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It is probably the most
amazing thing you do

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and it defines you as being human.

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And you do it with ease, so much so
you barely notice you're doing it.

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Apple! Yeah, apple!

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THEY SPEAK IN NATIVE TONGUE

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Your ability to talk.

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Or more precisely,
the way you use language.

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THEY SPEAK IN NATIVE TONGUE

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Language.

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COMPUTERISED VOICE: Hi, baby!

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From the moment we're born,
we have language in our lives.

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Hi, baby!

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A unique ability
that defines us as human.

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I can walk up to
someone I don't know

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and I can make a sequence of noises
that I've never made before

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by pushing air through my mouth.

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I will take a thought in my head
and make it go into their head,

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and that's an incredible trick.

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Other animals may use
sounds to communicate

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but we're the only ones
on the planet who can talk.

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Speech and language distinguishes us
from all other species.

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We are not only using words
to be able to express ourselves

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but we are really expressing
our thought processes

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that are unique to ourselves.

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For most of us it just happens.

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It's such a sophisticated skill

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and yet children learn it so
easily with minimal effort at all.

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That's Mummy.

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And when you start
thinking about it,

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it is quite miraculous
how the brain does it.

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But despite decades of research, how
we learn to talk remains a mystery.

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How did this ability evolve?

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Why is it uniquely human?

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And is it something we are born with
or something that we learn?

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It strikes me it's
surprising and odd

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that we know an enormous amount
about, for example,

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the first fractions of a second
in the history of the universe,

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but we really know very little
at all about what makes us human

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and where language comes from.

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BABY BABBLES

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Daddy.

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The wonder of language
may not yet be fully understood.

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BABY BABBLES

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But how we start to talk
is now being observed

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minute by minute for the first time.

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Cognitive scientist Deb Roy realised

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that to discover how
a child learns to speak...

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He'd have to be able to see and
hear them 24 hours a day.

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His solution was to take
the extraordinary step

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of turning his own home
into a language laboratory,

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and his guinea pig was his own son.

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My wife and I were expecting
our first child

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and we had many conversations around,
you know, would this be possible,

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could we set up our home as
an observation space

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and actually capture this kind
of rich longitudinal record

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of our own child's
development from birth?

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And that's what we set out to do.

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And so was born the
Speech Home Project,

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The most ambitious language
observation experiment ever seen.

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Cameras and microphones recorded
every second of Deb's son's life

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from the moment he was born
until he was three-years-old.

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Capturing in precise detail the
process of how we learn to talk.

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Baa!

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Ball.

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Blue ball. Blue ball.

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Blue ball, yeah.

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From the earliest
unintelligible babble

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to the emergence
of a very first word.

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Apple. Apple.

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Yeah, apple.

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My interest going in
was really to understand

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the earliest stages of
language formation,

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and the typical development stages
in language,

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a child will go from babbling
to using single words

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usually as a complete request
and descriptions,

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and then from that they will start
what's called the two-word stage

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where they'll put two words
together like "more milk"

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and from that, very quickly
more complex grammatical
structures emerge.

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My focus and my aim was
to capture the phase

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up to the two-word utterance

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and that could happen anywhere
between second and third birthday.

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It turned out my son
was an early talker

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so by the time his
second birthday arrived

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we had the main data set we wanted.

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By the time recording was complete,

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more than 240,000 hours
of information

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and 16 million words
had been collected.

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It's a lot of data but
in its raw form it's useless

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and so the challenges
this now sets up for us

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is how do you start extracting
the right kind of metadata,

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transcripts of who said what,

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annotations of where
those people were,

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annotations of how
they're moving

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and the relationships that they
were in as they were speaking.

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And these are the, the tools
that we are now building

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to analyse the raw data,

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and from that,
we're starting to see some,

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some early insights into the
patterns of language development.

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Despite the mountains
of video footage,

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Deb Roy is already uncovering
the intricate effect

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daily life has on
language development.

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It seems cooing to your baby is
not just instinct, it's essential.

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In the months leading up
to their son's first words,

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he and his wife unconsciously
simplified their speech.

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Then as their son's
own speech develops,

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they began to use longer
sentences again,

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mirroring the child's
own development.

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What's that over there?
Over there, that ball?

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Green ball. Oh!

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For the very first time,
the analysis has also enabled

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Deb to piece together the precise
emergence of individual words,

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charting how a new word is born.

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OK, water, water.

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Gaga, gaga.

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So my son, around his
first birthday,

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started using the sound
"gaga" to indicate water,

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and then over the
next several months

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learned to slowly approximate
the proper speech form.

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Water.

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Just like time lapse video lets
you capture a flower blossoming,

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what we're going to hear
is the blossoming of a speech form.

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OK, water?

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Water.

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Water? Water?

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Water.

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That's water.

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It will take years for Deb Roy and
his team to analyse all of the data

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but buried within this footage

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are the secrets of how
we learn language.

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If the patterns can be unlocked,

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then once this remarkable
project is complete

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we will have the clearest
understanding yet

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of how a child achieves the
remarkable feat of learning to talk.

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By the time a child is five,
they'll know as many as 5,000 words.

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THEY SPEAKS IN NATIVE TONGUE

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My voice changes
when I get in a situation.

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That requires a rather precise
placement of the tip of the tongue.

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At the third stroke
the time will be five...

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Language is exclusively human

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and it's something that
comes naturally to us.

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From their voice, so it's clear
the voice is deeply expressive.

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Despite decades of
intense investigation,

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we still know very little about
the basic origins of language.

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ELEPHANT ROARS

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Sunlight.

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While other creatures
can communicate

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their basic needs and emotions
to each other,

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we're the only species that can
convey complex meaning and thought.

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T or the D at the end of a word
for, say, dot or dog.

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It's remarkable that no other
animal has ever developed speech.

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What is it that makes us unique?

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Do this, Vicky.

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HE BLOWS RASPBERRY

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Another sound resembles the letter K.

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Vicky, sit up.

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Not even our closest
relatives, the chimps, can talk.

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Psychologists spent
nearly seven years

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trying to teach Vicky to speak
with little success.

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Resembles the letter T.

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And in this case they really
tried to teach a chimp to
say some basic words

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and completely failed, and everyone
knew of course that,

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say, parrots can learn
to imitate speech.

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So it was kind of a very surprising
and eye-opening experience

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to see that these chimps with
great big brains for an animal
were not able to do this.

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It was already very clear
that chimpanzees

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don't have the kind of control
over their vocal tract that we do.

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So once people knew that chimpanzees
couldn't produce speech,

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the big question was why?

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Scientists believed
they knew the answer.

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It was all down to
our unique anatomy.

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We have a larynx, or voice box,
that's fixed low down in our throat.

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This makes the vocal tract longer

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and gives us the physical ability
to produce a wide variety of sounds.

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The voice box of all other animals
was found to be high in the throat,

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leaving them incapable of making
the complicated sounds of speech

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in their short vocal tract.

