" ...

Let me be precise : there may be certain vowels, notably "ah" which the beings with high larynx, human like Neanderthals or non-human like the Chimps, cannot pronounce.

Let me be precise about a related topic too : in any of the languages I speak, Swedish, German, English and French, a man who cannot pronounce "ah" is indeed handicapped. He cannot articulate those particular languages (and most or nearly all, if not all languages on earth do contain that vowel).

However, different languages have different vowel inventories. Spanish has ah, ey, ee, aw, oo, half long. Latin had the Spanish vowels, but both long (previous spellings will do) and short, uh, e, i, o, u. Russian also has ten vowels, twice the Spanish vowels, but this time times palatal vs non-palatal. Arabic technically only has three short vowels, a, i, u, but that is because any long vowel will be analysed as a short vowel and a consonant. English has, I think, 14 vowels and diphthongs.

This means, a human population which cannot at all pronounce "ah" will arguably have a language without "ah". If it is a dialect of another language than that population's own, it is useful if that other, wider, language doesn't too much stress the vowels as distinguishing words, more using them in a reduced measure, to distinguish forms. Arabic and Hebrew are such languages. In Arabic, the book is alkitab, and the books is alkutub. On the other hand, in Hebrew, the book is ha-sepher and the books is ha-sepherim.

On the other hand, apes will very definitely pronounce vowels like ee-ee-ee or even oo-oo-oo all day, I have less confidence in their capacity to form consonants, but they will not organise vowels into words.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Bibliothèque des Halles
Ash Wednesday
26.II.2020