Department of Electrical Engineering, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
Trends Cogn Sci. 2013 Feb;17(2):89-98. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2012.12.002. Epub 2013 Jan 9.
Language serves as a cornerstone for human cognition, yet much about its evolution remains puzzling. Recent research on this question parallels Darwin's attempt to explain both the unity of all species and their diversity. What has emerged from this research is that the unified nature of human language arises from a shared, species-specific computational ability. This ability has identifiable correlates in the brain and has remained fixed since the origin of language approximately 100 thousand years ago. Although songbirds share with humans a vocal imitation learning ability, with a similar underlying neural organization, language is uniquely human.
语言是人类认知的基石，但语言的进化仍有许多未解之谜。最近对这个问题的研究与达尔文试图解释所有物种的统一性及其多样性的研究相似。这项研究的结果表明，人类语言的统一性质源于一种共同的、特定于物种的计算能力。这种能力在大脑中有可识别的相关性，并且自大约 10 万年前语言起源以来一直保持不变。尽管鸣禽与人类一样具有模仿声音的学习能力，且具有类似的潜在神经组织，但语言是人类独有的。