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But nobody had actually ever seen
inside the throat of an animal

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as it vocalised.

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Tecumseh Fitch had a
unique piece of equipment

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to solve the problem,
a video X-ray machine

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that had been developed
to study animals swallowing.

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What we found was really astounding.

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It wasn't anything we were prepared
for by reading the literature

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and here's what we saw.

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So what this is is the larynx
pulling down out of the nasal cavity

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so that during the vocalisation

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the animal was vocalising
out through its mouth.

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The image made no sense
so Fitch looked at other mammals,

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including Megan the dog.

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So you can see the dog's jaw
and the tongue.

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This is the larynx right here.

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And you can see that with each bark
the larynx kind of jerks down,

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so let's slow that down.

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So here's the larynx.

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You can see that it's really
a quite pronounced descent

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of the larynx during the barks.
It pulls down.

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What Fitch discovered has
revolutionised our understanding

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of why we can talk.

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The mammalian vocal tract is
incredibly flexible

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so whether we're looking at dogs
or pigs or goats or monkeys,

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we always see the same thing,
that the, the anatomy

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rearranges itself very dynamically
while the animal is vocalising.

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So it seems that if it
was just down to anatomy,

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all mammals would have
the ability to talk.

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The main conclusion that I draw from
all this work is that the constraint

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that's keeping a chimpanzee
from speaking,

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00:14:35,080 --> 00:14:37,400
or indeed keeping
a dog from speaking,

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is not the peripheral vocal anatomy,

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because any of these animals that
we've looked at are able to lower
the larynx

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and reconfigure the vocal
tract into a human-like confirmation

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basically any time they vocalise.

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So that can't be the main thing
that's keeping these other animals

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from having the capacity to produce
humanlike speech,

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so it must be in the brain,
by process of elimination.

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Come on, £4 a pound, banana.

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Yes, I had to speak to both those...

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Every dish has sugar.

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00:15:07,240 --> 00:15:13,360
We don't stop to think how our
brain processes the 370 million
words we will say in our lifetime.

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Read my lips.

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Or how we coordinate the
complex sequence of thoughts,

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movements and actions that lie
behind each and every word we utter.

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But if we are to ever
truly understand language,

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then it is deep inside our heads

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where some of the
greatest mysteries lie.

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The more we uncover,

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the more we realise how delicate and
fragile these processes can be.

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In 2006
Steve Steere was in an accident

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that would change his life for ever.

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Steve was always
a very active person.

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He had done two sponsored rides,

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one to Mexico and one to Ecuador,
which he thoroughly enjoyed

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and he was training for the third
ride, which was to go to Peru.

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When he had an accident,

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he was found unconscious and
he was taken to hospital,

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where they diagnosed him with
a fractured shoulder.

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00:16:28,760 --> 00:16:32,480
Initially, Steve's injuries
seemed relatively minor.

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But early the next morning
things took a turn for the worse

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and he had a massive stroke.

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00:16:41,880 --> 00:16:44,560
This left him with
severe brain damage.

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00:16:44,560 --> 00:16:47,240
He was told he'd never
talk properly again.

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00:16:48,920 --> 00:16:50,800
I remember watching a programme

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00:16:50,800 --> 00:16:53,600
probably six months before
Steve had his accident,

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00:16:53,600 --> 00:16:56,520
which showed a lady
caring for her disabled husband

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00:16:56,520 --> 00:16:57,880
and I remember feeling,

245
00:16:57,880 --> 00:17:01,680
"Gosh, if that happened to me, I
don't think I'd be able to do that."

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00:17:01,680 --> 00:17:07,320
I remember sitting for about two
hours in the room when he was asleep,

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00:17:07,320 --> 00:17:10,800
raging inside that this was not fair.

248
00:17:10,800 --> 00:17:16,200
We'd just got our business going
and it was doing really well,

249
00:17:16,200 --> 00:17:18,840
and we had two young children

250
00:17:18,840 --> 00:17:22,080
and I just think
sometimes it's not fair.

251
00:17:37,080 --> 00:17:40,080
Cases like Steve's offer
scientists like Cathy Price

252
00:17:40,080 --> 00:17:43,760
a unique window into how the brain
and language connect together.

253
00:17:45,520 --> 00:17:49,640
20 years ago I was told that
the brain wasn't relevant

254
00:17:49,640 --> 00:17:51,480
to our study of language

255
00:17:51,480 --> 00:17:56,240
and the reason for that was
that we had so little information.

256
00:17:56,240 --> 00:18:00,680
The two types of information that
we had were either from autopsies

257
00:18:00,680 --> 00:18:04,920
of people who had died after they
had had a language difficulty,

258
00:18:04,920 --> 00:18:09,200
or we were using brain scans where
the information was so blurred

259
00:18:09,200 --> 00:18:14,080
that you couldn't really see very
much detail about what was happening.

260
00:18:14,080 --> 00:18:16,080
So at that point all we knew was that

261
00:18:16,080 --> 00:18:19,320
the left side of the brain
was most important for language

262
00:18:19,320 --> 00:18:22,560
and the front part of the brain
is important for speaking

263
00:18:22,560 --> 00:18:26,520
and the back part of the brain was
important for understanding speech

264
00:18:26,520 --> 00:18:30,200
so that was the sort of general
level at which it was understood.

265
00:18:30,200 --> 00:18:32,600
As scanning technology has improved,

266
00:18:32,600 --> 00:18:36,560
it's become apparent just how
complicated the brain functions

267
00:18:36,560 --> 00:18:38,720
involved in language really are.

268
00:18:38,720 --> 00:18:42,040
Hello, Steve, can you hear me?
That's great.

269
00:18:42,040 --> 00:18:45,320
To build a complete picture of
which parts of the brain

270
00:18:45,320 --> 00:18:47,600
are involved in language
in all of us,

271
00:18:47,600 --> 00:18:50,960
Cathy Price matches the exact
nature of a speech defect

272
00:18:50,960 --> 00:18:53,800
with the exact position
of damage in the brain.

273
00:18:53,800 --> 00:18:56,080
When I look at Steve's brain here,

274
00:18:56,080 --> 00:18:59,800
I can see that he's lost
a very extensive set of regions

275
00:18:59,800 --> 00:19:03,440
in his left hemisphere that
are important for speech

276
00:19:03,440 --> 00:19:05,840
and he can still produce some speech

277
00:19:05,840 --> 00:19:08,800
but it will be
extremely difficult for him.

278
00:19:10,320 --> 00:19:13,560
A fully-fledged ability to
communicate with language

279
00:19:13,560 --> 00:19:17,360
relies on many separate processes
working together within us.

280
00:19:17,360 --> 00:19:19,880
We need to use our memory,
our senses

281
00:19:19,880 --> 00:19:23,960
and have precise motor control
over our mouths and tongues.

