This Podcast Will Kill You - Special Episode: Professor Steven Mithen & The Language Puzzle

Episode Date: June 24, 2025

From the earliest grunts and gestures to the complex sentences we use today to convey a multitude of concepts, language has evolved to become one of humanity’s most powerful tools. It allows us to connect, create, conspire, control, console, catch up, and so much more. How did we come to have this uniquely human trait? What anatomical changes or cultural developments were necessary for language to evolve? What differentiates language from communication? In this TPWKY book club episode, Professor Steven Mithen joins us to discuss his latest book The Language Puzzle: Piecing Together the Six-Million-Year Story of How Words Evolved. By combining scholarship across wide-ranging fields such as archaeology, genetics, anthropology, linguistics, neuroscience, and more, Professor Mithen presents a compelling story of the origins of language. If you’ve ever wondered how babies can go from babbling one day and talking in a torrent of words the next, or how an individual language changes with each generation, this is the episode and book for you. Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/3WwtIAuSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. There are already enough things charging your card every month. Dinner should not be one of them, which is exactly why Blue Apron is now subscription-free. You heard that right, Blue Apron no longer requires a subscription. You can order meals when you want them and skip when you don't without adding another recurring charge. Blue Apron meals are designed by chefs and arrive with pre-portioned ingredients, so there's no meal planning and no extra grocery trip. Order now at Blue Apron.com. Get 50% off your first two orders plus free shipping with code this podcast 50.

Terms and conditions apply. Visit blue apron.com slash terms for more information. The worst part about loving cars might just be buying them and all the parts. But on eBay, behind every car in part is a story waiting to be shared. There was a guy who bought a 2021 Porsche Cayman that was well loved. I mean, there are plenty of Caymans in great condition on eBay. But this one needed some work. This guy buys it and rebuilds the whole thing, all with parts he found on eBay.

And now, that nearly scrapped Kamen is out tearing up the track. From Toyotas to Aston Martins, eBay has thousands of cars and the largest online selection of vehicle parts and accessories. eBay, things people love. Indeed, sponsor jobs gets you quality candidates when you need them most. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsor job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at Indeed.com slash podcast.

Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Hi, I'm Aaron Welsh, and this is This Podcast Will Kill you. You're listening to the latest episode in the TPWKY Book Club series, where I chat with authors of popular science and medicine books about their latest work. Part of what I love about these episodes is getting to read about such varied topics, whether it's measles or tuberculosis, the pelvic exam, or gaslighting in medicine, road ecology, or animal senses. I'm always learning something new. we've showcased some fascinating books so far this season and in past seasons, and we've got more great books coming up.

To check out the full list of books featured in these book club episodes, head over to our website, this podcast will kill you.com. Under the extras tab, you'll find a link to our bookshop.org affiliate page, which includes several different TPWKY related lists, including one for this book club. Another thing that I love about this series and just making this podcast in general is hearing from you all about these episodes, your favorite books, questions you want to ask, books you'd like to see featured on a future episode, suggestions for future topics, and any other thoughts you have. The best way to get in touch with us is by filling out the contact us form on our website. Two last pieces of business before we can get into the book of the week, and that is to please rate, review, and subscribe. really helps us out. And if you haven't heard already, we're now on YouTube. That's right, you can find full videos of most of our newer episodes on Exactly Right Media's YouTube channel. Make sure you're subscribed so you never miss a new episode release. Have you ever put your

foot in your mouth or held your tongue? Or maybe you didn't and let the cat out of the bag. Do you have a friend that's a total chatterbox or met someone who has a way with words? Taken by themselves, these idioms don't really make literal sense. I'm not really asking who is bendy enough that they have actually inserted their foot into their mouth. I mean, who has said something embarrassing that they shouldn't have? We use idioms like these to communicate a feeling, as shorthand for what might require a longer description, or just to add a little fun. And the utility of idioms gives us a glimpse into the incredible power of human language. Our capacity for language sets us apart from all other species.

It has shaped the evolution of our species, our societies, our cultures, our history, and it will continue to do so while also being shaped by us. How we ever evolved this ability is so mind-boggling that, ironically, I find myself at a loss for words. Fortunately, my guest for this episode has not only the words to describe language evolution, but also the research to back them up. In today's episode, I'm joined by Stephen Meithen, Professor of Archaeology at the University of Reading and author, to discuss his latest book, The Language Puzzle, piecing together the six million-year story of how words evolved. In this tremendous undertaking, Professor Meythen takes readers on a tour spanning hundreds of thousands of years and across many diverse fields of study, from linguistics to archaeology, genetics to neuroscience, and beyond. What results is a comprehensive picture of how we came to have language? How do babies babble one day, and then the next outpours a flood of words?

What can primate communication today tell us about the early stages of human language? Where do toolmaking, brain size, and bipedalism fit into the language puzzle? Stay tuned. We'll take a quick break and get into all those questions and more. Professor Meithen, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me today. I really enjoyed your book, The Language Puzzle, for so many reasons. But I especially loved how you integrated many decisions. distinct fields of study, ones that you might not normally encounter in the same place.

