1 & 2 34 5 67 2 & & 4 5 & 8& : 2 In this paper different theories about and approaches to language evolution and variation will be discussed with a special focus on Charles Darwin’s thoughts on the matter. Major questions that will be addressed are: Is language different in kind from animal communication systems? What is the nature of language? How did it evolve? What is at the heart of the language faculty? And last but not least: What have been the major driving forces in language evolution? % &* * **& , * Language has - according to Charles Darwin - “justly been considered as one of the chief distinctions between man and the lower animals” (Darwin 1871: 53). However, “[i]t is not the mere power of articulation that distinguishes man from other animals, for as every one knows, parrots can talk” (Darwin 1871: 54). Darwin also cites the example of dogs: […] since being domesticated, [the dog] has learnt to bark […] in at least four or five distinct tones. […] we have the bark of eagerness, as in the chase; that of anger; the yelping or howling bark of despair, as when shut up; that of joy, as when starting on a walk with his master; and the very distinct one of demand or supplication, as when wishing for a door or window to be opened. (Darwin 1871: 54) So man "is not the only animal that can […] express what is passing in his mind, and can understand, more or less, what is so expressed by another” (Archbishop Whately, quoted in Anthropological Review, 1864, p. 158, quoted in Darwin 1871: 54). ' ( & ) & * ) ) ! " #$ " : 2 What is, however, peculiar to humans is “[a]rticulate language”. Darwin defines it as the ability to connect “definite sounds with definite ideas” (Darwin 1871: 54). Most linguists today (e.g. Yule 2006) would agree that our human communication system is different from that of animals in that we have got a finite system of material discrete signs - be they phonetic or graphic ones - that can be combined to express a potentially infinite number of ideas or meanings (cf. Dobrovolsky 1996: 657 and 656-658 for an overview of crucial differences but also overlaps between animal communication systems and language). % & & Today there is still a heated debate going on in linguistics as to the nature of language: Is it innate or learned? Are all members of the human species equipped with a universal grammar - as Chomsky argues - or do we learn language during our socialization with the help of general cognitive abilities? Is language basically an instinct, as Pinker (1994) for example already claims in the title of his book The Language Instinct or do we need considerable input from our social and cultural environment to develop the ability to speak? Savage-Rumbaugh/ Rumbaugh (1993: 106) for example do not see syntax as being innate as is claimed in the theory of Universal Grammar. According to them it is rather a “skill which arises naturally from the need to process sequences of words rapidly” (Savage- Rumbaugh/ Rumbaugh 1993: 86). Darwin’s answer to the question whether language is innate or learned is clear: on the one hand, language is “certainly […] not a true instinct”, “as every language has to be learnt” (Darwin 1871: 55). On the other hand, “man has an instinctive tendency to speak, as we see in the babble of our young children” (Darwin 1871: 55). Darwin then uses the analogy of birds’ songs to further explain the nature of language: The sounds uttered by birds offer in several respects the nearest analogy to language, for all the members of the same species utter the same instinctive cries expressive of their emotions; and all the kinds that have the power of singing exert this power instinctively; but the actual song, and even the call-notes, are learnt from their parents or foster-parents. These sounds […] “are no more innate than language is in man” 33 . The first attempts to sing may be compared to the imperfect endeavour in a child to babble. The young males continue practising, or, as the bird-catchers say, recording, for ten or eleven months. Their first essays show hardly a rudiment of the future song; but as they grow older we can perceive what they are aiming at; and at last they are said ‘to sing their song round’. (Darwin 1871: 55) ; & * " 2 % < ___ 33 Hon. Daines Barrington in ‘Philosoph. Transactions’, 1773, p. 262. See also Dureau de la Malle, in ‘Ann. Des Sc. Nat.’ 3 rd series, Zoolog. tom. x. p. 119. [original footnote, Darwin 1871: 55] Just as birds’ songs are not totally innate and not expressed exclusively based on instinct, so it is for language. Both abilities require learning. What is innate with regard to language is that we instinctively utter indiscriminate sounds when we feel certain emotions like pain or joy for example. However, the discrete symbols of our communication system and their value - i.e. their meaning - and the rules of combination have to be learned. They are culturally transmitted. % 9 & Darwin also compares language variation to variation in birdsong: Nestlings which have learnt the song of a distinct species, as with the canary-birds educated in the