ABSTRACT
The development of language provides a good example of epigenesis, and its later stages also involve consideration of eco-systems. Human infants clearly start with a great many capacities and pieces of behaviour suited to language, but they arealso born into communities which use language and expect the infant to use it too. All except the severely impaired develop language in very similar ways, though at varying rates: but the details of the language and how it is used are heavily influenced by the child’s experience. Through development, language functions as a means of communication, as a means of reflecting on and re-organizing experience, and as a way to receive and transform the accumulated knowledge and values of the community. Using language is thus a central part of human existence.
