For a long time we have been in love with the idea of a sudden, explosive transformation that changed mere apes into us.
It seems more and more that the paradox is not inherent in language but in how we look at it. For a long time we have been in love with the idea of a sudden, explosive transformation that changed mere apes into us. The idea of metamorphosis has gone hand in hand with a list of equally dramatic ideas. For example: that language is a wholly discrete trait that has little in common with other kinds of mental activity; that language is the evolutionary adaptation that changed everything; and that language is wired into humanity's DNA. We have looked for a critical biological event that brought complex language into existence around 50,000 years ago.