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Humming may have been the earliest language

Dean Falk

By Vida Volkert

Language might have started with humming, anthropologist Dean Falk believes, and she bases it on a study she's done in collaboration with German scientists and their computer technology.

Falk, chairwoman of FSU's anthropology department, said the research revealed that-at a point in evolution-humans' earliest ancestors became more creative and turned to musical speech to communicate.

She said tone of voice became the way to understanding, and it might have all started as mothers began humming to their babies.

"In evolution, humming was preparatory to language," she said.

The study, done in Germany, compares chimpanzees' with humans' brain activity.

"We look at chimpanzees because we share a common ancestor that lived 6 million years ago," said Falk, adding that chimpanzees and humans have many things in common.

Chimpanzee mothers, for instance, "are fabulous mommies.

"They pay attention to their babies; they are caring and loving, just like human mommies. But they don't make noises to their babies like human mothers do."

Another difference is that human babies don't stick to their mothers' bellies.

A chimpanzee mother can climb a tree or run from danger, while the infant remains glued to her body.

Falk believes that human babies had the ability to cling to their mothers bellies as well, but they lost it when their mothers began to stand on two feet.

Falk suspects that was why human mothers turned to their creative side, controlled by the right side of the brain, to communicate with babies.

The humming became the human mother's way to get close to her baby.

So humans may be more right-minded than chimpanzees-more emotional and creative. The right brain controls feelings, emotions and humor.

"It's the artistic side," she said.

The left brain is the logical side.

"It's generally been thought that the left hemisphere was most important because it is known to be the language-bearing side of the brain," she said.

That's true, Falk confirmed, but when the earliest human ancestors were roaming the earth, scientists believe, language had not been created.

That's why Falk believes tone of voice in humming, became essential. Today, it's important in language.
It "could completely change the meaning of the sentence," she said. "It bears information about the mental state of the speaker. By the tone of voice you should know if somebody is lying to you, or if you should date a person."  

Last year Falk traveled to Dusseldorf, with her collection of skull casts and endocasts (of the interior braincase), including a 2.5-million-year-old Australopithecine and a 65,000-year-old Neanderthal.

Falk started her collection 25 years ago. She visited research laboratories and museums in Africa, Asia and Europe.

She made contacts with curators, who allowed her to copy prehistoric skulls, and other anthropologists and researchers, including Karl Zilles, head of research groups in Dusseldorf.

Falk and Zilles scanned some of Falk's endocasts and used his software to map both brain sides. They also scanned a modern human brain and a chimpanzee's brain. Then, they compared them all.

The images showed that from the earliest ancestors, the right side of the human brain-but not the chimpanzee brain-expanded greatly.

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