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WASHINGTON – Changes in human nutrition as a result of Neolithic advances in agriculture have played a role in the evolution of the human jaw, allowing people to pronounce the consonants "F" and "V". According to the researchers.
Their works – which combine linguistics, speech science and paleoanthropology and appear in the Thursday edition of the American journal Science – indicate that language is not just a random product of history, but that it was also related to the biological changes of the time.
The Neolithic era – which extends from 6,000 to 2,100 BC. J. – C. – is the one where agriculture based on wheat and barley took root and where animals such as goats, sheep and cows were domesticated.
"The language is not usually studied as a biological phenomenon and is not normally included in the biology program, for example," said Balthasar Bickel, a researcher at the University of Zurich.
"If you think about it, though, it's a bit strange, because the communication system of other animals, the language is simply part of our nature," he said.
Before the Neolithic era, the man quickly used his teeth to chew the products of his hunting and gathering.
While the upper incisors covered the lower ones in children, wear led to an "edge-to-edge bite" in adults, but prehistoric skulls show – a positioning that makes it difficult to produce certain sounds.
If you pull the lower jaw until your upper and lower teeth touch each other, then try pronouncing "f" and "v", it's very difficult.
The sounds are called labiodental consonants, which require the combined action of the lower lip and upper teeth.
From the Neolithic, hunter-gatherers learned about food processing techniques, such as molding and baking.
"There were mainly types of oatmeal or porridge, stews and soups, but also everyday products like milk, cheese and yogurt, produced through food processing technologies that led to milder diets. "said Steven Moran, colleague of Bickel.
"And the important thing was the proliferation of pottery for food preservation, which became very important with the introduction of agriculture."
The relaxation of the diet has reduced the wear of the teeth and keep the upper incisors in the adolescent position: on the lower teeth, as in the man today.
The researchers say that they spent five years on the study.
In the final phase, they studied the history of Indo-European languages and concluded that it was "very likely that labiodentals emerged shortly before the bronze age, in parallel with the development of techniques. of food processing, "explained another co-author, Damian Blasi. .
The Bronze Age followed the Neolithic.
"Our results suggest that language is shaped not only by the vagaries of its history, but also by the changes induced by culture in human biology," the researchers wrote.
"We can no longer take for granted that the diversity of speech has remained stable since the appearance of Homo sapiens."
Blasi said he hoped the study would spark a "wider discussion" about how certain aspects of language and speech "should be treated in the same way as other human behaviors. complexes between biology and culture ".
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