The ape and the first word: Understanding the origins and evolution of the first linguistic structures in the human clade through comparative research

Language defines being human, yet its evolutionary origins remain obscure. Progress has long been hindered by old assumptions that our closest relatives – nonhuman great apes – lack the vocal abilities necessary to serve as models for language evolution, assumptions made without prior understanding of their natural vocal palette, predispositions or preferences. My research has overturned this outdated notion. Great apes possess far greater vocal control than previously recognised. Indeed, their repertoires include both vowel-like and consonant-like calls – the fundamental building blocks of language. Orangutans go a step further and combine the two into word-sized sequences and sentence-like series, prompting a serious revaluation of the vocal foundations for language evolution among hominids. During the first phase of this FLF, using innovative techniques and technologies, both in captivity and in the wild, the project sough to reconstruct the conditions of language’s “warm little pond” (to paraphrase Darwin) by identifying the articulatory manoeuvrers, control mechanics and combinatoric mechanisms that catalysed the co-evolution of proto-vowels and proto-consonants into the first linguistic structures in the human lineage. In a first of its kind, we remotely and non-invasively collected thermal-based measures of ape’s internal physiology during oral and vocal exercises with all great ape genera in two zoos (UK and US; plus, one upcoming in Ireland). We also implemented the largest coordinated field experiment ever conducted across four wild orangutan populations: a multi-year predator-model protocol involving 60 experiments with 32 individuals across the swamps and low mountain rainforests of Sumatra (Indonesia). We now seek a three-year renewal to build on these successes. Due to timeline adjustments forced by the pandemic, the curation, processing and analyses of captive and wild data will be finalized during the renewal period. Further analyses, centred around...