282
00:19:26,000 --> 00:19:27,680
What I'd like you to do

283
00:19:27,680 --> 00:19:32,280
is to point to the picture that
matches with the words, OK?

284
00:19:32,280 --> 00:19:36,480
So the words are,
"the pen is under the paper."

285
00:19:36,480 --> 00:19:40,400
Cathy needs to identify the
problems Steve has with speaking

286
00:19:40,400 --> 00:19:44,320
before she can link them back to
the precise areas in his brain.

287
00:19:44,320 --> 00:19:46,240
This one. That's right.

288
00:19:46,240 --> 00:19:50,440
When I ask him to point to
pictures of particular scenes,

289
00:19:50,440 --> 00:19:53,800
he could pick out which
scene matched the sentence

290
00:19:53,800 --> 00:19:57,560
and that's quite a difficult thing
to do if you can't speak

291
00:19:57,560 --> 00:20:01,120
because you can't hear the words
go round in your head.

292
00:20:01,120 --> 00:20:04,040
You can't repeat it to yourself.

293
00:20:04,040 --> 00:20:06,320
So he did very well on that task.

294
00:20:06,320 --> 00:20:12,600
The butcher shoots the nurse. Um.

295
00:20:13,800 --> 00:20:15,600
It's a bit violent.

296
00:20:15,600 --> 00:20:18,520
Yes. This one's a nicer one.

297
00:20:18,520 --> 00:20:22,000
One crucial area of Steve's
brain is still functioning.

298
00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:25,120
The anterior superior temporal
sulcus is involved

299
00:20:25,120 --> 00:20:27,600
in understanding
the meaning of words,

300
00:20:27,600 --> 00:20:29,800
an ability that Steve has not lost.

301
00:20:29,800 --> 00:20:33,440
But when we asked him to
describe the picture,

302
00:20:33,440 --> 00:20:36,640
then he had a lot more
difficulty there.

303
00:20:36,640 --> 00:20:40,880
Can you describe to me
what you can see there?

304
00:20:42,400 --> 00:20:43,920
Um.

305
00:20:52,320 --> 00:20:54,760
What do you see here?

306
00:20:54,760 --> 00:20:56,280
Um...

307
00:21:01,520 --> 00:21:04,120
A cat.

308
00:21:04,120 --> 00:21:06,400
That's right.

309
00:21:06,400 --> 00:21:09,280
What's the cat doing?

310
00:21:12,400 --> 00:21:14,760
Can you see what's here?

311
00:21:16,280 --> 00:21:17,400
Yes.

312
00:21:18,800 --> 00:21:20,600
Um...

313
00:21:20,600 --> 00:21:22,360
Fish.

314
00:21:22,360 --> 00:21:23,400
That's right.

315
00:21:23,400 --> 00:21:26,120
Yeah, fish. That's right.

316
00:21:26,120 --> 00:21:29,680
And can you see what the
cat's trying to do to the fish?

317
00:21:35,320 --> 00:21:36,480
I don't know.

318
00:21:39,320 --> 00:21:43,640
What was happening was the cat was
putting his paw into the fish bowl

319
00:21:43,640 --> 00:21:47,920
to try and get the fish, and what
Steve picked out on was the objects,

320
00:21:47,920 --> 00:21:50,520
the cat and the fish,
but not the action.

321
00:21:54,120 --> 00:21:56,240
Book, the books.

322
00:21:56,240 --> 00:22:00,640
And likewise with the books,
the books were falling off the shelf

323
00:22:00,640 --> 00:22:04,520
and they were about to hit
the head of the sleeping man

324
00:22:04,520 --> 00:22:06,520
and what he said was "books".

325
00:22:07,600 --> 00:22:09,960
The head. Yes?

326
00:22:09,960 --> 00:22:13,840
'And then all of a sudden, you know,
he had a little breakthrough.'

327
00:22:15,320 --> 00:22:19,360
Bouncing on the head.

328
00:22:19,760 --> 00:22:24,560
Yes, excellent. That's very
good, thank you very much.

329
00:22:24,560 --> 00:22:27,840
Matching the problem Steve
has in recalling words

330
00:22:27,840 --> 00:22:29,320
with his detailed scan

331
00:22:29,320 --> 00:22:31,800
has helped identify
parts of the brain

332
00:22:31,800 --> 00:22:34,040
involved in language in all of us.

333
00:22:34,040 --> 00:22:39,520
This frontal area of our brain
is associated with word retrieval.

334
00:22:39,520 --> 00:22:43,920
Everything that he said and described
indicated that he understood

335
00:22:43,920 --> 00:22:48,400
what he was seeing but he just
couldn't get the words out
to describe it

336
00:22:48,400 --> 00:22:52,320
in a way that you'd need to if
you had to talk to somebody else.

337
00:22:57,920 --> 00:23:01,800
By dividing the process of speech
into such precise tasks,

338
00:23:01,800 --> 00:23:04,960
scientists like Cathy
are now piecing together

339
00:23:04,960 --> 00:23:08,160
the first functional map
of our language brain.

340
00:23:09,760 --> 00:23:14,880
From an area that is crucial in
allowing us to hear and monitor
the sound of our own voice...

341
00:23:16,800 --> 00:23:21,760
..to an area that is critical for
analysing the very structure
of speech.

342
00:23:23,800 --> 00:23:26,360
There are all sorts
of different components

343
00:23:26,360 --> 00:23:29,000
that we're putting together
to make this model

344
00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:30,960
so it is like doing a jigsaw puzzle

345
00:23:30,960 --> 00:23:34,480
where you have lots of different
pieces and as you work on it,

346
00:23:34,480 --> 00:23:36,760
you find new pieces
but you also find,

347
00:23:36,760 --> 00:23:40,600
"Ah I've got a little cluster
of pieces here that now fit together

348
00:23:40,600 --> 00:23:43,080
"into something
very, very meaningful."

349
00:23:46,080 --> 00:23:50,200
It's very much work in progress but
we are building the clearest picture

350
00:23:50,200 --> 00:23:53,960
ever of the areas of the brain
that are involved in talking.

351
00:24:10,160 --> 00:24:11,760
But how does it all begin?

352
00:24:11,760 --> 00:24:14,040
COMPUTERISED VOICE: Hi, baby!

353
00:24:14,040 --> 00:24:18,520
When does a new
brain switch on to language?

354
00:24:18,520 --> 00:24:20,400
COMPUTERISED VOICE: Hi, baby!

355
00:24:20,400 --> 00:24:22,160
Part of our research

356
00:24:22,160 --> 00:24:25,360
has to do with helping to
understand the roots of,

357
00:24:25,360 --> 00:24:27,600
of language reception

358
00:24:27,600 --> 00:24:31,520
and how it is that babies begin
to understand speech sounds.

359
00:24:31,520 --> 00:24:35,320
Professor William Fifer works with
new born babies to investigate

360
00:24:35,320 --> 00:24:39,280
at what point they start to respond
to the speech they hear around them.

