I read about the Sherpas in the pop news recently. They were more concerned with how the Sherpas could withstand the altitudes though. Yea, it seems that we inherited a number of characteristics from our cousins e.g. Lighter skin. Hawks mentions Paabo’s book in one of his blogs. I’m only a little way into it (Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes ) and he discusses the topic in detail, especially referring to the divergence, but not by much of our immediate ancestors and Neanderthal. Good stuff CC. Get the book if you want. I found a hard copy at Barnes and Noble.
Cap’t Jack
So they had the mechanism to produce words.
In order to learn “naming words” we must be social creatures, because “naming words” OR more precisely, “Tacts”, are shaped by social reinforcement.
Early hominins were probably plenty social enough. Species that have longer periods of dependency on parents in early development, are necessarily social.
So they probably had names for all sorts of things as well as names for different individuals.
Do any of the great apes have ‘names’ for other members of their troop?
Although very limited by our standards, they can make a variety of sounds, so it makes sense that they would call to an individual by using a series of sounds (their version of a word) unique to that individual. It wouldn’t be hard to imagine that ‘word’ spreading through the troop.
If apes don’t, I’d be very curious to know why. Their brain easily understands words that humans teach them, so not using them in nature would be a puzzle that needed to be solved.
Great question. I never thought to ask it myself. Inspired me to do a little poking around and sadly it seems the answer is probably no.
Anim Cogn. 2009 May; 12(3): 527–546.
Published online 2009 Feb 1. doi: 10.1007/s10071-009-0213-4
PMCID: PMC2757608
PMID: 19184669
Gestural communication of the gorilla (Gorilla gorilla): repertoire, intentionality and possible origins
Emilie Genty, Thomas Breuer, Catherine Hobaiter, and Richard W. Byrne
10 facts you probably didn’t know about great apes
Bonobos have runny noses, gorillas like to swear and both species have the same blood types humans do. Facts about our closest animal relatives that will surprise and delight you.
Be fun if anyone has other information?
I would bet some of my relatives could, judging by their Facebook posts. They’d at least have a lot in common with our older, dumber cousins.
Verbal behavior develops in any species that is a social species, especially if they have the brain power and if they have long periods in which a child of the species is raised and cared for by a parent.
e.g., Dolphins have names for each other.
Some parrots appear to have call signatures (names) for other individual parrots.
I would be very surprised if we do not eventually discover that elephants have names for each other. They clearly have advanced verbal behavior compared to most other mammalian species.
If ancient hominids had the biological apparatus for speech AND were highly social creatures, who spent long periods raising their young, then I would be surprised to find that they did not have names for each other.