Why is this interdisciplinary approach or perspective so crucial when it comes to exploring something like the origins of language? We really don't have any choice because language is such an incredible phenomenon. I mean, it uses not only our vocal tracks to make the sounds, or you can use your hands to make sign language, but that relies on our physiology. and ultimately our brains. So we need to draw not only on human anatomy, but also on neuroscience and psychology. But that's just a small part of it, because sitting behind all those is the genetics of language. And then we have to actually think about how humans evolved. So that takes us into the

archelaical record of human ancestors, the fossil record, and the archaeological evidence for how they behaved. And then we've also got to look at other animals because we're closely related to the chimpanzees who've got to think about how they communicate. And of course, the other big areas of disciplines is language itself, linguistics, which is a hugely complicated and diverse subject. And around the margins of that, we move into subjects such as music and philosophy and so forth. So to really address the evolution language, you've got to find the evidence and the right theories and the right interpretations in all these different disciplines and then try to join them together.

And that's why I call the book The Language Puzzle, because it's like finding bits of a jigsaw puzzle, gradually piecing them together until a picture emerges of how this remarkable ability that we have to communicate via language could have possibly evolved. Yes, and I am really excited to dig into some of these individual pieces of the language puzzle.

But before we do that, maybe we should take a step back and just define what language is. And how is language different from communication? Yeah, I mean, that's easily said, but it's quite challenging. And many people would define language differently because, of course, we do talk about how chimpanzees and whales and birds have language. But that's a very different type of communication system to what we should think of as language. I suppose the key elements of spoken language, or signed language, are they discrete units called words. And words have shared meanings.

And often those meanings are entirely arbitrary. So, you know, I can say a word like a tree or a dog. And unless you have some shared understanding, you won't know what I'm naturally talking about because it's arbitrary. And then we can combine those words in different orders to generate particular meaning. And you can also interpret that meaning that I say. So if I say the man bit the dog, it means something entirely different from the dog bit the man. It's the same words, but the order is playing a role as well.

So really, language has got units of communication words and rules for how we combine them together to convey larger meanings. And of course, there's so many different types of language which have all their different types of words and different types of rules. It's incredibly diverse. There's over 7,000 languages in the world today, which is probably a tiny fraction of those that ever existed. So it's a remarkable phenomenon. But it's those two key aspects that I think distinguish it between the communication systems of all other animals and some other communication systems that we do, like music or art and so

forth, which are also ways of communicating, of course. That in itself is a fascinating aspect of this. other ways that we communicate beyond language. And it got me wondering, you know, using this definition of language with the components as you just laid out, could you see any prerequisites for a species or a lineage that would be necessary for language to evolve within that group? Yes, you can do because I think you have to, I mean, obviously, you need a sufficiently large brain to be able to contain a sufficient number of different words to make a viable language. You also need to have a vocal tract which can make a sufficient number of different sounds,

which can be joined together as syllables to make words, but they also need to be made in a consistent manner so that if I want to say a word, I'm going to pronounce it broadly the same each time. Otherwise, you wouldn't know what I'm talking about. So if we look at, say, chimpanzees, one of their constraints in vocalisations is that they have a limited ability to have that consistency because of the nature of their vocal tracks. And they also have a limited ability to make a sufficiently wide range of sounds. Again, because of the way their jaws are particularly elongated, which makes a very different shape of vocal tract to which we have. So you need some basic anatomy in place to be able to make the sounds.

and you need a sufficient size of brain to be able to remember those sounds, remember the meaning of words. Now, those thresholds are probably passed pretty early in human evolution. So I don't think they are, you know, anything restricted to our species. I think they must have been shared with many of our ancestors. Let's take a quick break. And when we get back, there's still so much to discuss. Dinner shows up every night, whether you're prepared for it or not.

And with Blue Apron, you won't need to panic order takeout again. Blue Apron meals are designed by chefs and arrive with pre-portioned ingredients so there's no meal planning and no extra grocery trip. Their assemble and bake meals take about five minutes of hands-on prep. Just spread the pre-chopped ingredients on a sheet pan, put it in the oven, and that's it. And if there's truly no time to cook, dish by Blue Apron meals are fully prepared. Just heat them in the oven or microwave, and dinner is ready. And here's the exciting news. Blue Apron no longer requires a subscription. You can order meals, when you want them and skip when you don't without adding another recurring charge.

Order now at blue apron.com. Get 50% off your first two orders plus free shipping with code this podcast 50. Terms and conditions apply. Visit blue apron.com slash terms for more information. Anyone who works long hours knows the routine. Wash, sanitize, repeat. By the end of the day, your hands feel like they've been through something. That's why O'Keefe's working hands hand cream is such a relief.

