ABSTRACT

In 1866, seven years after the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species, the Linguistic Society of Paris famously banned all discussion of the evolution of language. The main difficulty, it seems, was the widespread belief that language was uniquely human, so that there was no evidence to be gained from the study of non-human animals. This meant that language must have evolved some time since the split of humans from the great apes. Since there was little evidence to be gained from the fossil evidence, any theory as to how language evolved was largely a matter of speculation, and no doubt argument. Of course evolution was itself a contentious issue, and was vigorously attacked by the church. In the case of language, the conflict between science and religion would have been exacerbated by the longstanding view that language was gifted by God.