When and why did humans develop their ability to communicate verbally, what happens in the brain when speaking and what can the voice reveal about a person? Linguists are investigating these and many other exciting questions about this complex topic. Their results are the focus of the March issue of bild der wissenschaft.
We emit a certain sequence of sounds – and listeners are already in the picture: The ability to transmit complex information through language is one of the key abilities of our species. Because, among other things, it forms one of the foundations of our highly developed ability to cooperate and ensures the transfer of knowledge – sometimes across generations. This great importance for humans has also made language an important topic in research: Scientists around the world are investigating many different aspects of verbal communication.
The first sub-article of the title topic focuses on the evolution of human language. The bdw author Jan Berndorff sheds light on the current state of research on how our ancestors got their powerful communication system and how the ability to speak has evolved over the course of human development. Scientists investigate these questions using linguistic, anatomical and genetic analyses. First, Berndorff clarifies how human language differs from forms of animal sound communication.
Of evolution, cognition and voice
The complex human way of communicating requires certain cognitive and anatomical prerequisites. The following applies: understanding language is significantly more demanding for the brain than the ability to produce speech sounds. Species before the genus Homo probably did not yet have such abilities. At some point in the last two million years, the first human beings apparently began to speak – possibly to make tools together, the article reveals.
The bdw author Andrea Mertes then focuses on knowledge about the development of language over the course of a person’s life. Linguists and developmental psychologists are currently researching the processes in the brain of babies and young children as part of language acquisition. According to this, the process begins surprisingly early: Babies are already sensitized to the rhythm and melody of their mother tongue in the womb. A few months after birth, they then begin a well-known preliminary stage of speech: they babble. How this then takes on more and more complex forms and other aspects of language development is examined by Mertes in the article “How babble becomes language”. It is supplemented by an interview she conducted with Necle Bulut – an expert on multilingualism and German as a second language. It is about how immigrant children can learn German most effectively.
The fourth part of the title theme is then a look at the biology of the speech apparatus and the importance of the voice. In it, the bdw author Jan Schwenkenbecher reports how the sound and the anatomy of a speaker are related. Based on certain features of the voice, we not only recognize a person’s gender, but can also draw conclusions about their age and even their height. In addition, the author clarifies the importance of the voice in expressing emotions and certain aspects of personality. How a person speaks also plays a role in our ratings of trustworthiness, attractiveness, or intelligence, reports Schwenkenbecher.
You will find the cover story “The Power of Language” in the March issue of bild der wissenschaft, which will be available in stores from February 15th.