It's a concentrated hand cream that is specifically designed to relieve extremely dry, cracked hands caused by constant hand washing and harsh conditions. Working hands creates a protective layer on the skin that locks in moisture. It's non-greasy, unscented, and absorbs quickly. A little goes a long way. Moisturization that lasts up to 48 hours. It's made for people whose hands take a beating at work, from health care and food service to salon, lab, and caregiving environments. It's been relied on for decades by people who wash their hands constantly or work in harsh conditions because it actually works. O'Keefs is my hand cream of choice in these dry Colorado winters when it feels like my skin is always on the verge of cracking.

It keeps them soft and smooth no matter how harsh it is outside. We're offering our listeners 15% off their first order of O'Keef's. Just visit O'Keef's company.com slash this podcast and code this podcast at checkout. A timeless wardrobe starts with pieces that are built well from the beginning. From the fabrics to the fit, everything needs to last beyond one season. And that's how Quince approaches design. Quince has all the staples covered, from 100% organic cotton sweaters to premium denim made with stretch for all-day comfort and luxe cotton cashmere blends, perfect for the changing seasons.

The quality shows in every detail, the stitching, the fit, the fabrics. Every piece is thoughtfully designed to be your new wardrobe essential. and each piece is made with premium materials in ethical trusted factories and priced far below what other luxury brands charge. I recently got a pair of Quince's Bella Stretch Wide-Legg jeans, and they are now in constant rotation. They are so comfortable, the fit is amazing, and they come in a bunch of different washes, so I'm about to go order some more. Refresh your wardrobe with Quince. Go to quince.com slash this podcast to get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. available in Canada, too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E-com slash this podcast to get free shipping and 365-day returns, quince.com slash this podcast. Welcome back, everyone. I've been chatting with Professor

Stephen Meythin about his book, The Language Puzzle, piecing together the six million-year story of how words evolved. Let's get back into things. The natural outcropping of this is the language, as we use in human language, as you said, involves this, this. vocal component or sign language. The bottom line is, would we be able to recognize language in another species if it looked far different from ours? Yeah, I guess so. But, Erin, just remember, I'm watching you on a video. You're gesturing the whole time as you speak. So, you know, when we talk about spoken language, it's a fully integrated system with facial expressions, with body posture, and very often with gesturing with hands.

And some people say it's that sort of physical movements that conveys so much of the meaning of what we want to say. And of course, it's also it's not just the words, it's our intonation. It's the prosody of language, that musicality of language that can put a particular meaning on a particular type of phrase, whether you're angry or happy or pleased and so forth. Obviously, we can do some very clever studies on the communications whether by chimpanzees or by whales or birds. And we can see that they have some elements which are certainly important to language today. So whether you're a chimpanzee or a young bird or young whale, you do learn the communication system of your community.

It's not just genetically present. There's some learning. so you'll grab learning a particular way of communicating. And there are certainly are some aspects, certainly in chimpanzee communication, that are word like and language like. So they are able to control the loudness which they speak or the duration of a phrase. They'll take account of who else is around when they make a vocalisation because they know they want to inform some people, but not others.

Now, all of these are crucial elements. of our spoken language as well, but in themselves they don't constitute language by themselves. I'm sure we can see the same, make the same comparisons with birds and with whales. But of course, they're much more evolutionary distance, and their communication systems are one more of, if they have language-like elements, it's more one of convergent evolution. Whereas with chimpanzees, we shared an ancestor just about eight million years ago. So that ancestor probably gave rise to both the chimpanzee type communication today and our language today. To think about the convergent evolution possibilities of what else language would look like, I think is a really intriguing part.

But I think maybe we'll stay in the realm of humans or hominins. And I'd like to now turn to the past to our hominin ancestors. What can we infer about the origins of language from their fossil remains? It's a huge challenge. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that or a listener's that. And, you know, it's the slightly odd subject for an archaeologist to tackle because the past is absolutely silent. You know, I can't hear people talk in the past and so forth. But we have no choice. Because if we're going on to sound language, we've got to look at evolution history. We can look at the skeletal remains or the fossilized remains. And we are able, in some instances, to, reconstruct or shape all these parts of the vocal tract. Because sometimes we get very small bones remaining or particular parts of the cranium that indicates how the face and the larynx and so forth would have been positioned. And we can see that even by 500,000 years ago, and probably earlier, from those little scraps of bone, the vocal tract was probably

much the same as ours today. We can also find tiny earbones from our human ancestors going back again hundreds of thousands of years. And we can look at the shape of the earbones that influence our hearing, our audio track. And we can also see when they are most similar to ours. So we can use these bits of fossilised remains to reconstruct as far as we can, the vocal tract or the audit tracked. And by 500,000 years ago, they're looking sufficiently similar to ours so that we can say the physical capability of language was there, whether the mental capability was there or not, is another question. Now, for that, of course, we can look at brain size. But it's not clear that there is a particular threshold of brain size that we need for language. You know, how many