361
00:24:44,320 --> 00:24:47,320
Early experiments used
an adapted pacifier

362
00:24:47,320 --> 00:24:50,760
to measure how the baby's
sucking responses changed

363
00:24:50,760 --> 00:24:53,320
when it was played
different voices,

364
00:24:53,320 --> 00:24:57,680
but this technique relied
on the baby being awake.

365
00:24:57,680 --> 00:25:00,440
He now measures
new born brain activity

366
00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:02,480
using an array of electrodes

367
00:25:02,480 --> 00:25:05,720
and he can do that even
when they're sleeping.

368
00:25:07,240 --> 00:25:10,360
So does this
cute little baby have a name yet?

369
00:25:10,360 --> 00:25:13,720
Liliana. Liliana. All right.

370
00:25:13,720 --> 00:25:16,960
And what we're talking about today
is how quickly she's picking up

371
00:25:16,960 --> 00:25:18,640
information about language already.

372
00:25:18,640 --> 00:25:21,160
So, as you know, she's been
listening in the womb

373
00:25:21,160 --> 00:25:23,440
and we think that she's
particularly prepared

374
00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:26,440
to want to listen to certain things,
especially Mom's voice.

375
00:25:26,440 --> 00:25:28,160
Sorry, Dad, but you'll come soon.

376
00:25:28,160 --> 00:25:29,760
That's OK, don't worry.

377
00:25:29,760 --> 00:25:33,720
She'll stop listening to both of us
soon enough, we know.

378
00:25:33,720 --> 00:25:38,720
Pfeifer wants to see how one-day-old
Liliana responds to speech sounds

379
00:25:38,720 --> 00:25:41,040
generated by different voices.

380
00:25:41,040 --> 00:25:45,200
Her mother, a stranger
or a computer saying the same thing.

381
00:25:45,200 --> 00:25:48,080
Which in this case is "Hello, Baby!"

382
00:25:49,680 --> 00:25:52,160
COMPUTERISED VOICE: Hi, baby!

383
00:25:52,160 --> 00:25:57,520
Hi, baby! Hi, baby!

384
00:25:57,520 --> 00:25:59,320
Hi, baby!

385
00:26:01,080 --> 00:26:03,520
Hi, baby!

386
00:26:03,520 --> 00:26:05,400
Hi, baby!

387
00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:06,920
Hi, baby!

388
00:26:06,920 --> 00:26:08,880
So when we do the experiment,

389
00:26:08,880 --> 00:26:13,760
you actually can watch baby's raw
brain activity right on the screen.

390
00:26:13,760 --> 00:26:20,920
But later we process it to help us
understand how much that baby is
attending to any particular sound.

391
00:26:22,440 --> 00:26:26,640
Pfeifer found that Liliana is able
to respond to her mother's voice

392
00:26:26,640 --> 00:26:28,720
in a way she doesn't to any other.

393
00:26:28,720 --> 00:26:29,880
Hi, baby!

394
00:26:29,880 --> 00:26:32,200
He believes the only explanation

395
00:26:32,200 --> 00:26:36,080
is that she'd been learning
from her mother in the womb.

396
00:26:36,080 --> 00:26:39,760
Babies especially like to hear
sounds that we call language

397
00:26:39,760 --> 00:26:42,600
and it's those speech sounds
that they've heard

398
00:26:42,600 --> 00:26:44,480
that mother produced in utero

399
00:26:44,480 --> 00:26:47,200
that later they'll learn
carry information

400
00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:49,640
that's going to be
very important to them

401
00:26:49,640 --> 00:26:54,400
but when they're first hearing
these sounds they don't
have any real meaning

402
00:26:54,400 --> 00:26:56,560
but it's the quality of that voice,

403
00:26:56,560 --> 00:27:00,720
it's the number of times they hear
it, it's the rhythm, the cadence

404
00:27:00,720 --> 00:27:05,360
that they're having some exposure to
and we think that's what's affecting

405
00:27:05,360 --> 00:27:08,840
their early auditory system so,
as soon as they're born,

406
00:27:08,840 --> 00:27:11,160
they cue in on
that particular sound.

407
00:27:11,160 --> 00:27:14,200
With his work, Pfeifer is
showing that we are tuned

408
00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:17,720
to the sounds of speech
from the beginning of our lives.

409
00:27:19,240 --> 00:27:22,560
'My baby's room will be yellow.'

410
00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:25,200
BABY CRIES

411
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:28,520
Don't sound very good.
That was too loud.

412
00:27:28,520 --> 00:27:32,040
Yes, you didn't like her voice, no?

413
00:27:32,040 --> 00:27:35,600
But this unique ability
doesn't last for long.

414
00:27:41,560 --> 00:27:43,880
THEY SPEAK IN NATIVE TONGUE

415
00:28:05,480 --> 00:28:09,080
What is it that makes learning
language so easy as a child

416
00:28:09,080 --> 00:28:11,000
and so difficult as an adult?

417
00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:15,040
DOORBELL RINGS

418
00:28:16,040 --> 00:28:17,880
Hi, Chris. Hi.

419
00:28:17,880 --> 00:28:21,800
How are you? Como estas? Estoy bien.

420
00:28:21,800 --> 00:28:25,280
Christopher Taylor
is helping to answer this question.

421
00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:29,960
Chris is autistic and lives in
a care home in North Yorkshire.

422
00:28:29,960 --> 00:28:33,720
Despite being reliant on others
for so many things in his life,

423
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:35,720
in one way Christopher is unique.

424
00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:39,320
While he doesn't like talking
to people very much,

425
00:28:39,320 --> 00:28:41,760
he can speak more than 20 languages

426
00:28:41,760 --> 00:28:45,280
including
Welsh, Berber, Arabic and Icelandic.

427
00:28:45,280 --> 00:28:50,240
Espanol y que otra lengua?

428
00:28:50,240 --> 00:28:54,160
Que pasa aqui?
How do you say zapatero in English?

429
00:28:54,160 --> 00:28:57,000
Shoe maker.
Shoe maker, that's right.

430
00:28:58,160 --> 00:28:59,920
Language expert Gary Morgan

431
00:28:59,920 --> 00:29:03,640
has been working with Christopher
for more than ten years.

432
00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:06,080
When I first used to
talk to Christopher

433
00:29:06,080 --> 00:29:08,480
and watch the way
he plays with language,

434
00:29:08,480 --> 00:29:10,920
the way he uses language,
it was amazing.

435
00:29:10,920 --> 00:29:12,880
I'd never seen anything like it.

436
00:29:12,880 --> 00:29:16,680
OK, I've got some other papers here.
Chinese.

437
00:29:16,680 --> 00:29:21,040
Yeah. This is in Serbian. Vesti.

438
00:29:21,040 --> 00:29:22,320
Serbian?

