A topic that has become quite a controversy in the field of linguistics as of late is the difference between linguistic communication and oral animal communication. There are two sides to this issue, and both sides have equal linguistic and neuro-scientific backing. Some linguists hold that linguistics is merely a highly advanced form of animal communication that has been enabled by humans' increased prefrontal lobe. Other believe that linguistics is a phenomenon, alone and independent of other forms of oral communication that has developed and grown alongside and in conjunction with our prefrontal lobe. At this point, not enough evidence can be gathered regarding whether which came first, linguistics or our large prefrontal lobe. Linguists and neuro-scientists are thus forced to turn to other, less direct information to determine the true nature of linguistics. Because vestigial forms of animal communication occur in humans beside linguistic communication, and because a significant difference exists between animal reference and linguistics reference, linguistics must be viewed as a form of communication that is unique to humans.

Up until recently, linguists have assumed that oral animal communication is a highly simplified form of linguistic communication. It was assumed that each species was born with the ability to produce a certain range of sounds ant that it was only a matter of time before each species evolved a way to order these sounds into thought. If this stand were correct, what would be the ancestors of human language would have to exist in the animal kingdom's forms of communication. For centuries, man has debated how words came into being. The current model is called denominalization. The child is born and from the very beginning of his life he recognizes "mother." Everything else is thus "not mother," and the child is forced to name each new thing he experiences. Nouns seem to be completely lacking in the animals' communication. In the 1970s, scientists recognized a difference between the alarm calls of the Vervet monkeys. The monkeys would give one alarm call when an eagle was nearby, another when there was a snake, and yet another when a leopard threatened. The zealous scientists assumed that these different calls were "names" the monkeys used to distinguish predators and to warn one another. After years of testing, however, it was determined that these specialized calls were not voluntary. When a monkey saw a predator, the call exploded out uncontrollably. The method of escape that the other monkeys took was also intrinsic. The Vervet monkey calls were thusly proven to be a form of innate call, a type of oral communication quite predominant in the animal world. Laughter, in humans, is viewed to be a form of innate call. Because some innate calls, like laughter, still exist in humans, it is clear that linguistic communication must have evolved from another source, not from innate calls. Otherwise, linguistic communication would have replaced the innate calls in humans.

Reference is the connection between communication and what is being communicated; it is also a process that is very special in linguistic communication and is often used as the defining feature of linguistic communication. Laughter, as an innate call, refers to an object in the same way language does. When someone laughs, we know that he is in an amused state. We are not sure why, or how amused, but we know he is certainly not sad. Innate calls can only point to their object, not explain them. The Vervet monkey calls are thus obviously innate calls. Linguistic communication can explain an object because they refer in a different way. What makes linguistic communication undeniably separate from all other forms of animal communication is that it is able to occur independently of an object. Without the predators, the Vervet monkeys would not call. Without a funny stimulus, we would not laugh. Language is different, though, because it does not rely on its objects to exist. It exists independently of what it refers to, and for this reason humans are able to discuss what we cannot immediately see and touch. Linguistic communication is defined by its reference.

Linguistics is a relatively new science of which scientists still know little. One of the largest controversies in linguistics today should no longer be a controversy; the solution is clear. Linguistic communication is clearly independent of other forms of animal communication, if not solely by its evolution, than by the way it functions today.

Copyright © 2001, Z. H. Fordsmender