neurons would you need to be able to have, like, we don't know. And of course, very young children with much more of brains and adults. They have fabulous language skills. So it's not clear to me this absolute size of the brain is important. It's probably the way all the neurons are networked inside, connected inside. But of course, that's something that we cannot see as archaeologists. But to get some insights of that, we can look at aspects of toolmaking, hunting, social behavior, whether building fires or making huts, because all of those are complex behavior that must to have drawn either direct your language skills or equivalent cognitive processes. I appreciate that layout of like, okay, these are the possibilities, but whether or not

language itself would have emerged as a different question. And you mentioned a few different things that would have driven or would have been an obvious need for language. And of course, today, you know, we use language for literally everything. It's impossible to imagine things that we don't use it for. But would there have been particular driving? of or like important reasons that communication would have been elaborated in this way to lead to language for these early hominens? A common argument among many anthropologists and one that I tend to support is that one of the earliest functions of language would have been for building social bonds between individuals. And of course, that remains one of the primary uses of language, as in chit-chat, gossip and so forth. Now, why that became important was that if we go back to about four million years ago, our hominin ancestors, which were probably not much more than one and a half metres high and rather defensive creatures by themselves, they're increasing living in rather open savannah environments as the landscape changed.

Environments which are quite difficult and dangerous to live in because there's lots of dangerous predators around. So they're probably needing to live in larger group sizes. They're probably needing to cooperate more than others. They couldn't just escape up a tree, for instance, because not many that trees around. So it needs to work together both for finding food and defending against predators. That might have been one of this stimulants for language, not to be communicating information, but to be building social bonds. But we've got to think those earlier stages of the language, they probably didn't involve many words,

let alone complex grammar, there was probably not that different from chimpanzee type grunts and barks, but becoming more directed to particular individuals, becoming richer, more emotionally involved and so forth. So socialising is certainly important, but also just transmitting information about what's happening in the landscape, the site of a predator, the location of some right berries or some tubers or a carcass could be exploited. I mean, I'm sure passing on that factual information was also being of selective value and help push language that bit forward. So trying to find one particular reason I don't think is right. And I think if we look at language today, we can see how it's used for all sorts of purposes.

I'm sure that was also the case right back in our early times. We've touched a few times on chimpanzees today and our other ape relatives today can tell us about the origins of human language. And you have a really fascinating chapter about this where you examine some of of these research that has revealed the capacity or what their capacity might be for language on both anatomical and cognitive levels. I was hoping you could just take me through a little bit of that research. Ethologists, I mean, they do just such fascinating experiments.

If we go back 30 years, we'd think that chimpanzees just bark and grunt and these are all just really emotional outbursts. But what the ethologists have done is that they've worked with wild chimpanzees. chimpanzees, because once you have them in zoos or in institutions, you can't really see their natural behaviour of communications. They work in the world, but they make subtle manipulations of those wild settings. So, for instance, if they see a trail that chimpanzees will frequently use when out gathering food and so forth, they might put an artificial snake on the track, and they might ensure that one chimpanzee sees that. And then they'll be able to be able to,

to record its responses, its vocal responses. Who does it call to? When does it call? Does it call to everybody or quite what? And they do the similar things with putting different types of food at and so forth. So gradually trying to control certain factors and stimulate certain calls and gradually then piece together what those calls, not so much what they might mean, but the function that they're playing. Another really fascinating experiment, so it was orang-o-tang. Tang, and orangutans live with their, the mothers live with their infants for many years. And their big predators are tigers in their forests. So they've actually put people out in tiger costumes crawling through the forest.

Arangutangans see them and they listen to the response. And one of the amazing things is that orangutang sometimes don't respond immediately. They wait until the predator has passed and then they call. The idea of that is they're able to be aware of the situation, but control themselves. Because if you call immediately, you're just going to attract the tension of the predator. But you need to call in a while to warn your offspring and the other female orangutan that there is danger about. So these experiments show how these barks and grunts and calls aren't just emotional outbursts. They're carefully controlled relating to the social and social.

and the ecological context. That experiment reveals what seems like a deliberate delay in communication, but how much can we really say about conscious intent there? We don't know whether the orangutans are actually consciously aware of what they're doing. We don't know that. I mean, we know that we would be consciously aware. We don't really know whether that is the case in orangutans or whether it was just something that's been selected.

I suspect they are. You know, I suspect there's a lot more consciousness, not only in these great apes, but many other animals, than we're generally prepared to credit them with. Let's take a quick break here. We'll be back before you know it. Anyone who works long hours knows the routine. Wash, sanitize, repeat. By the end of the day, your hands feel like they've been through something. That's why O'Keeffe's working hands hand cream is such a relief. It's a concentrated hand cream that is specifically designed to relieve extreme, dry, cracked hands caused by constant hand washing and harsh conditions. Working hands creates a protective layer on the skin that locks in moisture. It's non-greasy, unscented, and absorbs quickly. A little goes a long way. Moisturization that lasts up to 48 hours. It's made for people whose