439
00:29:22,320 --> 00:29:26,080
CHRISTOPHER READS IN SERBIAN

440
00:29:26,080 --> 00:29:32,400
Learning new words
is easy for Christopher.

441
00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:36,560
And today he's meeting Gerardo who's
going to teach him words in Nahuatl,

442
00:29:36,560 --> 00:29:39,280
a language that's been spoken
in Central Mexico

443
00:29:39,280 --> 00:29:40,880
since the seventh century.

444
00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:43,800
Y que necesito escribir?

445
00:29:43,800 --> 00:29:47,280
Si, escribo. Este es una
palabra Nahuatl

446
00:29:47,280 --> 00:29:51,520
que se usan en espanol
de Mexico y es papalotl.

447
00:29:51,520 --> 00:29:54,480
Mariposa. Mm-hmm.

448
00:29:54,480 --> 00:29:58,600
Christopher, when he hears a new
word or hears about a new language

449
00:29:58,600 --> 00:30:01,240
he doesn't know,
he really gets excited.

450
00:30:01,240 --> 00:30:05,200
It's what switches him on so,
I think for Christopher,

451
00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:08,880
languages are like
collecting rare butterflies.

452
00:30:08,880 --> 00:30:11,640
He likes to collect
different languages,

453
00:30:11,640 --> 00:30:14,360
different words
in different languages.

454
00:30:14,360 --> 00:30:17,320
Chris, you know these
words that you learnt? Yes.

455
00:30:18,840 --> 00:30:22,080
Just tell, just tell them
to me again really quickly.

456
00:30:22,080 --> 00:30:24,320
What was that one? Papalotl.

457
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:27,160
How do you say it in,
in, in English?

458
00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:29,080
Butterfly.

459
00:30:29,080 --> 00:30:30,960
Chilli. Chapulin.

460
00:30:30,960 --> 00:30:32,800
Cricket. Cocone.

461
00:30:32,800 --> 00:30:36,720
Children, pepper, flower.

462
00:30:36,720 --> 00:30:40,960
Oh, no lo conocemos,
cochinilla, guajelotl.

463
00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:46,360
Turkey. Aqualotl? Tadpole. Perfecto.

464
00:30:46,360 --> 00:30:49,440
That's very quick.
He does learn really quickly.

465
00:30:49,440 --> 00:30:52,760
Christopher memorised all
of the words he was taught

466
00:30:52,760 --> 00:30:54,080
in just ten minutes.

467
00:30:54,080 --> 00:30:58,160
His incredible ability means he's
continually adding new languages

468
00:30:58,160 --> 00:31:00,560
to the long list
of those he's mastered.

469
00:31:02,320 --> 00:31:07,760
I think Christopher illustrates
the ability to, to learn
rules quickly, the patterns,

470
00:31:07,760 --> 00:31:10,520
scan through things quickly
and see things,

471
00:31:10,520 --> 00:31:13,600
predict what's going
to come next in the language.

472
00:31:13,600 --> 00:31:18,880
Christopher has this island of
ability in a sea of disability

473
00:31:18,880 --> 00:31:24,120
so everything else is poor
compared with one unique ability.

474
00:31:24,120 --> 00:31:27,840
The natural talent that shines
through in Christopher

475
00:31:27,840 --> 00:31:30,520
seems to be revealing
an extreme version

476
00:31:30,520 --> 00:31:33,480
of what might have once
existed in all of us.

477
00:31:35,120 --> 00:31:36,840
An innate ability for language.

478
00:31:41,160 --> 00:31:44,160
Je m'appelle Frederica
et je parle le francais,

479
00:31:44,160 --> 00:31:45,720
l'anglais et l'italien.

480
00:31:45,720 --> 00:31:48,240
HE SPEAKS IN NATIVE LANGUAGE

481
00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:56,920
THEY SPEAK IN NATIVE LANGUAGE

482
00:32:14,600 --> 00:32:20,240
D. D. Clever boy. Can you pick
them up and tell Sylvie?

483
00:32:20,240 --> 00:32:22,080
S for Sylvie.

484
00:32:22,080 --> 00:32:23,800
What's that, darling?

485
00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:25,880
Monkey. Yeah.

486
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:30,120
It was 50 years ago, the godfather
of linguistics, Noam Chomsky,

487
00:32:30,120 --> 00:32:36,080
revolutionised the field by
suggesting that the basis of our
language ability was innate,

488
00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:37,760
built into each one of us.

489
00:32:37,760 --> 00:32:41,200
Now let's have a look at the book.

490
00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:45,840
He believes this explains why a
child can learn language very easily

491
00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:47,800
despite its complex nature.

492
00:32:47,800 --> 00:32:51,560
It seems that the child almost
reflexively picks up

493
00:32:51,560 --> 00:32:55,720
specific characteristics of
the language in question,

494
00:32:55,720 --> 00:32:57,720
sound structure, pitch and so on,

495
00:32:57,720 --> 00:33:01,080
and picks out its words
and somehow knows what they mean,

496
00:33:01,080 --> 00:33:03,720
and they mean very complex things.

497
00:33:03,720 --> 00:33:07,560
That's mummy. That's the mummy
monkey, so who's this then?

498
00:33:07,560 --> 00:33:09,080
Daddy. Daddy. Daddy.

499
00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:12,240
But all this somehow gets
picked up very quickly,

500
00:33:12,240 --> 00:33:16,160
which can only mean what it
means in every aspect of biology.

501
00:33:16,160 --> 00:33:18,480
It's just the way
the child is designed.

502
00:33:18,480 --> 00:33:21,240
Chomsky argues that
our ability to talk

503
00:33:21,240 --> 00:33:24,720
is not just the result
of our general intelligence

504
00:33:24,720 --> 00:33:29,400
but that we have an unconscious
innate understanding about things

505
00:33:29,400 --> 00:33:33,640
like sentence structure,
word order, meaning and sounds.

506
00:33:33,640 --> 00:33:35,280
Arlo, why don't you count them?

507
00:33:35,280 --> 00:33:38,680
But while we may have the
blueprint for language,

508
00:33:38,680 --> 00:33:41,440
we need to be exposed
to it early in life.

509
00:33:41,440 --> 00:33:44,000
If a child is brought up on stilts,
let's say,

510
00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:47,520
and then they're taken off
when it's two years old,

511
00:33:47,520 --> 00:33:50,720
it probably won't be able to
acquire the capacity to walk

512
00:33:50,720 --> 00:33:52,280
because it's just too late.

513
00:33:52,280 --> 00:33:55,200
You know, something
should have happened already.

514
00:33:55,200 --> 00:33:57,240
Same with binocular vision and so on,

515
00:33:57,240 --> 00:33:59,640
and probably the same
is true of language.

516
00:33:59,640 --> 00:34:04,880
Chomsky's theories get to the heart
of the fundamental question -

517
00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:08,440
is talking the result
of nature or nurture?

