Glossary • Appendix A • Further reading • Bibliography • License
Glottogeny is the origin of language in the human species.
Language in Animals While some people have suggested that
animals use language, this is generally not accepted among
linguists. Animals, including most higher primates, are known to
have semantics, that is sounds that correspond to arbitrary
meanings and some animals. Additional some parrots studied are
known to have dialects, where the "words" they use differ among
regional groups, and new members must learn them. There is also
the posibility that some species, such as prairie dogs which may
form simple sentences with nouns and adjectives. However, there
are no species apart from humans known to use recursion, which
is therefore considered the defining feature of human language.
A theory of the linguistic origins must take into account the
complexity of human language. Steven Pinker argues in his book
The Language Instinct that human language is like an elephant's
trunk--a very complex