Scholars have long been captivated by the parallels between birdsong and human speech and language. In this book, leading scholars draw on the latest research to explore what birdsong can tell us about the biology of human speech and language and the consequences for evolutionary biology. They examine the cognitive and neural similarities between birdsong learning and speech and language acquisition, considering vocal imitation, auditory learning, an early vocalization phase ("babbling"), the structural properties of birdsong and human language, and the striking similarities between the neural organization of learning and vocal production in birdsong and human speech. After outlining the basic issues involved in the study of both language and evolution, the contributors compare birdsong and language in terms of acquisition, recursion, and core structural properties, and then examine the neurobiology of song and speech, genomic factors, and the emergence and evolution of language.

Illuminating the poetry of birdsong in the Romantic and Victorian periods, this timely study dissects historical attitudes to nonhuman life.

Basic research over the last decade or two has uncovered similarities between speech, especially its sensori-motor aspects, and vocal communication in several non-human species. The most comprehensive studies so far have been conducted in songbirds. Songbirds offer us a model system to study the interactions between developmental or genetic predispositions and tutor-dependent influences, on the learning of vocal communication. Songbird research has elucidated cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying learning and production of vocal patterns, perception of vocal sounds, vocal motor control and vocal neuromotor plasticity. More recently, the entire genome of the songbird zebra finch has been sequenced. These discoveries, along with the identification of several genes implicated in familial human speech and language disorders, have made it possible to look for analogues of speech and language dysfunction in zebra finches, at least at the perceptual and sensori-motor levels. Two approaches in particular have led us closer to the development of animal models of human speech conditions, namely developmental stuttering and a familial verbal dyspraxia associated with a mutation in the gene for the transcription factor FoxP2. Work on other animals that show developmental sensori-motor learning of vocal sounds used for communication have also shown significant progress, leading to the possibility of development of models of speech and language dysfunction in them. Among mammals, the principal ones include dolphins and whales. In non-human primates, while vocal learning per se is not very prominent, investigations on their communicative abilities have thrown some light on the rudiments of language. These considerations make the publication of a book focused on animal models of speech and language disorders, detailing the overall investigative approach of neurobehavioral studies in animals capable of vocal communication and learned vocalizations, a much-needed and worthwhile project. It would serve as a unifying review of research in this new multidisciplinary frontier, spanning the molecular to the behavioral, for clinicians and researchers, as well as a teaching resource for advanced speech pathology and neuroscience students. This book will also be the first of its kind.

Addresses the question: how can we unravel the evolution of language, given that there is no direct evidence about it?

The Oxford Handbook of Language Production provides a comprehensive, multidisciplinary review of the complex mechanisms involved in language production. It describes what we know of the computational, linguistic, cognitive, and brain bases of human language production - from how we conceive the messages we aim to convey, to how we retrieve the right (and sometimes wrong) words, how we form grammatical sentences, and how we assemble and articulate individual sounds, letters, and gestures. Contributions from leading psycholinguists, linguists, and neuroscientists offer readers a broad perspective on the latest research, highlighting key investigations into core aspects of human language processing. The Handbook is organized into three sections: speaking, written and sign languages, and how language production interfaces with the wider cognitive system, including control processes, memory, non-linguistic gestures, and the perceptual system. These chapters discuss a wide array of levels of representation, from sentences to individual words, speech sounds and articulatory gestures, extending to discourse and the broader social context of speaking. Detailed supporting chapters provide an overview of key issues in linguistic structure at each level of representation. Authoritative yet concisely written, the volume will be of interest to scholars and students working in cognitive psychology, psycholinguistics, cognitive neuroscience, computer science, audiology, and education, and related fields.

This volume highlights new avenues of research in the language sciences, and particularly, in the neurobiology of language. The term “language-ready brain” stresses, on the one hand, the importance of a brain-based description of our species’ linguistic capacity, and, on the other, the need to appreciate the crucial role culture plays in shaping the linguistic systems children acquire and adults use. For this reason, the focus is not put on language per se, but on our learning biases and cognitive pre-dispositions toward language. Both brain and culture are considered at two crucial levels of inquiry: phylogeny and ontogeny. In a fast-growing field like the language sciences and specifically, language evolution studies, this book has tried to capture several of the most exciting topics explored currently, sowing seeds for future investigations.

In his groundbreaking new book Daniel Everett seeks answers to questions that have perplexed thinkers from Plato to Chomsky: when and how did language begin? what is it? and what is it for? Daniel Everett confounds the conventional wisdom that language originated with Homo sapiens 150,000 years ago and that we have a 'language instinct'. Drawing on evidence from a wide range of fields, including linguistics, archaeology, biology, anthropology and neuroscience, he shows that our ancient ancestors, Homo erectus, had the biological and mental equipment for speech one and half million years ago, and that their cultural and technological achievements (including building ocean-going boats) make it overwhelmingly likely they spoke some kind of language. How Language Began sheds new light on language and culture and what it means to be human and, as always, Daniel Everett spices his account with incident and anecdote. His book is convincing, arresting and entertaining.