518
00:34:12,560 --> 00:34:17,400
It's a problem that's notoriously
difficult to unpick.

519
00:34:20,600 --> 00:34:25,040
One theoretical solution that has
enticed scientists for many years

520
00:34:25,040 --> 00:34:28,520
would be to isolate a child
and raise them in silence.

521
00:34:28,520 --> 00:34:31,800
Would the child develop
language on their own?

522
00:34:31,800 --> 00:34:34,360
Because of the cruelty involved,

523
00:34:34,360 --> 00:34:38,640
scientists could never carry
out this test on humans.

524
00:34:38,640 --> 00:34:43,120
It's become known as
the Forbidden Experiment.

525
00:34:47,440 --> 00:34:49,880
The best scientists could hope for

526
00:34:49,880 --> 00:34:52,640
would be to find real live
case studies,

527
00:34:52,640 --> 00:34:56,680
feral children, those brought
up by animals in the wild.

528
00:34:57,880 --> 00:35:01,200
If children raised away from
human contact could be found,

529
00:35:01,200 --> 00:35:05,040
how they communicated could
finally answer the question

530
00:35:05,040 --> 00:35:07,880
of whether the ability
to talk was innate.

531
00:35:14,600 --> 00:35:17,080
In 1991 the scientific community

532
00:35:17,080 --> 00:35:20,440
believed they'd
stumbled across such a child.

533
00:35:20,440 --> 00:35:22,720
SHE BARKS

534
00:35:24,160 --> 00:35:28,760
Eight-year-old Oxana Malaya
was found in the Ukraine

535
00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:31,400
and she'd been raised by dogs.

536
00:35:31,400 --> 00:35:33,000
They were surprised to find

537
00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:36,040
that while she behaved like
the dogs she lived with,

538
00:35:36,040 --> 00:35:37,920
even barked to communicate...

539
00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:39,920
SHE BARKS

540
00:35:39,920 --> 00:35:43,560
She did speak some human words.

541
00:35:48,960 --> 00:35:53,480
The findings seemed to suggest
that despite her circumstances,

542
00:35:53,480 --> 00:35:56,440
Oxana had an innate
ability for language,

543
00:35:56,440 --> 00:36:00,000
one that was nurtured
after she was found.

544
00:36:08,440 --> 00:36:10,560
SHE SPEAKS RUSSIAN

545
00:36:12,880 --> 00:36:16,480
But it later emerged
that in her first three years

546
00:36:16,480 --> 00:36:20,360
she lived in a domestic setting
and had had human interaction.

547
00:36:24,040 --> 00:36:27,560
It meant the scientists were
no closer to establishing

548
00:36:27,560 --> 00:36:30,160
how much of our ability
to talk is innate.

549
00:36:33,240 --> 00:36:38,160
The Forbidden Experiment has
remained enticing but out of reach.

550
00:36:39,680 --> 00:36:41,280
Until now...

551
00:36:48,960 --> 00:36:51,200
One scientist has found a unique way

552
00:36:51,200 --> 00:36:53,600
of getting round
the ethical problem.

553
00:37:01,080 --> 00:37:04,800
Ofer Tchernichovski
is studying something linguists

554
00:37:04,800 --> 00:37:09,360
think might hold the key to whether
speech and language is innate.

555
00:37:11,640 --> 00:37:19,160
The Forbidden Experiment is trying
to see what speech and language

556
00:37:19,160 --> 00:37:23,440
human infants will develop without
any exposure to spoken language.

557
00:37:23,440 --> 00:37:26,680
Of course,
this cannot be done in humans

558
00:37:26,680 --> 00:37:29,840
but why shouldn't
we do it with birds?

559
00:37:29,840 --> 00:37:34,120
Zebra finches are perfect subjects.

560
00:37:35,280 --> 00:37:37,680
While the females don't sing at all,

561
00:37:37,680 --> 00:37:41,520
the male chicks learn to sing
by imitating their fathers,

562
00:37:41,520 --> 00:37:44,640
just like human children
copy their parents.

563
00:37:54,640 --> 00:37:57,920
To recreate the conditions
of the Forbidden Experiment,

564
00:37:57,920 --> 00:38:01,920
Ofer and his team isolated male
chicks away from their fathers

565
00:38:01,920 --> 00:38:04,000
before they were taught to sing.

566
00:38:06,480 --> 00:38:10,440
Kept in isolation in specially
sound-proofed cages,

567
00:38:10,440 --> 00:38:13,720
their song developed
to no more than a croak.

568
00:38:23,400 --> 00:38:26,800
One of these isolated males was
added to a group of females

569
00:38:26,800 --> 00:38:28,520
to create a new finch colony.

570
00:38:30,200 --> 00:38:32,560
Ofer hoped that the
females would find

571
00:38:32,560 --> 00:38:34,640
the male's call attractive enough

572
00:38:34,640 --> 00:38:37,840
that they would mate
and create the next generation.

573
00:38:40,520 --> 00:38:44,000
In the beginning, the first problem
that we had is that the females

574
00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:46,440
were not very interested
in the isolate male.

575
00:38:46,440 --> 00:38:50,000
When he start singing his isolate
unstructured song, they say "yuk!"

576
00:38:50,000 --> 00:38:51,520
And they wouldn't go with him.

577
00:38:51,520 --> 00:38:56,000
But, we didn't let go and we kept
going like that with a few tries

578
00:38:56,000 --> 00:38:59,480
and in the end one female
became desperate enough

579
00:38:59,480 --> 00:39:02,120
and mated with the isolate founder,

580
00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:06,000
and then we had baby birds
that imitated their father.

581
00:39:07,520 --> 00:39:10,800
The young birds instinctively
copied their father's song

582
00:39:10,800 --> 00:39:13,520
despite its unstructured
unattractive sound.

583
00:39:13,520 --> 00:39:15,320
And interestingly enough,

584
00:39:15,320 --> 00:39:18,920
in isolate song we see song
that may be more prolonged.

585
00:39:18,920 --> 00:39:21,720
We can see syllable that go
like "Waaaaah" like that

586
00:39:21,720 --> 00:39:23,560
instead of "choob-chab-choob."

587
00:39:23,560 --> 00:39:27,320
And this is something that
they were still imitating

588
00:39:27,320 --> 00:39:32,040
so they were listening to that tutor
that was singing abnormal song

589
00:39:32,040 --> 00:39:36,640
and they imitated his abnormal song,
and so did their children.

590
00:39:40,040 --> 00:39:42,640
That in itself was not surprising.

591
00:39:42,640 --> 00:39:44,880
The sons were tutored
by their father.

592
00:39:48,480 --> 00:39:53,160
But when the researchers compared
song over the generations,

593
00:39:53,160 --> 00:39:55,920
they saw something extraordinary.

594
00:39:55,920 --> 00:40:01,800
Each new generation of birds didn't
just imitate their father's song.

595
00:40:01,800 --> 00:40:03,680
They also improved it.

