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  • The Early Evolution of Language: A Species Pump Hypothesis

    The Early Evolution of Language by Bancel, Pierre;

    A Species Pump Hypothesis

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      • Publisher's listprice GBP 150.00
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    Product details:

    • Edition number 1
    • Publisher CRC Press
    • Date of Publication 20 November 2025

    • ISBN 9781041091806
    • Binding Hardback
    • No. of pages264 pages
    • Size 254x178 mm
    • Language English
    • Illustrations 7 Illustrations, black & white; 16 Illustrations, color; 7 Line drawings, black & white; 16 Line drawings, color; 22 Tables, black & white
    • 700

    Categories

    Short description:

    The huge gap between human articulate language and all the communication systems of other living beings has prevented a satisfactory answer to this question up until today. Here, the problem is subdivided into a series of necessarily successive steps.

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    Long description:

    This book proposes a step-by-step process by which the early evolution of human language originated. Starting from an ape-like communication system, pre-human ancestors were “pumped” out of the rainforest by cyclic climate changes between 10 and 6 Mya and subjected to harsh predatory conditions and the absence of safe havens. A phonetic “modal voice” evolved in response. Inarticulate sounds gradually became articulated syllables. The diversification of these syllables eventually led to symbolic references and then finally to words. Bancel details each of these steps in which the origin of language and the origin of humans were concordant.


     


     


     

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    Table of Contents:

     


    Tables of maps, tables, boxes, diagrams and annexes                                                                                                                             


    Prologue


    Chapter 01 Introduction                                                      


    Chapter 02      The climatic species pump                         


    Chapter 03      Hums                            


    Chapter 04      The Proto-Sapiens negative / prohibitive particle *ma and the invention of the CV syllable                                                                                                                


    Chapter 05      Stages in the evolution of phonetic articulation                           


    Chapter 06      From Proto-Sapiens back to Proto-Human: an evolutionary history                           


    Chapter 07      Celeste and the cuckoo                                                                                                                                                    


    Chapter 08      Universal papa/mama words                           


    Chapter 09      Merritt Ruhlen’s discovery                           


    Chapter 10      Innovations galore                           


    Chapter 11      Transmission and preservation of papa/mama words                           


    Chapter 12      The age of papa and mama                           


    Chapter 13      From mama to me                           


    Chapter 14      Borrowing personal pronouns?                           


    Chapter 15      Personal pronouns and person markers in Indo-Hittite                           


    Chapter 16      Eurasiatic pronouns’ long march                           


    Chapter 17      1st person *n and 2nd person *m in Amerind                           


    Chapter 18      Of pronouns and geography                           


    Chapter 19      Global variability of personal pronouns vs. their age-old persistence                                                                                                                                                        


    Chapter 20      Move along, nothing to see here                           


    Epilogue


    Acknowledgments


    Index of languages


    Index of authors


    Index of notions


    Books and articles consulted

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