One of a Neanderthal baby鈥檚 first words was probably 鈥減apa鈥�, concludes one of the most comprehensive attempts to date to make out what the first human language was like.
Many of the estimated 6000 languages now spoken share common words and meanings, notably for kin names like 鈥渕ama鈥� and 鈥減apa鈥�. That has led some linguists to suggest that these words have been carried through from humans鈥� original proto-language, spoken at least 50,000 years ago.
But without information on exactly how often these words occur across distantly related languages, there has been little evidence to support that claim.
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What is more, some words of similar sound and meaning, such as the English 鈥渄ay鈥� and the Spanish 鈥渄ia鈥�, are known to have arisen independently.
Now Pierre Bancel and Alain Matthey de l鈥橢tang from the Association for the Study of Linguistics and Prehistoric Anthropology in Paris have found that the word 鈥減apa鈥� is present in almost 700 of the 1000 languages for which they have complete data on words for close family members.
Common ancestry
Those languages come from all the 14 or so major language families. And the meaning of 鈥減apa鈥� is remarkably consistent: in 71 per cent of cases it means father or a male relative on the father鈥檚 side.
鈥淭here is only one explanation for the consistent meaning of the word 鈥榩apa鈥�: a common ancestry,鈥� Bancel says. He presented the findings at the Origins of Language and Psychosis conference in Oxford, UK, in July 2004.
But debate over whether modern languages carry the remnants of the language spoken at the dawn of humanity is likely to continue. Don Ringe, a linguist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, says that babies may simply associate the first sound they can make with the first people they see 鈥� their parents. That, too, would lead to words like 鈥減apa鈥� acquiring similar meaning in many languages.
Even Bancel admits that there will never be conclusive proof. 鈥淲e have no Neanderthals around to ask.鈥