Early humans may have said little beyond “hunt mammoth” and “take care of the baby,” so why have a system that can produce War and Peace and Kant’s philosophy?
Language evolution is complex. One must consider the evolution of the mechanics—brain wiring, throat and mouth anatomy, and so on. One must consider how our language sounds developed, and why we talk at all as opposed to gesturing. One must consider how people evolved learned languages that can all generate literally infinite numbers of sentences from ape calls that are few and instinctive. One must consider how grammar got so complicated; apes give single calls, humans generate sentences that can then be negated, turned into commands, made conditional, and so on. One must consider what use such a complex system was to early hominins. Early humans may have said little beyond “hunt mammoth” and “take care of the baby,” so why have a system that can produce War and Peace and Kant’s philosophy?