We cannot exclude the possibility – in fact, it is highly plausible – that the
proto-languages of the ninety-odd language families in the world were themselves
languages in even older language families, but the methods of historical language
reconstruction have their limits. After a certain period of time, languages change so
much that a possible common origin simply cannot be detected. While archeologists
can date the age of artefacts on the basis of the constant decay of radioactive atoms,
languages do not change at a constant rate at all times and at all places, but most
linguists do not think that it is possible to reconstruct proto-languages that were
spoken more than approximately 10 000 BP. This does not, mean, however, that
language origins should not be traced much further into the past.
7.2.1.3 ORAL TRADITION
When writing was invented, texts could be stored and information could be
transmitted across generations, centuries, and millennia, to a much larger extent than
before. But crossgenerational communication did not start with writing. Interesting
pieces of information have been «handed down» to us through oral tradition.
Some fascinating examples of information from a distant past that have
survived through oral tradition is mentioned by the linguist R. M. W. Dixon in his
book about the Australian language Dyirbal, The Dyirbal Language of North
Queensland. On p. 29, Dixon writes that «beneath the veneer of fantasy, some
[Dyirbal] myths may provide accurate histories of events in the distant past of the
people», and this is just one example:
Further evidence is contained in the myth of Gi}ugar, a legendary man who came
from the south, visiting each mountain, lake and island and giving it a name. The
storyteller remarked that in Gi}ugar’s day it was possible to WALK across to the
islands (Palm Island, Hinchinbrook Island, and so on). In fact geographers believe
that sea level was sufficiently low for it to have been possible to walk to all islands
in the Coral Sea at the end of the last ice age, eight to ten thousand years ago.
This may be some of the oldest direct evidence in the world of the existence of
language. The fact that it was possible to walk across to those islands could not have
been «handed down» from one generation to another for at least 10 000 years without
language.
7.2.1.4 ARCHEOLOGY
In Africa, the first archeological remains of anatomically modern humans, Homo
sapiens, have been dated to 130 000 years BP, and the development of behaviorially
modern humans was apparently completed 60 000–40 000 years ago.
As we shall come back to below, language could not develop until our
ancestors had acquired certain anatomical features, while, on the other hand, certain
behavioral features are difficult to imagine in a society without language. Necessary
anatomical features are what we call articulatory organs – that is, among other things,
a mouth, and and throat of a certain shape – a minimum brain size, while art is an
important behavioral feature.