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The evolution of language from social cognition

Robert M Seyfarth1, Dorothy L Cheney2

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, 3720 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.

Current Opinion in Neurobiology
|May 13, 2014
PubMed
Summary

Human language and primate vocalizations share features like joint action and combinatorial cognition, suggesting an evolutionary link. These commonalities indicate that key aspects of language evolved from ancestral primate communication systems.

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