Tyrol, teach and transmit their new song to their offspring. The slight natural differences of song in the same species inhabiting different districts may be appositely compared, as Barrington remarks, "to provincial dialects; " and the songs of allied, though distinct species may be compared with the languages of distinct races of man. (Darwin 1871: 55f.) Darwin’s observations are in line with current research: not only humans but also birds for example are good at vocal imitation. In the same way that humans have an innate “predisposition” to produce sounds, birds have. However, both species must then learn how to produce discrete sounds and combine them to form words and songs (cf. Dobrovolsky 1996: 638f., 641; Kenneally 2007: 145). In the often elaborate and complex songs, individual variation between the birds can be observed - just like in the language of humans. One important difference to note here, however, is that “it is generally only male birds that sing” (Dobrovolsky 1996: 639). The main purpose of the birdsong according to mainstream research is “to announce and delimit the territory of the male and to attract a mate” (Dobrovolsky 1996: 639). I will come back to this later. Birds also have dialects and researchers have even established isoglosses on the basis of “variations in the melody of song syllables or themes” (Dobrovolsky 1996: 639). -% & & How did language evolve? Darwin states: “[…] no philologist […] [would assume] that any language has been deliberately invented; each : 2 has been slowly and unconsciously developed by many steps” (Darwin 1871: 55). Here Darwin argues against a saltationist view on language evolution - the idea that there were no simpler precursors of language but that there was some “Big Bang” which led to a gigantic mutation that was language (cf. e.g. Bickerton 1990: 171, 180, 190, 256; Pinker 1994: 342). According to our present knowledge about evolutionary processes, however, it seems highly unlikely that the language faculty did appear suddenly by a spontaneous macromutation during the evolution of our species. But - as Burling remarks - “a surprising number of linguists have found it so difficult to imagine how a language could have evolved gradually, that they have resorted to a transforming mutation as the only possible explanation” (Burling 2005: 89f.). This, however, is not how evolution works. On the contrary, it is the hallmark and major asset of evolutionary theory that it can explain how very complex features can develop in organisms from very simple beginnings (cf. Dawkins 1986: XVI, 1). Thus, “to imagine that a language could be put together by a single mutation makes about as much sense as to suppose that a jumbo jet could be assembled by a hurricane” (Burling 2005: 90). It is more plausible to assume with Darwin that language developed gradually. In line with Darwin’s outline, recent research like Lee et al. (2009) “argue[s] for a view of language evolution in which a group of hominids has acquired the ability to make articulate sounds and to use them to form words, eventually producing a substantial lexicon” (Lee et al. 2009: 4). In addition, they suggest that language further evolved in the interaction between hominids “as they attempt to express meanings with consistent form over time” (Lee et al. 2009: 4). And Burling states that “words must have come first in the course of human evolution” as “syntax needs words, while even single lonely words that have no syntax can easily convey meanings” (Burling 2005: 19). Lee et al. develop their theory of language evolution on the basis of complexity theory. Here, “complex adaptive systems are seen to emerge […] 1 from the interaction of a large number of agents and/ or large number of items” (Lee et al. 2009: 4). Savage-Rumbaugh/ Rumbaugh (1993: 106) argue for a view of language as “the inevitable outcome of the social interactions of intelligent creatures.” “The tendency to share resources and to cooperate in their procurement set the stage for the use of sounds to coordinate interactions” (Savage-Rumbaugh/ Rumbaugh 1993: 86). With such a view on language evolution, “humankind may lose some 1 I left out spontaneously here as it could be misinterpreted as implying a saltationist view of evolution that propagates that complex adaptive systems came into existence by a macromutation. However, according to evolutionary theory, only simple beginnings of the later complex systems emerge spontaneously. ; & * " 2 % < sense of uniqueness, but gain in return a deeper understanding of itself” (Savage-Rumbaugh/ Rumbaugh 1993: 106). Darwin’s thoughts on the origins of language contain parts of different theories on the origins of language: (a.) onomatopoeic, (b.) gestural, and (c.) interjectional theories: in Darwin’s words: “I cannot doubt that language owes its origin to the imitation and modification [a.], aided by signs and gestures [b.], of various natural sounds, the voices of other animals [a.], and man’s own instinctive cries [c.]” (Darwin 1871: 56). Recently, the hypothesis that gestural language preceded sound