Language and its relation with the Origins of Morality and Religion (página 2)

The Evolution of
Language

Why do humans have this capacity and other
animals don"t? Wuketits argues that our capacity for language is
innate, but the diversity of languages all over the World came as
a result of cultural evolution.[4] It will be very
difficult for us to know the exact time when verbal language
begun. As we said before, rationality played an important role in
language. We can say that when the first hominids started to
realize who they were (the self) and started to analyze and
understand their surroundings and the others, verbal
communication must have became vital for them. In Puerto Rico
when someone understands something, knows a secret or wants to
reveal the answer to a question and then communicate it verbally,
we say to them "if you were a mute you would have
exploded." I think that when our ancestors begun to
rationalize things like life, survival, their surroundings and
death, something began to change in them, and language was like
an explosion that grew and evolved until today. It is very
difficult to give a date to these events, but we can presuppose
that the acquisition of this kind of knowledge could be the spark
that lighted the fire.

Is there any biological evidence that can
help us explain our capacity for language? Mithen in his book
The Singin Neanderthals (2006) talks about the evolution
of something embedded in the genome of our species that has
evolved by 170,000 years ago.[5] He also alludes
to another genetic study made to a large, multigenerational
family identify as the KEs. This family had specific problems
with grammar and producing orofacial movements of tongue and
lips, making some sounds difficult to understand. What linguists
are debating about in this study is "whether the KEs" language
difficulties derive from a general cognitive deficit or from
something specific to their language
system."[6]

In 2001 one study identified a gene that
caused the KE family to have these linguistic problems. This gene
is known as FOXP2, and it seems that the function of it is to
turn genes on and off, impacting those genes that are needed for
the development of language. This gene is not unique to humans,
for it is also found in many other species. For example, they can
also be found in mice, and the difference of FOXP2 between humans
and mice is only of three of the seven hundred amino acids that
form the gene. It seems that these three amino acids are vital,
showing that the malfunction of FOXP2 will have a deep impact in
language.[7] Another group of geneticists study
the same gene in the chimpanzee, gorilla and monkeys, and the
found that there are only two different amino acids from the ones
found in humans. They are proposing that these two amino acids
are important for the formation of language. Mithen concludes
that even though FOXP2 is not the only gene involved in the
evolution of grammar, and that there must be many genes involved
in the process, this study is important to understand the genetic
foundation for human language.[8]

The question is; how did language evolved?
How did we get from not having a language to saying words, and
eventually constructing more difficult grammar sentences? Mithen
argues that his "Theory of the Hmmmmm"[9] can
provide an evolutionary foundation for language. He draws his
ideas from linguist Alison Wray, where she says that "pre-Homo
sapiens utterances were holistic and manipulative rather than
compositional and referential. It can be summarize as
follows:

• 1. Segmentation, the process where
  humans began to break up holistic phrases into separate
  units. This is the emergence of compositionality, the feature
  that makes language so much more powerful than any other
  communication system.

• 2. Segmentation may have arisen
  from the recognition of chance associations between the
  phonetic segments of the holistic utterance and the objects
  or events to which they are
  related."[10]

• 3. The vocal imitation and sound
  synaesthesia creating non-arbitrary associations between
  phonetic segments of holistic utterances and certain entities
  in the world.[11]

• 4. The use of gesture and body
  language with a phonetic segment of an utterance in
  combination with a gesture.[12]

• 5. The emergence of some words
  helped in the appearance of other new
  words.[13]

• 6. "The musicality of "Hmmmmm"
  would also have facilitated this process, because pitch and
  rhythm would have emphasized particular phonetic segments and
  thus increased the likelihood that they would become
  perceived as discrete entities with their own
  meanings."[14]