hands take a beating at work, from health care and food service to salon, lab, and caregiving environments. It's been relied on for decades by people who wash their hands constantly or work in harsh conditions because it actually works. O'Keefs is my hand cream of choice in these dry Colorado winters when it feels like my skin is always on the verge of cracking. It keeps them soft and smooth, no matter how harsh it is outside. We're offering our listeners 15% off their first order of O'Keefs. Just visit O'Keef's Company.com slash this podcast and code this podcast at checkout. This is Jacob Goldstein from What's Your Problem. Business software is expensive, and when you buy software from lots of different companies,

it's not only expensive, it gets confusing, slow to use, hard to integrate. Odu solves that because all Odu software is connected on a single affordable platform. Save money without missing out on the features you need. Odu has no hidden costs and no limit on features or data. Odu has over 60 apps available for any needs your business might have, all at no additional charge. Everything from websites to sales to inventory, to accounting, all linked and talking to each other.

Check out O-D-O-O-O-O-O-com. That's O-D-O-O-O-O-com. When your schedule sounds like this, Are you kidding me? An oil change is the last thing you have time for. So drive into Take 5 and let our texts change your oil, check your tires, top off your fluids, and have you back on the road, pit stop fast,

all while you stay in your car. No putting your entire schedule on hold, no upsells, no problem, so you can get back to your to-do list, or not. Find your nearest shop at take 5.com. Take 5. The stay in your car, 10-minute oil change. Welcome back, everyone. I'm here chatting with Professor Stephen Meithen about his book, The Language Puzzle. Let's get into some more questions.

So along those lines, you discuss a concept in your book called displacement. So the ability to communicate about things that are not actually present. Yeah. We thought that this was something unique to humans, but it turns out that it might not be. That's part of displacement. The other big area of displacement is being able to talk not just about the present, but about the future and the past. So I can talk about what happened to me yesterday, or I can talk about what happened to my family 50 years ago, or I can talk about the archivision of the past. Equally, I can talk about what I expect to happen in the future.

And that predict me future is a really important element. You can think of how that would be enormous adaptive value to a homin and answer. testers in terms of planning by imagining a different future, but not only imagining in your mind, but be able to tell other people of what you imagine. And somebody else might say, well, I don't think it'll be by like this. I think if we do there, you know, we'll have more success, hunting or gathering and so forth. So the displacement of time is really facilitated by language, be able to communicate that. Now, when did that occur? When did that happen? Is difficult to say. being able to talk about the future and things that you cannot actually see at that time.

Now, we know we can do that, even with quite young children, talk about something that's not in their visual field. As unlikely chimpanzees can manage, communicate about things not in their current visual field. But that's clearly a pervasive element of language, something really important in C evolution. Going a little bit more into these experiments studying present day, you know, our present day ape relatives, what can that tell us? about the origins of language being more gestural or more vocal? Or, you know, what are some of the arguments for these?

We do have to be slightly careful because we've got to remember that chimpanzees, they aren't our ancestor, they're a modern species. So the chimpanzee-like communication has had the same length of evolutionary time as our modern language. But the difference between vocal and gestural communication is important. We can see that maybe with chimpanzees or gorillas, Gestural is a really important form of communication, as it remains with us today. And some anthropologists have argued that actually language evolved originally by gesture,

by sound language, and then quite late in the evolution, it's sort of switched over into a vocal form. You know, our vocal tracks really evolved for breathing and for eating, and they've been secondarily used for language. So they argued that gestural language lies at the origin. Now, I don't believe that. The simple reason is I think our vocal tracks are so superbly adapted now to making such a wide range of vocalizations. You know, when we talk, we use such subtle manipulations of different muscles

to be able to change the shape of our mouth, our larynx, to be able to create the different sounds. I don't think that's a late development. I think it's had millions of years. of evolution, and it must have been for vocal communication. So I think gesture has always been supporting it, but never driving the evolutionary language. I'm wondering where hearing fits into this as well, human hearing. How has that evolved in conjunction with our vocal tract or our language capacity? The evolution of hearing, I think, must have been relatively more advanced than speaking

in the early periods of our evolution, because as hunter-gatherers that have been very attuned to listening to the sounds of nature, listening to the sounds of approaching predators or birds singing or leaves, the wind, and so forth.

So listening carefully to nature is critical, not just for human hunter-gatherers, but for various apes and so forth. So there was always, I think, a very strong capacity there. We can see how that evolved by looking at some of these shapes of the ear bones, as I mentioned earlier, because we can use those to reconstruct the inner ear

and what frequencies they were susceptible to. At some time in human evolution, probably around 500,000 years ago a bit later, we can see how these change to become more sensible to rather lower range of frequencies, which tend to be more that we have when spoken language, rather than in nature itself. So we can make some estimates of how hearing might have evolved. But it's as crucial to language. Of course, just remember, when I'd speak to you,

if we're in the same room, my words are just little puffs of air. They come into your ears and your eardrums and convert them into electrical signals, which then your brain decodes into concepts that you're in your brain. And if it's right, those concepts would be the same ones that I'd try to communicate with you.