language has gained momentum. According to Rizzolatti’s mirror-systemhypothesis, which is based on the discovery of the so called mirror neurons, language developed out of the reciprocal use of gestures (cf. Rizzolatti/ Sinigaglia 2008: 159-171). Mirror neurons ‘mirror’ or reflect actions of one individual in the brain of another individual. These neurons would not only fire when you perform an action yourself but also when you just observe an action being performed by somebody else (cf. Jäger 2003: 42). Mirror neurons were first discovered in macaque monkeys and later also in humans (Jäger 2003: 42). The question is, however, why an auditory communication system evolved when a gestural one was already in the making. One answer could be that gestural and vocal communication co-evolved. Burling proposes that already existing adaptations for singing could have been used for early controlled vocalizations (Burling 2005: 124f.). I will come back to that theory later. A possible scenario for the development of vocal communication could in general have been as follows: with the help of cognition, individuals can extract regularities or recurrences and ‘invariants’ out of the flow of experiences (von Glasersfeld 2008: 34). So when an instinctive sound meets the human ear only sporadically and uncoordinatedly, this will not lead to cognitive reflection and consequently not to the emergence of linguistic units. But the more often a certain sound is experienced and when this sound is at the same time even linked to a certain gesture, the more likely it is that the individual registers the link, joins sound and gesture into one unit and links them to a mental concept like “Beware of the enemy! ”. In the course of time more links are added and they are coordinated with the already existing ones. This process continues as long as there are expression needs and in the course of time humans rely predominantly on vocal communication. Note here that the interpretation of instinctive sounds and gestures will have preceded their voluntary controlled production (cf. Burling 2005: 124f.). .% : & & ,; Not only humans have the ability to use sounds as media for mental concepts. The primatologist de Waal describes the following incident: : 2 […] as a student I worked in a laboratory in Utrecht where one scientist regularly caught monkeys out of a large group with a net. At first, the monkeys gave warning calls whenever they saw him approach with his dreadful net, but later they also did so when he only walked by. Still later, years after his research had ceased, I noticed that monkeys too young to have known the threat he once posed alarm-called for this man, and for no one else. They must have deduced from the reaction of their elders that he was not to be trusted. I recently heard that the group kept this alarm-call tradition up for decades, still always aimed at the same person! (de Waal 2001: 15) As far as we know today, the linkage of sounds and mental concepts that can also be observed in the animal kingdom is simpler in form than our complex language system. Language organizes, segments, structures, categorizes and coordinates our experiences and it influences our experiences. Language facilitates orientation and survival in the respective environments we live in and the coordination and cooperation with other people. In this way language is an extension and medium of our cognition: language mediates the experiences of the individual and it allows them to be experienced by others. So language must have originated and evolved in the interaction with others. Constructionist theories describe language as a special kind of mutually adapted action (cf. von Glasersfeld 2008: 36) and as being the means with which we socially construct or define reality or meaning (cf. Hejl 2008: 126f.). In the words of Maturana (1982: 73): Die basale Funktion der Sprache als eines Systems des Orientierungsverhaltens besteht nicht in der Übermittlung von Information oder in der Beschreibung einer unabhängigen Außenwelt, über die wir sprechen können, sondern in der Erzeugung eines konsensuellen Verhaltensbereiches zwischen sprachlich interagierenden Systemen im Zuge der Entwicklung eines kooperativen Interaktionsbereichs. 2 Language allows us to validate our own constructions of reality through verbal communication with others. When our constructions are confirmed, this increases the viability of a construction (cf. von Glasersfeld 2008: 37). The outcome of the validation process can also be that the constructions are more or less divergent or completely incompatible. This will be the case when individuals have had different experiences and when these experiences have resulted in different cognitive constructions. It is also possible that the individuals had the same or similar experiences but stored them differently. New experiences are always connected to already existing ones and so the cognitive construction, the mental con- 2 The basal function of language as a behavioural system of orientation is not the transmission of information or the description of