Why did language only evolve after 200,000
years ago?[15] According to Mithen there might be
two different answers to this question, one is related to social
life and the other one to human biology. Referring to the first
one, it might be the case that the way societies formed there
were no need for language generalizations. In other words, the
only contact that the homo had was between their own,
learning only what was needed to know to satisfy their own needs.
Infants only learned what was passed through to them, being
exposed only to a few of "Hmmmmm" speakers, with no need for
generalizations. This could be true to the type of hominid and
Early Human communities. The way that communities were formed
provided only a few (if any) opportunities for social exchange
with outside communities, reducing the need to use a more
complicated form of communication than their
own.[16]

It could be that the development of a more
specialized economic role and social hierarchic positions that a
new kind of communication with the other communities began,
creating the need to have conversations with the others. This
pressured the community and the individual to find forms to
exchange information in unprecedented ways. Then generalizations
became a need. This provides the dilemma of what are we dealing
with, cause or effect; is language the cause of a more
specialized economic role and the creation of social hierarchies
or the contrary? Mithen will say "that we are dealing with strong
feedback between the two – they bootstrapped each other to
create rapid changes both in society and in
communication."[17]

These developments could have been started
by a genetic mutation. This mutation made possible the
identification of new sounds. It seems that the process of
segmentation depended in the gene FOXP2 that appeared in the
modern human version approximately 200,000 years ago. This could
have been combined with other genetic changes that helped the
development of a more complicated form of
communication.[18]

Wuketits comes to very similar conclusions
when relating the evolution of [human] knowledge with the
evolution of language. Some of these conclusions are:

• 1. Rational knowledge emerged late
  in evolution 50,000 years ago. He says that knowledge "can be
  characterized by elements such as verbal communication,
  symbols, and self reflection… it is a result of brain
  evolution, which has been a complex process of
  integration."[19]

• 2. Language is the result of
  organic evolution. The capacity for humans to learn a
  language is innate, but the learning of a certain language is
  the product of socio-cultural
  evolution.[20]

• 3. The acquisition of knowledge
  depends as much on biological factors as on socio-cultural
  factors. The way we learn is due to our biological
  structures, but these structures are tied to socio-cultural
  factors in order to develop
  knowledge.[21]

Language and its
relation with Morality

Frans De Waal argues that there are
parallels between the foundations of morality and language. A
baby is not born with the ability to learn a certain language but
with the capacity to learn language, the baby is also born with
the capacity to learn morality. Rationality and language play an
important role in the evolution of morality. In his book
Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved De Waal
develops what he calls Three Levels of Morality. These
are:

• 1. "Building Blocks or Moral
  Sentiments – Human psychology provides the "building
  blocks of morality, such as the capacity for empathy,
  tendency for reciprocity, a sense of fairness, and the
  ability to harmonize relationships.

• 2. Social Pressure –
  Insisting that everyone behaves in a way that favors a
  cooperative group life.

• 3. Judgment and reasoning –
  Internalization of others" needs and goals to the degree that
  these needs and goals figure in our judgment of behavior,
  including others" behavior that does not directly touch us.
  Moral judgment is self-reflective and often logically
  reasoned."[22]

In the first two levels humans and primates
share some parallels, even though there are some differences in
the second one. Each and every one of the aspects that define
each level are related to forms of communication (verbal, non
verbal, or any way animals communicate). The one that I"m more
interested in discussing is the third level, judgment and
reasoning. At this level De Wall finds no parallels between
humans and primates. Humans are always trying to pass judgment
over their own actions and the actions of others. We rationalize
what we do, trying to understand the meanings of our actions; why
we do the things we do, and the way we do them. The way we can
achieve this level of morality is by language. We need
rationality to pass judgment over actions, but to let the other
know how we feel or what we think, language is needed. High
social interactions are needed to achieve this level. One of the
roots of morality, says De Waal, must be social interaction.
Language is at the roots of social interaction. If we pass
language to other generations, we also pass morality through our
judgments, and we teach them through language. He calls this
level, just as Darwin called language, as "uniquely
human."[23]

