Language is an essential of any society. Sharing a common means to communicate is critical for any kind of relationship, from the most formal business relations, to the most close knit friendships. Anyone who doubts that should go to a country where they do not speak the language and try to speak with a native who does not speak their language. Since languages are so crucial to society, it is critical that any theory of origins be able to explain the origin of speech and language. In this article, we will examine the origins of language and discuss whether it is possible for language and speech to have evolved as evolution claims.
The word “language” is defined as “the method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional way.” Human language is vastly different than animal communications. Animals communicate only about essentials, such as food sources, nearby predators, and, during mating season, to proposition a potential mate. Many animals communications are non-verbal. Instead they use signals from body language to communicate. Humans give off non-verbal cues too, but the focus of the language is on the words said and written, rather than nonverbal cues. Further animal languages consist purely of sounds, without meaning behind the sound, whereas human language uses words that are unique and distinguishable from each other. Human language also contains negatives, something animal language does not. Human’s can say that something is not so, while animals cannot.
Evolutionists have a problem with the origin of human language. This problem stems from several issues. The most obvious one is words do not fossilize or preserve unless put on paper. Written words can be preserved in the form of books, tablets, scrolls and so on. Spoken words are lost the moment they are uttered unless they are written down, or in modern days, recorded. This has led to a complete lack of evidence for evolutionists to study regarding the origin of language.
Of course, lack of evidence has never been a problem for evolutionists before and likely never will be. It is no different when discussing the origins of language. Evolutionists simply assume that language originated somehow. There are at least a dozen theories competing to be the accepted explanation for the evolution of language. Each has its own set of problems which are far beyond the scope of this article. Just about the only thing they all have in common is assuming that language could have evolved.
As usual, assumptions get evolutionists in trouble and it is no different here. Language evolving is a massive stretch of the imagination. If man is nothing more than a highly evolved animal as evolution claims, then there is no reason he would have needed to evolve any form of communication higher than that of an animal. Points and grunts and touches would have been enough and anyone who expended energy on attempting to form a language would have been selected against in the gene pool. Further, evolutionists must answer how apes, which cannot talk today, despite extensive and expensive attempts to train them to do so, evolved to do so in the past.
Evolutionists also ignore the point that words themselves have no meaning unless tied to a language system. Suppose I tossed the word angscht out before a group of people. English speakers do not know what the word means. The only people who do are those able to understand Luxembourgish, the language of Luxembourg. What this means in practice is that, even if an ape had learned to speak in some miraculous fashion, he would have had no one to speak to, making the adaptation useless. Useless adaptations do not survive long under the natural selection driven model of evolution. Multiple ape/humans would have needed to have evolved the adaptation to speak at the same time in the same population, and been able to speak the same language as one another. If I were placed in the room with an Luxembougian who spoke no English, we would not be able to understand one another. Were two ape humans who had an adaptation to speak to meet, they would have had the same problem unless they spoke the same language. This is a huge problem for which evolution has no explanation. Nor can they explain why evolution would evolve such an adaptation in the first place.
The creation model has no problem with languages. Genesis 1-3 tells us Adam and Eve were made with the ability to speak. Genesis 2:23b even gives us the first recorded words of man. ” This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Adam said. The reason there is not a universal language is found in Genesis 11:9 where man attempts to build the Tower of Babel. “Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.” God deliberately confused man’s language to cause them to fulfill His command to populate the whole earth. Evolution will never find the origin of language because it came directly from God and was innately built into man.
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