an autonomous outside world which we can talk about, but the creation of a consensual domain of behaviour between linguistically interacting systems in the course of the development of a cooperative interactive domain. ; & * " 2 % < cept, can vary individually depending on earlier experiences and their representation. In the course of our ontogenesis and enculturation, however, which is mediated to a great extent by language, certain constructions are more or less set. In addition, the constructions we can make are not totally random: they all root in a species general, phylogenetic basic equipment or configuration and they are influenced by the concrete biological, cognitive and socio-cultural conditions that individuals face in the course of their socialization in their social and natural environment (cf. Schmidt 1994: 595). Thus, our perception and processing capacities are restricted or framed by our species’ specific biological makeup. Consequently, our possibilities for constructions are limited as well. This facilitates communication - the exchange and validation of constructions with other members of our species. In accordance with this, the various languages share basic characteristics despite all cultural specifics. We can learn other languages and communicate across cultures. At the same time we must be sensitive to the fact that there are always alternatives to our own constructions, for example in the form of culture-specific views of the world and derived ways of thinking and acting. This is in line with and supports theories on the origins of language - like Robin Dunbar’s, Geoffrey Miller’s or Robert Burling’s - which all propose that language has evolved in the interaction with others as a means to manage our social relationships more efficiently (cf. Burling 2005: 17). % & 8& & & What has been the main driving force in the evolution of language? Let us see if Darwin can help here again. He has become famous for his theory of natural selection, which he outlines in On the Origin of Species (1859). In this book, however, he also already introduces a second distinct mechanism, which he describes as a second basic driving force of evolution, viz. sexual selection: [...] this leads me to say a few words on what I call Sexual Selection. This depends, not on a struggle for existence, but on a struggle between the males for possession of the females; the result is not death to the unsuccessful competitor, but few or no offspring. Sexual selection is, therefore, less rigorous than natural selection. Generally, the most vigorous males, those which are best fitted for their places in nature, will leave most progeny. (Darwin 1859: 88) Darwin develops this theory of sexual selection further in The Descent of Man (1871). : 2 When we look at current theories of language evolution, the great majority attributes language evolution to natural selection forces. It is predominantly assumed that some survival advantage has been the initial trigger for language evolution. Pinker (1994: 352-354) for example claims that the evolution of language started with alarm calls that alerted other members of the species. Other hypotheses refer to other survival advantages: being able to communicate experiences for successful food procurement or for the manufacture of tools, or to organize men for war or defence (cf. Deacon 1997: 377; Lieberman 1998: 146; Miller 2000: 342). Those are, however, not mutually exclusive theories on language evolution. It is rather a list of fields in which language can provide a survival advantage (cf. Deacon 1997: 350). And, in fact, almost every human activity profits from language (cf. Lieberman 1998: 146). So on the one hand language promotes survival and constitutes a survival advantage in almost all areas. On the other hand, language has features that do not contribute to this: Would a much simpler language system not be more effective in terms of survival? All natural languages are very complex and it takes quite a long time and considerable effort to learn a language: we have to learn an extensive set of words and many different grammatical rules. We have to train our articulatory organs to perform elaborate moves to produce certain sounds and sound combinations. So in this respect we may wonder whether language is not counterproductive in terms of survival (cf. Miller 2000: 354)? Why would such a complex communication code develop if a much simpler one was more effective (cf. Miller 2000: 370)? In Darwin’s scenario of language evolution, we find traces of both natural and sexual selection pressure, which he describes as the driving force in language evolution. First, let us have a look at the natural selection pressures that he describes: As bearing on the subject of imitation, the strong tendency in our nearest allies, the monkeys […] and in the barbarous races of mankind, to imitate whatever they hear deserves notice. […] in a state of nature [monkeys] […] utter signal-cries of danger to their fellows, […] it does not appear altogether incredible, that some unusually wise ape-like animal