Language and
Theological Reflection

Wuketits refers to the burials of
Neanderthals and of the early Homo sapiens as the "need for
metaphysical belief."[24] He will also say that
humans are rational beings creating irrational belief systems.
When humans are unable to understand what is happening in their
surroundings, the easiest way out is to create a metaphysical
power that will explain it. "Metaphysical-religious belief
therefore is relative to our own nature including our need to
understand external reality."[25] He quotes
Caspari (1877) argument that "religion developed similarly to
other expressions of the human mind in prehistoric times and that
its emergences was due to particular social
interactions."[26]

I disagree with Wuketits in his
interpretation of "metaphysical belief" as irrational. I will
argue that when we try to give an explanation using our brains,
even if we arrive to a wrong conclusion, we are using our
rationality. What I"m saying is that our tendency to believe is
not irrational. He will also say that our tendencies to believe
in a higher power are not imposed by God (or a god) but that it
is only part of our nature.[27] Why our own nature
would play a trick like that on us? If religiosity is only a
natural tendency, why there are so many different religions and
not just one? By this I mean that if religiosity is only a
natural tendency, we would be inclined to have same forms of
religious practices all over the world.

We can go on arguing with Wuketits about
his position and probably won"t reach to an answer. Where I want
to direct the attention is that language must have played an
important role in the transmission of metaphysical beliefs. When
the Neanderthals began to bury the death there must have been
some form of communication in explaining their reasons to one
another on why and how they were doing it. Shamans must have
needed language to transmit their visions to others. When our
ancestors were in the middle of a natural phenomenon and tried to
give to it metaphysical explanations to one another, language
must have played an important role in it.

In Judaism, they understood that God was
the one who gave humanity the ability to communicate verbally,
and that it is the same God who is in control of every language.
We can see that in Genesis 11. My point is that between the
beginning of religious reflection and the origins of language are
deeply related. Language, rationality, moral systems, social
interactions and religiosity seem to be blended in as part of the
evolution of what is to be human. To finish this section I will
quote Dr. Van Huysteen:

"Because we relate to our world
epistemically only through the mediation of interpreted
experience, it may be said that our diverse theologies, and also
the sciences, offer alternative interpretations of our
experience. Alternative, however, not in the sense of competing
or conflicting interpretations, but of complementary
interpretations of the manifold dimensions of our
experience."[28]

Conclusion

We can"t give a specific time for when
language became part of humanity, but we can infer through some
archeological findings and interpretations some approximations on
when humans started to use language. We can"t even say which
language was the first one, and how it could have sounded, these
are things that we can only speculate. What we can say is how
important language is for the understanding of humanity, and how
it molds a variety of aspects of what it means to be human.
Language must be a key factor in the survival of our specie, and
for the development of society and culture.

[1] Franz M. Wuketits. (1990) Evolutionary
Epistemology and its Implications for Humankind. Albany, NY:
State of New York University Press. 114.

[2] J. Wentzel Van Huyssteen. (2006) Alone in
the World? Human Uniqueness in Science and Theology. Grand
Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing Co. 71.

[3] Wuketits., 115.

[4] Wuketits., 115.

[5] Steven Mithen. 2006. The Singing
Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and Body.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 249.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid., 250.

[9] Hmmmmm stands for Holistic, manipulative,
multi-modal, musical, and mimetic. According to Mithen this was
the type of communication system used by the immediate ancestors
of Homo sapiens in Africa, although in a form less highly evolved
than among Neanderthals in Europe (Mithen, 2006).

[10] Mithen., 252-253.

[11] Ibid., 253.

[12] Ibid., 253.

[13] Ibid., 253.

[14] Ibid., 253.

[15] Ibid., 257.

[16] Ibid., 257.

[17] Ibid. 258.

[18] Ibid., 258-259.

[19] Wuketits., 128.

[20] Ibid., 128.

[21] Ibid., 128.

[22] Frans De Waal. (2006) Primates and
Philosophers: How Morality Evolved. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press. 166-175.

[23] Ibid., 175.

[24] Wuketits., 118.

[25] Ibid., 119.

[26] Ibid., 119.

[27] Ibid., 198-199.

[28] Van Huysteen., 15.

Autor:

Samuel Arroyo