Where do words exist? We're not really sure words exist, but the ear and the audio track is an absolute critical aspect of language. And you're right to raise it, because it does often get neglected in people talking about the evolution of language. The evolution hearing is as important as evolution is speaking. And it kind of brings me to the next question, which is, as we discussed, you know, the vocal origins of language would have just started out, not with recognizable words, of course, with like discrete meanings necessarily. What would those early vocalizations have looked like or sounded like when they began to take on meaning. And then how was that meaning communicated? I guess iconic words is kind of where I'm going with this. We did really enter into the realms of speculation here, of course. But this question of what were the first words? And how did words start has been one of the biggest challenges in people thinking about and writing about language evolution. Well, ever since Plato, because Plato, So in the 5th century BC, in his dialogue, he was speculating about the origins of words.

And in the Enlightenment period, scholars such as Hearder, they really struggled to think, what is the bridge between human words and animals, barks and cries? They can really find anything in the middle there. Now, we do have something in the middle, which is what we call today iconic words. These are words that don't have arbitrary meanings or not entirely arbitrary meanings, but they either sound like or create a sense impression of what they refer to.

So the obvious ones are onomatapirs, like bang and quack and so forth. And when I say these words, you don't have to know a meaning of them. You have an intuitive understanding of what they're referring to. to. So an idea came around that maybe these iconic words were the earliest type of words, and then others built on top of that. Research over the last decade or two has really confirmed that because what is shown is that young children, when they're learning language, the majority of their first words they learn are indeed iconic words. And as we talk to children, we tend to litter our language with iconic words rather than the arbitrary words.

So, you know, would say rather than saying, look at this dog, we say look at that, woof or something like that. We litter iconic words into our conversation with children because it facilitates their language learning. And we actually use iconic words a huge amount of language without realizing it. In English, in many languages, when we talk about small, little things, often quick moving, We often use short words and high-end-front vowels like B or flea or P. As I say those, I'm making a little small size of my mouth, and it's sort of mimicking the size of the object. As you think about large, slow, heavy objects, we use words like Enormous or rhinoceros or hippopotamus.

Now I'm using these back vowels, O's and U's, and by the size of my mouth, I'm generating a sense of impression of what that image was like. So if we go back to babies, if we're in a room and I point and say, look at that balloon, now they'll intuitively grasp balloon because the word balloon creates that scent, that frame, that size in the mouth, and it connects what they're seeing with the sound that's being made. So these are iconic words. And my guess, is that iconic words did indeed provide a bridge between these sort of animal grunts and barks. Don't want to dismiss their complication, but nevertheless, they don't have meaning, to words in modern language, the majority of which have arbitrary meanings.

And in the middle of there, I think it's arbitrary words. And, you know, by the time they get to about 13 or 14, arbitrary words take over. And that's because we just can't have enough iconic words to talk about all the different things we want. to. But by that time, they've understood, ah, words are labels for things and they're shared understandings. So that's how they, that's how I think they emerge. Iconic words as a bridge is really crucial. And you mentioned in your book about the role that synesthesia may have played in these iconic words sort of existing or coming to have meaning. And I was hoping you could talk a little bit more about the role that synesthesia may

have played. You know, synesthesia is this condition whereby our different senses are somehow connected. In some adults, it's found in quite an extreme form where the laws associate a particular word with a particular colour or a particular texture or so forth. It's a cross-modal connection between their different sensory organs. That's really extreme form. But we all, and especially young children, probably have synesthesia in some sort of mild form. And it was indeed suggested by some psychologist a number of years ago that this may have facilitated the development iconic words early in our ancestors. It may well be that as the brain was enlarging in our early ancestors such as homo habilis living about two and a half million years ago, that the level of synesthesia was, to some extent,

bit larger than we have in our modern minds a day, and that facilitate this connection between sounds and what can be seen or what can be felt or what can be tasted. If that is the case, it would have been a big boost to sort of iconic words. And I think there's a very strong argument for that. Of course, it's really difficult to prove, And we do need some more research about that low-level synesthesia that I think isn't present in all of us today. So you mentioned iconic words as being this bridge between vocalizations and these vocalizations taking on meaning.

And we also discussed how babies learn iconic words first. How much does or doesn't the phrase ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny apply in this case? like how much can we deduce about language origins from babies learning language? Yeah. Well, I mean, that's a huge question. And I'm not sure on that the answer myself. We've got to be very cautious of this because babies are growing up in a language environment, not only a language environment, but ones where people, particularly their mothers and their fathers and their siblings are talking to them in a way that is facilitating the aquapeutic. of language. When we talk to babies, we use what's sometimes called motherese or infant

directed speech. We exaggerate the contours of language, the length of vowels, and so forth. And that helps children grasp words where they start and where they stop and what they might mean. Of course, early humans are evolving in a language absent environment. They're building it themselves. So the very different contexts. But nevertheless, both in evolution and in development were dealing somehow with the acquisition of language. So I think we can see some parallels, but I'd be really cautious about saying there's a direct recapitulation of phylogeny happening here. I don't think there is. I think both our hominin ancestors and Infocet are just solving a problem of how do we communicate vocally

and to some extent similar solutions are found. The speed at which babies acquire language is just phenomenal. You know, the fact that you can take a baby and put it in any language community and acquire the language that people are speaking to it.