should have thought of imitating the growl of a beast of prey, so as to indicate to his fellow monkeys the nature of the expected danger. And this would have been a first step in the formation of a language. (Darwin 1871: 56f.) In fact, such behaviour has been studied also more recently in much detail, for example by Cheney/ Seyfarth 1990 (in de Waal 2001: 15f.): Vervet monkeys have different alarm calls for different predators (such as leopard, eagle, and snake), [and they] 3 need to learn to connect the one with the other. The investigators tested the knowledge of their monkeys by playing alarm calls from a concealed speaker. [...] different predators 3 Inserted instead of but. ; & * " 2 % < require different responses […]. For example, the right response to a snake alarm is to stand upright in the grass and look around. This would be suicidal in reaction to a leopard call, which requires monkeys to climb a tree. Cheney and Seyfarth found that […] wrong responses disappeared with age, whereas correct responses increased. This suggests that young monkeys learn how to react to each specific alarm. […] These findings contradict the widespread belief that survival tactics must be hard-wired and instinctive. […] What we have […] is an absolutely critical set of responses transmitted through the observation of others. Instead of relying on genetic information, this is a social, cultural process. (de Waal 2001: 15f.) In addition, sexual selection plays a central role in Darwin’s hypothesis on language evolution: When we treat of sexual selection we shall see that primeval man, or rather some early progenitor of man, probably used his voice largely, as does one of the gibbon-apes at the present day, in producing true musical cadences, that is in singing; we may conclude from a widely-spread analogy that this power would have been especially exerted during the courtship of the sexes, serving to express various emotions, as love, jealousy, triumph, and serving as a challenge to their rivals. The imitation by articulate sounds of musical cries might have given rise to words expressive of various complex emotions. (Darwin 1871: 56) The idea that music could have preceded language has long been ridiculed as the ‘tra-la-la theory’ of language evolution. However, it has gained more serious attention in recent years. Burling for example proposes that “voluntary control over the vocal tract came first as an adaptation to […] some sort of wordless singing or chanting” (Burling 2005: 124). This could have developed in mother-infant interactions where the mother tried to comfort the infant (cf. e.g. Trehub 2003; Kenneally 2007: 174; Falk 2004: 495, 498-501; Falk 2009). And today we can still observe that “[r]egardless of what language they speak, the voice all mothers use with babies is something between speech and song” (Kenneally 2007: 134). This, however, still does not explain why articulate language developed: sing-song would have been enough to comfort a child, it does not require distinctive sounds. According to Darwin, singing and from this language could have mainly developed through sexual selection pressure in the courtship of the sexes. In fact, it took more than a century until Darwin’s ideas on the role of sexual selection in language evolution were rediscovered. In his book The Mating Mind, published in 2000, Geoffrey Miller outlines the central role of sexual selection in human evolution. He claims that it is basically female mate choice that shapes the human mind during evolution and that also drives language evolution. Arts like poetry, storytelling and oratory would then not be by-products of evolution - as has often : 2 been claimed by adherents of the natural selection theory - but the outcome of sexual selection pressure. Generally, sexually selected traits have mainly four special features: 1. They “are usually highly developed in sexually mature adults but not in youth”. 2. There are differences in the trait between individuals. 3. They usually reveal the fitness of an individual as they are difficult to produce if the individual is ill, hungry, injured or carries harmful mutations. 4. Males usually display them “more conspicuously and noisily” than females (cf. Miller 2000: 13f.). I think that all of these special features apply to language, which makes it highly plausible that it evolved by sexual selection. What arguments support the four claims? (I will only concentrate on selected issues here, for a more extended discussion see Wawra 2004: 122-131 and 2006: 345-350). 