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Talk to the hand: language might have evolved from gestures.


Chimpanzees and bonobos can communicate with greater flexibility using hand gestures than they can with facial expressions facial expression,
n the use of the facial muscles to communicate or to convey mood.
 or vocalizations, new research shows. Their use of hand motions to convey different meanings in different circumstances suggests that gestures may have played an important part in the evolution of language.

Researchers speculate about how pre-human species developed the capacity for complex language. One theory suggests that humans' apelike ancestors Ancestors
See also father; heredity; mother; origins; parents; race.

archaism

an inclination toward old-fashioned things, speech, or actions, especially those of one’s ancestors. Also archaicism. — archaist, n.
 first communicated through gestures. Once the neural circuits for gesture-based language had evolved, those same brain areas could have switched over to verbal communication. Indeed, research has shown that modern apes use the same area of the brain to interpret hand signals as humans use to process spoken language.

Working at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center The Yerkes National Primate Research Center, located in Atlanta, Georgia at Emory University, is one of eight national primate research centers funded by the National Institutes of Health.  in Atlanta, Frans B.M. de Waal
For the ethologist see Frans de Waal
For the British writer, see Alex de Waal.
For the British journalist, see Thomas de Waal.
 and Amy S. Pollick observed communications among 34 captive chimpanzees and among 13 captive bonobos, also known as pygmy chimpanzees. The researchers logged every hand gesture, facial expression, and vocal cry that one animal directed at another. They also noted the social context--playing, grooming, fighting, having sex, eating, and so on--in which each signal occurred.

Individual facial expressions and vocalizations were closely tied to a single context, showing little flexibility in meaning or usage, the scientists found. But the apes could use the same hand gesture in multiple contexts, the team reports online and in an upcoming Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, usually referred to as PNAS, is the official journal of the United States National Academy of Sciences. .

For example, reaching out with an upturned palm while eating appeared to be a request for more food, but in fighting situations, the same gesture signaled a desire for support.

"Gesturing is a stepping-stone toward symbolic communication Symbolic communication is exchange of messages that change a priori expectation of events. Examples of this are modern communication technology as also exchange of information amongst animals. ," in which the form of the signal bears no relation to its meaning, says Pollick, now at the Washington, D.C.-based Association for Psychological Science. Using a gesture to convey a meaning that varies with context implies a capacity to redefine Verb 1. redefine - give a new or different definition to; "She redefined his duties"
define, delimit, delimitate, delineate, specify - determine the essential quality of

2.
 signals. "There isn't such a strict connection between a gesture and an emotional context as there is with [an ape's] scream," Pollick says.

Bonobos and chimpanzees are the two closest evolutionary cousins to people. The human lineage LINEAGE. Properly speaking lineage is the relationship of persons in a direct line; as the grandfather, the father, the son, the grandson, &c.  diverged from the bonobo-chimpanzee lineage about 6 million years ago, and the last common ancestor ANCESTOR, descents. One who has preceded another in a direct line of descent; an ascendant. In the common law, the word is understood as well of the immediate parents, as, of these that are higher; as may appear by the statute 25 Ed. III. De natis ultra mare, and so in the statute of 6 R.  of bonobos and chimps lived about 2.5 million years ago. Any similarities in how the two ape species use hand gestures were probably inherited from that common ancestor, giving scientists a window into the past.

"I think this is the best kind of evidence that you'll find" for how language evolved, comments Susan Goldin-Meadow, who studies human gesture and language at the University of Chicago. Fossils reveal almost nothing about how people's distant ancestors communicated, so scientists can infer the past only by looking at modern humans and other primates Primates

The mammalian order to which humans belong. Primates are generally arboreal mammals with a geographic distribution largely restricted to the Tropics.
, she says.

For example, all apes use hand motions to communicate, but monkeys and other animals don't. And gestures are ubiquitous in human communication. "In every single culture, we gesture as we talk," Goldin-Meadow says.

Scientists don't agree on whether and how gestures influenced the evolution of language. For example, Goldin-Meadow suggests that hand motions could have developed in parallel with vocal sounds rather than coming first.
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Title Annotation:This Week
Author:Barry, Patrick
Publication:Science News
Date:May 5, 2007
Words:524
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