However different that is, it's just astonishing. And there's been some remarkable research in psychology whereby we now understand how babies are being to identify words and grasp the meaning of them. It's a fascinating area of linguistics, supportive of evolutionary ideas, but perhaps not giving a solution to how language involved. I mean, it's incredible just to go from like this baby who then, you know, learns a few words and then suddenly is just talking nonstop is amazing to watch and experience. And we could talk about the language learning in babies for the rest of this time, I'm sure.

But I want to fast forward us now to the point where humans have language or languages and ask what drives the evolution of a language once it's in existence? Like how do words change or how are they invented? I mentioned earlier that there's over 7,000 different languages in the world today and they've all got different vocabularies and different grammars. But they share similarities by having these, having both iconic and arbitrary words, by having grammatical structures. Our early human ancestors living between the time of the commonest of chimpanzees and modern humans,

we evolved around 150,000 years ago, may have had language, but not fully modern language. So I'd argue that one grade of our ancestors, homo habilis, probably used iconic sounds, within their ape-like vocalisations. By the time we got to Homo erectus, they were probably using the first iconic words, but probably didn't have lots of arbitrary words at that time. By the time we moved on to Homo Hidalbensis and then the Neanderthals,

they've probably got words which are iconic and which are arbitrary. They've probably got some grammatical structures. But when you get onto modern humans, there's probably additional components of language being added there. So I think they're all languages, but languages are different type to modern human language. And those languages were changing partly by biological evolution, by further evolutions of the vocal tract, of brain connections, of the oral tract, but also by cultural transmission,

which is the way our languages change today. Language are constantly evolving. Words change their meanings. They change how they're pronounced. We invent new words. and this is done partly without any intention and partly done sometimes intentionally because our circumstances change

and we need new different types of words. So language is something is constantly, constantly evolving and changing. By conversations like we're having today, you might hear me pronounce a word in a particular way or use a word you haven't heard before or use a word with a meaning that you like but hadn't particularly been aware of,

then you might go and use that. to somebody else and so forth. And gradually, those which work well get adopted by a language community, those which are no longer significant, just get lost. So language is continually, continually changing. Is the rate at which a language changes affected by things like war or conflict or upheaval in some way? Times of, I suppose, catastrophe can change language because you can have large numbers of particular speakers wiped out, leaving the population of maybe predominantly younger people or one gender rather than another or one class from another. And of course, they would have a vocabulary, maybe in dialects, which are different to the larger previous

population. Times of warfare can do the same. Times of political change can also have a big impact on language when political leaders want to impose one language over those of many minority languages. So there's all events like plagues, warfare, political interactions that can push languages of the community in one direction with another, and they sit on top of this low-level, constant, gradual evolution of language change. And of course, you know, invention of technology has a huge impact. If we think, about what changes have happened in our lifetimes, they're probably going to be in the range of digital communication. I mean, Erin, if I talk to you about the cloud now, you know, I'm not talking about

clouds in the sky. I'm talking about some sort of strange digital storage mechanism. I might have talked to you, what, five years ago, 10 years ago, about a mouse and not an animal, but do you still use a mouse? Maybe you still do, I still do on your computer. Okay. Or I say, have you got your tablet? I don't mean your tablet, your medicine. I mean your tablet, which is your thing. So this is a lovely example of how technical change has changed the meaning of words. And what we've done, we've just borrowed existing words that seem suitable that people understand. And so quickly they've become part of everyday vocabulary. And they still sit with those other meanings. But we just draw on the context in which they're said to know what meaning is meaning is being used.

Just to kind of take a step back and consider, I guess, all of these pieces together and borrowing from Stephen J. Gould's thought experiment of replaying the tape of life, if we rewind evolutionary time, at what point in human evolution does language become inevitable? I think that the point in time when language became inevitable was probably about two million years ago when we began walking on two. legs. The evolution of bipedalism, rather than going around on all floors most of the time. Because that changed our whole anatomy. It gave us, it freed our hands, it changed the way we breathe, it changed the shape of the vocal tract, it ultimately allowed the brain to grow in size. And I think once that's been released, a myriad of selection pressures led to evolution of language. If you could run human evolution again, you might not have the same selective pressures. You might have different ones. Language might not take the same form of Earth today,

but I think you'd have ended up with a complex form of vocal communication. And the reason for that is it's just so bloody useful, isn't it? I mean, you know, and you can see its value. Because after about 100,000 years ago, humanity was just transformed and culture transformed. Because I think that's when the final stage of the modern language evolved. And the key to that, I think, is our ability to use metaphor. Metaphor connects ideas together in the mind, and it allows us to think creatively, to hold abstract concepts. And I think it should not be surprising that after that had evolved at about 100,000 years ago, as soon as the Ice Age came to an end, it prevented agriculture and farming. And from farming, we went to towns and cities and civilizations and empire.