1. Language is usually highly developed in sexually mature adults but not in youth. I think this is a plausible assumption for language with regard to the acquisition of lexical items and their meanings and the pragmatics of language use. Also the fact that the critical period for the acquisition of a language ends around puberty seems to support the claim (cf. e.g. Pinker 1994: 290f.). Accordingly, Stewart/ Vaillette (2001: 260) for example distinguish between two different phases of language acquisition: One lasts from birth to about age two, during which time a child needs exposure to language in order to develop the brain structures necessary for language acquisition and acquiring native speaker competence. The second “critical period” is said to last from about the age of ten years to sixteen years […]. In the second phase of language acquisition the ability to learn a further language easily and completely gets lost successively (cf. Stewart/ Vaillette 2001: 261). Stewart/ Vaillette (2001: 261) draw the conclusion that humans can learn language only until a certain age, namely 16. This age usually marks the end of puberty and the onset of sexual maturity. Archibald (1996: 524) comments on the question whether there is a window of opportunity to acquire nativelike L2 phonology: We can predict with fair certainty that people who start learning their L2 before the age of seven will have nativelike L2 speech and that people who start learning after fourteen or fifteen will probably have nonnativelike speech. But the results of people who start learning between the ages of seven and fourteen are much more varied. Some end up with accents, and some do not. The age of fourteen or fifteen cited here as being critical for nativelike pronunciation in an L2 supports the assumption that puberty is the criti- ; & * " 2 % < cal period for nativelike language acquisition in the field of phonetics. My hypothesis why research is contradictory as regards pronunciation proficiency between the age of seven and fourteen is as follows: this is usually when children start to learn an L2 at school. If they have a teacher with a non-nativelike pronunciation they would usually end up with such a pronunciation themselves. If they have a teacher with a nativelike pronunciation the chance that they would acquire it as well is pretty good. Besides some of the children in the studies Archibald refers to may have been immersed in the language when growing up in a foreign country and thus would also most likely have acquired nativelike competence. This could explain why the research results are varied. Still the claim that the critical period for language acquisition lasts until puberty could be supported. So I think that there is convincing support that the first special feature of sexually selected traits applies to language. Note that there also seems to be a critical period for the acquisition of birds’ songs (cf. Dobrovolsky 1996: 641). 2. There are language differences between individuals. This is particularly true for human language. We have idiosyncrasies in our pronunciation and style. We describe speakers as more “articulate”, “slow-spoken”, “glib”, “polished” than others and we say that somebody uses more or less “elaborated vocabulary” (Burling 2005: 187) than other speakers. And “[p]eople in every society seem to recognize some among their fellows as having outstanding linguistic skills - as arguers, orators [...], bards, [...] rhyme makers [...] or writers” (Burling 2005: 187). 3. Language reveals the fitness of an individual as it is difficult to produce language if the individual is ill, hungry, injured or carries harmful mutations. Fitness is the ability of an organism to survive in a certain environment and to reproduce successfully (cf. Miller 2000: 107). Both skills are enhanced by better intellectual abilities. Language provides a window to these - it is a fitness indicator. So it fulfils this criterion as well. In addition it is true that language is more difficult to produce when we are ill, hungry, injured or if we carry harmful mutations. When we suffer from Broca aphasia, for example, language production is severely impaired. 4. Language is usually displayed “more conspicuously and noisily” by men than by women. Sexual selection theory basically assumes that the males are the ones who court the females. The females are the ones who select a mate. As a rule, sexual selection makes males better in producing displays and females in judging them (cf. Miller 2000: 375). This is exactly how it evolved with regard to birdsongs as described earlier (usually, only the males sing). So this should also apply to men, women and language. Language tests, however, mostly yield the opposite result. The apparent contradiction resolves when we take a closer look at the language tests. Most tests check language comprehension, not language production (cf. Miller 2000: 375). Besides, the more complex the psychology that is necessary for the production of a certain display and for judging it, the more the : 2 psychologies are alike. This means that it is to be expected that sexual selection has led to much smaller differences between the sexes in such cases than it has in the case of simpler traits like the peacock tail for example (cf. Miller 2000: 92f.). And this is true for language: men and women do not differ tremendously in their language use (although some popular book titles like Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus (Gray 1992) want to make us believe this.) Sociolinguistic studies, and more specifically linguistic gender studies, support the