596
00:40:07,040 --> 00:40:08,640
By the fourth generation,

597
00:40:08,640 --> 00:40:12,760
the finches were singing a version
of the song that normal birds sing,

598
00:40:12,760 --> 00:40:15,880
despite none of their colony
having ever heard it.

599
00:40:21,360 --> 00:40:27,040
We were very pleased to see how
quickly normal songs start emerging

600
00:40:27,040 --> 00:40:31,440
out of those very unstructured songs
of the isolate

601
00:40:31,440 --> 00:40:37,120
and that individual bird has this
ability to imitate and to improve,

602
00:40:37,120 --> 00:40:42,520
and improve at the level that he
makes the song more species like

603
00:40:42,520 --> 00:40:45,000
and perhaps more effective.

604
00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:48,880
To adapt a song without
being taught how to

605
00:40:48,880 --> 00:40:53,400
means the finches
must have some innate ability.

606
00:40:53,400 --> 00:40:56,480
In the bird,
seems to be somehow encoded

607
00:40:56,480 --> 00:40:59,080
so that when they imitate sounds,

608
00:40:59,080 --> 00:41:03,400
they'll shift them to where
some kind of an internal image

609
00:41:03,400 --> 00:41:07,920
that they have of how a good
zebra finch song should be like.

610
00:41:11,480 --> 00:41:14,880
Ofer's work suggests
humans might also have

611
00:41:14,880 --> 00:41:17,120
this innate ability to talk.

612
00:41:19,520 --> 00:41:21,360
If we'd never heard speech,

613
00:41:21,360 --> 00:41:25,040
we'd develop a form of language
within a few generations.

614
00:41:28,280 --> 00:41:31,120
After 50 years of
research delving into our brains.

615
00:41:31,120 --> 00:41:33,680
Hello, Steve, can you hear me?

616
00:41:33,680 --> 00:41:36,240
Observing the birth of
language in children.

617
00:41:36,240 --> 00:41:37,280
Hi, baby!

618
00:41:37,280 --> 00:41:40,920
Studying song birds and
investigating anatomy...

619
00:41:42,600 --> 00:41:45,880
Scientists have come to the
inescapable conclusion

620
00:41:45,880 --> 00:41:47,680
that we're built for speech,

621
00:41:50,240 --> 00:41:52,400
and that can only mean one thing.

622
00:41:52,400 --> 00:41:56,120
The origin of language
must lie in our genes.

623
00:41:56,120 --> 00:41:59,320
It would be like
looking for a needle in a haystack.

624
00:42:00,360 --> 00:42:02,920
THEY SPEAK IN NATIVE TONGUE

625
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:11,960
Unpicking the genetic component
of language is a huge challenge.

626
00:42:11,960 --> 00:42:15,880
From the thousands of genes
that make up the human genome,

627
00:42:15,880 --> 00:42:19,560
it seemed almost impossible
to identify a gene that has

628
00:42:19,560 --> 00:42:23,440
an influence on the multitude
of functions behind speech.

629
00:42:25,360 --> 00:42:28,120
But 20 years ago
Faraneh Vargha-Khadem,

630
00:42:28,120 --> 00:42:31,640
a neuroscientist from
University College London,

631
00:42:31,640 --> 00:42:34,320
was introduced to a British family

632
00:42:34,320 --> 00:42:37,360
that had a very unusual
speech defect.

633
00:42:37,360 --> 00:42:42,120
A family who would help
solve the mystery of how we speak.

634
00:42:42,120 --> 00:42:48,040
When they are speaking they give
the impression that they are deaf,

635
00:42:48,040 --> 00:42:50,200
but in fact they are
hearing individuals

636
00:42:50,200 --> 00:42:52,720
but they give the impression
that they are deaf

637
00:42:52,720 --> 00:42:54,480
because their speech is not clear

638
00:42:54,480 --> 00:42:57,200
so people have got difficulty
understanding them.

639
00:42:58,960 --> 00:43:01,600
When our children was born,

640
00:43:01,600 --> 00:43:06,520
they found it very harder,
or severe, for talking.

641
00:43:06,520 --> 00:43:12,920
But some people at school
would take the mick out of me.

642
00:43:12,920 --> 00:43:16,320
Faraneh and her team spent several
years testing the abilities

643
00:43:16,320 --> 00:43:19,000
of affected and unaffected
members of the family

644
00:43:19,000 --> 00:43:21,440
so they could
fully diagnose the condition.

645
00:43:21,440 --> 00:43:28,080
To protect their identity,
they were named the KE family.

646
00:43:28,080 --> 00:43:31,920
When it comes to the KE family
members who are affected

647
00:43:31,920 --> 00:43:34,840
with this speech
and language disorder,

648
00:43:34,840 --> 00:43:37,680
they're very normal
in every other way.

649
00:43:37,680 --> 00:43:42,160
They, of course, have a very specific
speech and language problem

650
00:43:42,160 --> 00:43:46,720
but their thought processes and
their communication abilities

651
00:43:46,720 --> 00:43:49,320
in other ways are perfectly normal.

652
00:43:49,320 --> 00:43:53,800
Hoping they would find a link
between affected family members,

653
00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:56,040
a geneticist joined the team.

654
00:44:03,640 --> 00:44:07,920
The family at the time consisted of
30 members and 15 of the members

655
00:44:07,920 --> 00:44:12,400
had inherited a speech and language
disorder from the grandmother.

656
00:44:12,400 --> 00:44:14,080
The first genetic study

657
00:44:14,080 --> 00:44:17,960
was able to locate the
general area of the abnormality.

658
00:44:17,960 --> 00:44:23,840
It was on chromosome 7 and all the
affected family members had it.

659
00:44:23,840 --> 00:44:28,480
Reflecting its obvious importance
in their ability to talk,

660
00:44:28,480 --> 00:44:31,360
the research team
called it Speech 1.

661
00:44:32,880 --> 00:44:36,080
Speech 1 was located on
chromosome number 7

662
00:44:36,080 --> 00:44:39,000
but where exactly on
chromosome number 7

663
00:44:39,000 --> 00:44:41,440
and which particular gene was it,

664
00:44:41,440 --> 00:44:44,240
was something that
would have required

665
00:44:44,240 --> 00:44:47,040
several more years of investigations

666
00:44:47,040 --> 00:44:49,720
until the actual gene was detected.

667
00:44:49,720 --> 00:44:53,760
Then, out of the blue,
a totally unconnected child

668
00:44:53,760 --> 00:44:58,600
with the same type of speech defect
was brought in to see them.

669
00:44:58,600 --> 00:45:02,240
And when you think
that in this big wide world,

670
00:45:02,240 --> 00:45:06,960
the same kind of problem presents
itself in the same country

671
00:45:06,960 --> 00:45:10,400
in the same location
but to the same person!

