How did language start?
It’s a difficult question, since language doesn’t leave fossils. But by getting experimental volunteers to act out concepts, Dr Nicolas Fay is building evidence for one of the major views on language origins. What can we learn from charades?
Dr Fay explains it to linguist Daniel Midgley on this episode of Talk the Talk.
Listen to this episode
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http://danielmidgley.com/talkthetalk/talk_classic.xmlShow notes
More about the vocalisation hypothesis:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129155123
There have been other language experiments with charades, by the way.
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=326