hypothesis that sexual selection must have been a powerful force in language evolution. In what follows, I am taking a macroperspective and will talk not about individual cases but statistics - majorities in human populations and tendencies. However, when I am talking about linguistic gender studies and their results in the following I can only base my insights on studies in Anglo-American and German cultures. We would need many more studies in other cultures to see if the claims apply universally or not. Linguistic gender studies, at least in Anglo-American and German cultures, consistently show that it is predominantly men who talk more in formal, public contexts than women. Here the possibility for self-display is excellent for a man. He can improve his status and thus his chances for reproduction (for a detailed account of the importance of status for men’s - but not women’s - reproductive success see Buss 1994: 25 and Wawra 2004: 143f.). Besides, men tend to interrupt more frequently than women and they tend to be more competitive in conversations. Also, more men than women are public speakers (cf. e.g. Wawra 2004: 57). A partly different picture emerges when we look at private contexts. Often women complain that their partners do not talk enough to them. At first sight this seems to contradict sexual selection theory, which predicts men to speak more. Consequently you would expect that men complain about their wives not talking enough. Is it therefore possible that the initial verbal courtship displays of men decrease when they have been successful? According to evolutionary theory: yes! Each living creature evolves in a way that it distributes its energies efficiently. If it is therefore enough to say a few words a day to your partner to make sure you have exclusive sexual access, why talk more? The motivational system of men evolved in such a way that it only produces costly courtship displays when there is a chance to improve reproductive success (cf. Miller 2000: 382). If a partner threatens to be unfaithful or to deny sexual access, evolution favours motivations to resume verbal courtship till the danger is over (cf. Miller 2000: 383). Thus two conclusions can be drawn: ; & * " 2 % < 1. Women like being courted verbally. 2. Men only invest a lot of verbal courtship, when it is necessary to initiate a sexual relationship or revive it (cf. Miller 2000: 383). <% = 8& & & The findings of the geneticists Hameister et al. also support the hypothesis that human cognitive abilities in general and language in particular have been shaped by sexual selection. They (Hameister et al. 2001: 697) found out that [...] mental impairment is […] 3.1 times more-frequently associated with X-chromosomal genes than with autosomes […]. Therefore, the higher incidence of X-linked genes associated with mental disability (referred to here as MRX genes) is beyond doubt. So according to Hameister et al.’s study, the majority of the genes that influence cognitive ability are situated on the X-chromosome. And genes that relate to sex and reproduction are also particularly frequent on the X-chromosome. This is described as “the large X-chromosome effect” (cf. Hameister et al. 2001: 698). Whenever a large X-chromosome effect influences the development of some feature like fertility or cognitive ability, the feature will be selected. Sexual selection leads to the development of secondary sexual characteristics that would increase female preference for partners displaying the characteristic. The secondary sexual characteristic and the female preference for it will co-evolve. Hameister et al. (2001: 698f.) assume that in the evolution of human cognitive abilities, sexual selection reinforced natural selection: [...] one of the most important factors contributing to the uniqueness of human evolution is that at some point human females decided to select males according to their advanced cognitive abilities. The same cognitive abilities are selected for in the struggle for survival. In humans, the development of the mating characteristic is augmented by natural selection. This is an ongoing process with exponential acceleration, which will propel the development of general cognitive abilities in humans into areas we cannot imagine now. In accordance with this model, language can be seen as a secondary sexual characteristic - like the fascinating tail of the peacock - that plays a central role in mate choice. Hameister et al. refer explicitly to Miller’s (2000) theory in The Mating Mind. They (2001: 699) claim that their findings are in complete accordance with Miller‘s hypothesis in The Mating Mind […]. The human mind has been shaped during evolution by female mate : 2 choice. The high frequency of genes responsible for cognitive functions on the X chromosome constitutes a formal proof of Miller’s hypothesis. >% & Hameister et al.’s study also supports Darwin’s idea that language evolution is based on natural and sexual selection. The ability to speak is useful for survival and reproduction. 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