On the Evolving Biology of Language

Some language scientists defend an anti-Darwin account and believe in the saltational evolution
of modern language. They emphasize that the language faculty emerged by a sudden mutation in the 
last 50–100 ky (e.g., Klein, 2000; Chomsky, 2012, 2015; Berwick et al., 2013). In contrast, others 
claim that modern language is the product of a gradual co-evolution of neurobiological and 
cultural-linguistic conditions, which took place since genus Pan was separated for good from the 
hominin lineage about 4–6 mya (e.g., Pinker and Bloom, 1990; Pinker, 1994; Deacon, 1997; Dor  and  
Jablonka,  2001;  Falk,  2004;  Enfield  and  Levinson,  2006;  Levinson  and  Jaisson,  2006; 
Christiansen and Chater, 2008; Atkinson, 2011; Dunn et al., 2011; Dediu and Levinson, 2014). New 
genetic evidence and their interpretation in context of fossil and artifact discoveries shed 
however light on this controversy. The data indicate that pre-modern language might have been 
already spoken by Homo erectus. Moreover, we conclude that the sister species of modern humans, 
Neanderthals and Denisovans, may have used language much like modern humans do (e.g., Dediu
and Levinson, 2013).