and within just 10,000 years to the present day. And I think the ultimate cause of that is an evolution of fully modern language. I think it lies behind everything in the modern world. Well, now that we've looked back at the origins of language, I would love to turn and look to the future, knowing what we know about the origins of language, about how it has evolved over written history,

what can we hypothesize about the future and what, for instance, English might look like 100 years from now, and at what point does it become unrecognizable to bust humans in 2025 today? Well, that's another really impossible question to answer, isn't it? As you Joddy will know. What I think we can say is it's going to be continually evolving. I think English will get simpler, if you like. I think it'll lose various of its grammatical constructions today.

We can see it happening. People don't use apostrophies properly anymore, do they, when they write, etc. Why is it becoming simpler? Because it's becoming a global language. Because it's got more and more second learners to it. More people need to learn it as the first language or second language or third language. So it's developing even more learnability than it has at the moment. So I think the grammatical structures of English are going to become even simpler.

as we move forward. Of course, we did see a transformation of language already in the past when writing was invented 5,000 years ago. And we're seeing another transformation of it now with the way we write in social media. That's changing not only written text, but I think it's also influencing spoken language as well. And in the past, the people who have tended to make the most innovations in language seems to be adolescent women. They've often been the main innovators in language change as far as we can see.

And I suspect that's going to continually happen in the world. Quite where it's going to go, we don't know. I think what we will know is that language will continue to be the most wonderful, fabulous thing we have, but also the most dangerous. Because we talk about using language, we use it to make friends, to tell stories and so forth. but we also know the danger of language, especially in the world we're living in at a moment, with peace negotiations, starting or stopping in Gaza or in Russia, those particular words that are said and the ambiguity of words and so forth, which sometimes are so valuable, sometimes

are so dangerous. So I think we know that our future lives will depend on how language is used and how it will develop. Profound, and I completely agree. And I just want to thank you so. much for taking the time to chat with me today. This was an absolutely eye-opening conversation. So, thank you. Well, I'm really delighted to have the interview to join your podcast. I hope this one doesn't kill you or anybody else. It's been great fun talking to Erin. A huge thank you again to Professor Stephen Meithen for taking the time to chat with me. I can already tell that our conversation and this book will stick with me for quite a while. If you enjoyed today's episode and would like to learn more, check out our website.

this podcast will kill you.com where I'll post a link to where you can find the language puzzle, piecing together the six million year story of how words evolved, as well as a link to Stephen's website, where you can find his other fascinating work. And don't forget, you can check

out our website for all sorts of other cool things, including but not limited, to transcripts, quarantini and placebo-rida recipes, show notes and references for all of our episodes, links to merch, our bookshop.org affiliate account, our Goodreads list, a first-hand account form, and music by Bloodmobile.

Speaking of which, thank you to Bloodmobile for providing the music for this episode and all of our episodes. Thank you to Leanna Squalachi and Tom Bri Fogle for our audio mixing. And thanks to you, listeners, for listening. I hope you liked this episode and are loving being part of the TPWKY Book Club. A special thank you, as always, to our fantastic patrons. We appreciate your support so. very much. Well, until next time, keep washing those hands. This is Matt Rogers from Los Culture East us with Matt Rogers and Bowen-Yang. This is Bowen-Yang from Los Culture Reesters with Matt Rogers and Bowen-Yang. Hey, so what if you could boost the Wi-Fi to one of your devices when

you need it most? Because Xfinity Wi-Fi can. And what if your Wi-Fi could fix itself before there's even really a problem? Xfinity is so reliable. It does that too. What if your Wi-Fi had parental instincts? Xfinity Wi-Fi is part-nanny, part-Ninja, protecting your kids while they're online. And finally, what if your Wi-Fi was like the smartest Wi-Fi? Yeah, it's Wi-Fi that is so smart. It makes everything work better together. Bottom line, Xfinity is smart and reliable. You deserve the peace of mind of having Wi-Fi that's got your back. Xfinity. Imagine that. This podcast is supported by FX's love story, John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bissette. The new limited series from executive producer Ryan Murphy. It explores the complex courtship of the

iconic couple considered to be American royalty, whose love story captured the attention of the nation. Their fairy tale romance would unfold in front of the public eye, where their private love would also become a national obsession. FX's love story, John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bissette. Watch now on FX Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Ever feel like your bedroom's shrinking? Don't worry. You don't have to sell your favorite things to make space. With IKEA bedroom storage solutions, think dressers, wardrobes, Full closet systems, even storage boxes. You can keep it all.

Your vintage band teas? Safe. Those limited edition sneakers? Plenty of room. And yes, your childhood teddy bear gets a spot too. Don't sell what you love. Store it instead with IKEA Bedroom Storage Solutions. Shop now at IKEA.us.

slash bedroom storage.