ABSTRACT
In 1865 the statutes for the linguistic society of Paris expressly prohibited the presentation of all papers offering accounts of the origins of human language. While tremendous advances were being made in other areas oflinguistics, such as elucidating the relationships between Indo-European languages, it was believed that speculations on language origins were too unfounded to warrant serious consideration. Of course much has transpired in the intervening 135 years and there has been considerable conceptual and empirical progress made in such relevant fields as paleoanthropology, linguistics, psychology, and ethology. However, despite-and perhaps even because of-a recent proliferation of detailed theories concerning the origins of human language (e.g. Carstairs-McCarthy, 1999; Corballis, 1999; Deacon, 1997; Dunbar, 1996), skepticism still remains about the epistemic value of such endeavors (e.g. Davies, 1996; Lewontin, 1998; Richardson, 1996). Lewontin (1998), for example, has suggested that " ... we know essentially nothing about the
evolution of our cognitive capabilities and there is a strong possibility that we will never know much about it" (p. 109). In a similar fashion Richardson (1996) suggests " ... explanations of the origin of human thought and language are simply speculations lacking the kind of detailed historical information required for an evolutionary explanation of an adaptation" (p.541).
