On the Origins
of Language

Philip Lieberman of Brown University on the evolution of human speech, in the Macmillan Series in Physical Anthropology. Copyright 1975; ISBN 0-02-370690-2; LC 74-5720. Lieberman’s argument runs through the anatomy of the vocal tract — that the supralaryngeal airway of modern humans, unlike that of the chimpanzee or the Neanderthal reconstruction, is shaped for speech, and that this places a datable constraint on when language could have emerged. The preface opens with Montaigne on presumption: “When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me?” It thanks colleagues at the Yale University School of Medicine and Haskins Laboratories.