Did Mothers and Babies Invent Language?

What an unexpected question!  It’s one of those questions, like how did we come to walk on two legs (See my posts for October 14 & 16, 2009.) or how did some animals come to have legs instead of fins (See my posts for October 20, 21, 23, 2009.) that we will probably never be able to answer definitely. 

         But a couple of years ago I was reading Robert Godwin’s One Cosmos Under God (a fascinating read about spirit and science), and came across the intriguing notion that the roots of language first developed between human mothers and their babies.

         In fact, Godwin emphasizes how essential babies have been and are to the development of human life as we know it today.  In particular he points out that babies seem to be hardwired for learning the basics of human life in their first few years.

         Godwin notes that human infants must bond with their parents in order to develop normally.  Part of that bonding entails eye contact and murmuring back and forth between the adult caregiver and the baby.  He cites theorists who see in this bonding the beginnings of language.

         I find this a captivating notion.  All of a sudden it makes perfect sense where no other hypotheses ever have.  I want to go into more detail about this idea in my next few posts.