Children as young as seven months understand grammatical rules.a Furthermore, studies of 36 documented cases of children raised without human contact (feral children) suggest that language is learned only from other humans; humans do not automatically speak. If this is so, the first humans must have been endowed with a language ability. There is no evidence language evolved.b
Nonhumans communicate, but not with language. True language requires both vocabulary and grammar. With great effort, human trainers have taught some chimpanzees and gorillas to recognize a few hundred spoken words, to point to up to 200 symbols, and to make limited hand signs. These impressive feats are sometimes exaggerated by editing the animals successes on film. (Some early demonstrations were flawed by the trainers hidden promptings.c)
Apes have not demonstrated these skills in the wild and do not pass them on to others. When a trained animal dies, so does the trainers investment. Also, trained apes have essentially no grammatical ability. Only with grammar can a few words express many ideas. No known evidence shows that language exists or evolves in nonhumans, but apparently all human groups have language. If language evolved, the earliest languages should be the simplest. On the contrary, language studies show that the more ancient the language (for example: Latin, 200 B.C.; Greek, 800 B.C.; and Vedic Sanskrit, 1500 B.C.), the more complex it is with respect to syntax, case, gender, mood, voice, tense, and verb form. The best evidence indicates that languages devolve; that is, they become simpler instead of more complex.e Most linguists reject the idea that simple languages evolve into complex languages.
Speech :talk: :talk: :talk:
Speech is uniquely human.a Humans have both a prewired brain capable of learning and conveying abstract ideas, and the physical anatomy (mouth, throat, tongue, larynx, etc.) to produce a wide range of sounds. Only a few animals can approximate some human sounds.
Because the human larynx is low in the neck, a long air column lies above the vocal cords. This is important for making vowel sounds. Apes cannot make clear vowel sounds, because they lack this long air column. The back of the human tongue, extending deep into the neck, modulates the air flow to help produce consonant sounds. Apes have flat, horizontal tongues, incapable of making consonant sounds.
Even if an ape could evolve all the physical equipment for speech, that equipment would be useless without a prewired brain for learning language skills, especially grammar and vocabulary.
Codes and Programs
Codes are produced only by intelligence, not by natural processes or chance. A code is a set of rules for converting information from one useful form to another. Examples include Morse code and braille. The genetic material that controls the physical processes of life is coded information. It also is accompanied by elaborate transmission, translation, and duplication systems, without which the genetic material would be useless, and life would cease. Therefore, it seems most reasonable to conclude that the genetic code, the accompanying transmission, translation, and duplication systems, and all living organisms were produced by an extremely high level of intelligence using nonnatural (or supernatural) processes.
Likewise, no natural process has ever been observed to produce a program. A program is a planned sequence of steps to accomplish some goal. Computer programs are common examples. The information stored in the genetic material of all life is a complex program. Because programs are not produced by chance or natural processes, it seems most likely that an intelligent, supernatural source developed these programs.... :drink:
