Abstract
How language began is one of the oldest questions in science, but theories remain speculative due to a lack of direct evidence. Here, we report two experiments that generate empirical evidence to inform gesture-first and vocal-first theories of language origin; in each, we tested modern humans' ability to communicate a range of meanings (995 distinct words) using either gesture or non-linguistic vocalization. Experiment 1 is a cross-cultural study, with signal Producers sampled from Australia (n = 30, Mage = 32.63, s.d. = 12.42) and Vanuatu (n = 30, Mage = 32.40, s.d. = 11.76). Experiment 2 is a cross-experiential study in which Producers were either sighted (n = 10, Mage = 39.60, s.d. = 11.18) or severely vision-impaired (n = 10, Mage = 39.40, s.d. = 10.37). A group of undergraduate student Interpreters guessed the meaning of the signals created by the Producers (n = 140). Communication success was substantially higher in the gesture modality than the vocal modality (twice as high overall; 61.17% versus 29.04% success). This was true within cultures, across cultures and even for the signals produced by severely vision-impaired participants. The success of gesture is attributed in part to its greater universality (i.e. similarity in form across different Producers). Our results support the hypothesis that gesture is the primary modality for language creation.
Highlights
People of all cultures gesture while they speak [1,2], blind people gesture [3], and hearing adults and children can successfully use gesture as their sole means of communication at the request of experimenters [4–8]
We report two experiments that inform gesture-first and vocal-first theories of language origin
Using a task that prohibits the use of conventional language, communication success was twice as high for gestured signals than vocal signals
Summary
People of all cultures gesture while they speak [1,2], blind people gesture [3], and hearing adults and children can successfully use gesture as their sole means of communication at the request of experimenters [4–8]. The ubiquity of gesture, and its capacity to rapidly evolve into language, has led to the proposal that language originated in manual gestures rather than in vocal calls [14,15]. Support for the vocal-first theory of language origin [26–28] includes comparative evidence indicating that primates use vocal calls to convey specific information to conspecifics [29], primate vocal calls are more flexible than first thought by gesture-first proponents [30], and primates can expand their limited vocal repertoire by combining single calls into structurally more complex units with a different meaning (a possible precursor to syntax; [31,32]). Comparative studies offer support for gesture-first and vocal-first theories of language origin. Because meaning is operationalized differently in primate vocal and gesture studies, the findings cannot currently be compared across the modalities [33]
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