The Origin of Language: How We Learned To Speak and Why

Beekman’s (evolutionary biology and ecology, Univ. of Sydney) book posits that human language came about through necessary child care and not other previously identified activities. The author writes of developing a theory of language’s origin as she cared for and nurtured her own young children. She identifies the origin of language as directly tied to childbirth and the family’s rearing of their very dependent children during the extended childhood of the human species. While children are dependent on their parents and others around them, there is a real need for communal support, and this community involvement is, in turn, a necessary part of childhood development. Beekman’s final question is, “Are we still evolving?” Humanity’s evolutionary heritage has prepared the species to live, work, and thrive in communal groups, and Beekman suggests that people were not meant to go alone and that the modern nuclear family may impede human development. Beekman concludes that effectively raising children really does require the proverbial village.