The multimodal origins of linguistic communication

Abstract

Why is language unique? How and why did it emerge? Such questions are emblematic of the Western intellectual tradition, and while some even today see them as intractable, a majority consider the problem of language origins as difficult but possible to address scientifically: “the hardest problem in science”. Such questions are the domain of language evolution: an interdisciplinary and inclusive research area unified by a common goal: to explain the emergence and subsequent development of the species-specific human ability to acquire and use language. In this brief introduction, we describe the transition of the field from mostly theoretical “grand questions” to mostly empirical research focused on narrowly defined puzzles. Increasingly many such specific, empirically addressable puzzles revolve around the motif of sensory modality, which – we argue – is as central to determining the origins of linguistic communication as to understanding its present nature.