Page 8 - ELG2109 Sep Issue 477

RESEARCH NEWS .

PHOTO BY SHUTTERSTOCK

By Gillian Ragsdale
Insults and metaphors may Prehistoric languages
have characterised the earliest
prehistoric human languages,
according to a study by Antonio How the Stone Age was more about hurling words than rocks
Benítes-Burraco at the University
of Seville in Spain and Ljiljana
Progavac at Wayne State the sum of the parts requires may not seem like it, but rapid, reduction in aggression seen in
University, Detroit, USA. increased connectivity across the reactive aggression appears to domesticated animals. Throughout
The classical technique brain such as has occurred during have decreased during human human history, cultures have
used by linguists compares all human evolution. This increased evolution, although sadly, tended to put pressure on people
languages currently spoken or connectivity also enables the premeditated aggression increased to conform, co-operate and be less
recorded for similarities and generation of ‘ideaphones’ that and is characteristically human. aggressive – resulting in a form of
differences, producing detailed A common substitute for self-domestication.
trees and maps of how languages It may not seem physical aggression is to use Adding the modern-day
have evolved over time. But this verbal insults. All languages have evidence from a range of
method cannot reach back into like it, but rapid, a range of insults, such as ‘vivid psychiatric conditions supporting
prehistory beyond 10 thousand compounds’, where two words, a connection between brain
years ago and therefore cannot reactive aggression often a noun and a verb, are connectivity, aggression and
tell us about the very first human appears to have put together to give a negative language, the resulting model of
languages arising gradually as meaning, for example, tattle- prehistoric language evolution
much as 200 thousand years ago decreased during tale and cry-baby in English proposes a feedback loop. In
or even earlier. Benítes-Burraco human evolution or muti-voda (‘muddy-water’, this model, increasing brain
and Progavac have brought meaning trouble-maker) and connectivity and decreasing
together work from linguistics, vuci-guz (‘drag-butt’, meaning aggression drive the emergence
human evolution and psychiatry use other senses, such as sound slow-moving person) in Serbian. and use of figurative language,
to shed light on how speakers and shape, to convey meaning, These insulting vivid compounds along with using verbal rather
of these very first languages for example, ‘tick-tock’. employ similar mental, linguistic than physical aggression, which
communicated. In psychiatry, many conditions processes to creating metaphors. in turn accelerates the engine
One of the key features of are associated with changes in Benítes-Burraco and Progavac of cultural changes, such as
human thought and language the use of language. In some, like propose that early prehistoric self-domestication and further
is ‘cross-modality’: our ability synaesthesia and schizophrenia, language evolution involved reduced aggression.
to take two unrelated concepts cross-modality is increased, developing a fine balance between As Winston Churchill famously
and merge them into a new while in others, such as autistic increasing connectivity between asserted: ‘meeting jaw to jaw is
concept, often turning something spectrum disorder, it is decreased. parts of the brain and inhibiting better than war’.
concrete into something abstract. Alongside these changes in cross- pathways in the brain that lead
The familiar outcome includes modality, there tend to also be to reactive aggression. This is REFERENCE
figurative speech and metaphor. changes in reactive aggression, ie, part of the gradual distancing n Benítes-Burraco, A. and Progavac,
If I tell you that I am a ‘night aggression as a rapid response to of language processing from L. (2021) Language evolution:
owl’, you understand that I am a trigger. emotion in general, which examining the link between cross-
not actually a bird. If I call you In general, increased cross- enables a more considered use modality and aggression through
a ‘couch potato’, I do not really modality tends to be associated of language and the evolution of the lens of disorders, Philosophical
think you are a vegetable. with decreased aggression and grammatical complexity. Transactions of the Royal Society
The ability to make new this may reflect what happened The general reduction in B, 376: 20200188. https://doi.
meaning that is more than during human brain evolution. It reactive aggression mirrors the org/10.1098/rstb.2020.018
8 September 2021