A Rough Grunt Dictionary

There have been some interesting new developments in the study of the evolution of language. The idea that human language emerged from hand gestures rather than sounds has been getting very popular in recent years. Some scientists think that certain neurons in the brain played a crucial role in this gestural prehistory. Known as mirror neurons, they simulate the movement of other people's hands, among other things. In the October 14 issue of Science, a team of scientists showed that mirror neurons are even more sophisticated than previously thought. They even speculate that some mirror neurons could have helped give rise to different components of sentences, such as subjects and verbs. One reason that this gestural theory has gained ground is that it hasn't been clear that the sounds of apes refer to particular things. Random outbursts aren't a particular good foundation for building up language. But don't rule out ...