How human language could have evolved from birdsong
Thursday, February 21, 2013 - 07:30
in Paleontology & Archaeology
"The sounds uttered by birds offer in several respects the nearest analogy to language," Charles Darwin wrote in "The Descent of Man" (1871), while contemplating how humans learned to speak. Language, he speculated, might have had its origins in singing, which "might have given rise to words expressive of various complex emotions."