672
00:45:10,400 --> 00:45:15,240
So you really have to recognise that
there is a huge element of luck

673
00:45:15,240 --> 00:45:19,480
that was involved in allowing
this discovery to be made.

674
00:45:21,760 --> 00:45:24,480
Finally, they had the
breakthrough they needed.

675
00:45:26,040 --> 00:45:27,920
Tests on the new child's DNA

676
00:45:27,920 --> 00:45:32,200
revealed that part of his
chromosome 7 was clearly broken off.

677
00:45:34,040 --> 00:45:37,320
And to their amazement,
Faraneh and her team

678
00:45:37,320 --> 00:45:41,920
found a mutation in the KE family's
DNA, in exactly the same location.

679
00:45:41,920 --> 00:45:45,960
That finding suggests that many
people with speech disorders

680
00:45:45,960 --> 00:45:47,640
could have a faulty gene.

681
00:45:48,840 --> 00:45:53,400
After years of searching,
they'd finally found a gene,

682
00:45:53,400 --> 00:45:57,080
one that controls our
unique ability to shape words.

683
00:45:57,080 --> 00:45:59,400
They called it FOXP2.

684
00:46:01,240 --> 00:46:04,080
FOXP2 seems to have a very
important role

685
00:46:04,080 --> 00:46:06,600
on the control of this
part of the face

686
00:46:06,600 --> 00:46:10,240
in order to be able to
communicate the tiny movements

687
00:46:10,240 --> 00:46:14,000
that are required in order to
sequence the speech sounds

688
00:46:14,000 --> 00:46:16,400
that results in our fluent speech.

689
00:46:16,400 --> 00:46:18,520
HE SPEAKS IN NATIVE TONGUE

690
00:46:18,520 --> 00:46:20,280
Your ability to talk.

691
00:46:20,280 --> 00:46:21,640
Your ability to talk.

692
00:46:21,640 --> 00:46:23,600
De la tua capacitad di parlare.

693
00:46:25,120 --> 00:46:27,160
The discovery of FOXP2 in humans

694
00:46:27,160 --> 00:46:31,040
marked a significant step
forward for linguistic science.

695
00:46:32,640 --> 00:46:38,480
One family had unlocked some of the
key secrets of speech in all of us.

696
00:46:38,480 --> 00:46:42,040
This kind of a connection
between a single gene

697
00:46:42,040 --> 00:46:45,680
and a cognitive capacity,

698
00:46:45,680 --> 00:46:50,520
like speech and language, is quite
remarkable to be able to demonstrate.

699
00:46:50,520 --> 00:46:53,360
It was later discovered
that all vertebrates

700
00:46:53,360 --> 00:46:55,040
have a version of this gene

701
00:46:55,040 --> 00:46:57,680
but just two tiny changes
in the human form

702
00:46:57,680 --> 00:47:02,280
has meant the difference between
making noises and producing speech.

703
00:47:04,080 --> 00:47:09,160
It looks like this period
where these changes occurred

704
00:47:09,160 --> 00:47:15,280
may have coincided with the time
that modern humans had come about.

705
00:47:22,480 --> 00:47:26,280
The effect of these small
changes in our genes was massive

706
00:47:26,280 --> 00:47:28,120
because, for the first time,

707
00:47:28,120 --> 00:47:32,080
we were able to manipulate our
mouths to form complex sounds.

708
00:47:35,120 --> 00:47:39,240
Once we had the anatomy and
physiology required for speech,

709
00:47:39,240 --> 00:47:40,880
we were primed to talk.

710
00:47:40,880 --> 00:47:45,640
Enriched their lives enormously.
I don't know why I said it.

711
00:47:45,640 --> 00:47:48,320
To create everything
that exists up till now.

712
00:47:50,320 --> 00:47:53,640
But when did we
actually start to speak?

713
00:47:59,360 --> 00:48:02,920
The dawn of speech is one of
the great puzzles of evolution

714
00:48:02,920 --> 00:48:06,480
because there's no fossil record
of verbal communication

715
00:48:06,480 --> 00:48:08,800
for scientists
to look back through.

716
00:48:10,960 --> 00:48:14,800
Mark Pagel is an
evolutionary biologist

717
00:48:14,800 --> 00:48:18,520
on the hunt for the
origins of language.

718
00:48:18,520 --> 00:48:20,360
There's a lot of ideas about this.

719
00:48:20,360 --> 00:48:21,880
They're all speculation

720
00:48:21,880 --> 00:48:25,040
but they rely on having
the right genetics in place

721
00:48:25,040 --> 00:48:27,480
and having the right
anatomy in place,

722
00:48:27,480 --> 00:48:30,040
and we know that
by 200,000 years ago,

723
00:48:30,040 --> 00:48:32,720
both of those things were available.

724
00:48:35,920 --> 00:48:38,680
We may have been physically
able to speak

725
00:48:38,680 --> 00:48:42,960
but linguists believe it's more
likely that the birth of language

726
00:48:42,960 --> 00:48:46,600
coincided with the
proliferation of man-made objects

727
00:48:46,600 --> 00:48:48,280
around 50,000 years ago.

728
00:48:48,280 --> 00:48:53,120
At this time there was an
explosion in art and technology.

729
00:48:54,640 --> 00:48:58,440
We start to see, for the first
time in the archaeological record,

730
00:48:58,440 --> 00:49:01,680
lots of different tool types,
lots of different implements,

731
00:49:01,680 --> 00:49:04,040
lots of different huts
that people lived in

732
00:49:04,040 --> 00:49:06,920
and so these things seemed
to appear rather abruptly,

733
00:49:06,920 --> 00:49:10,080
suggesting that there was some
change in the way we lived.

734
00:49:13,320 --> 00:49:17,080
Many scientists think
that the birth of language

735
00:49:17,080 --> 00:49:19,480
instigated this cultural boom.

736
00:49:19,480 --> 00:49:21,240
But without a time machine,

737
00:49:21,240 --> 00:49:27,080
we may never know exactly
when we started to talk.

738
00:49:27,080 --> 00:49:29,040
But what we do know is why.

739
00:49:30,280 --> 00:49:34,240
Mark Pagel believes
that language probably developed

740
00:49:34,240 --> 00:49:39,400
as a practical way of defining roles
and it formed a kind of social glue.

741
00:49:39,400 --> 00:49:43,600
We had something that no other animal
does and that's what humans do

742
00:49:43,600 --> 00:49:45,320
is that they divide up the tasks.

743
00:49:45,320 --> 00:49:48,880
So, early in our evolution, somebody
might have been gathering wood

744
00:49:48,880 --> 00:49:51,000
while another one
was gathering water.

745
00:49:51,000 --> 00:49:53,120
Somebody might have
been making the huts

746
00:49:53,120 --> 00:49:55,120
while someone else was making spears

747
00:49:55,120 --> 00:49:57,600
and, at the end of the day,
all those tasks are shared

748
00:49:57,600 --> 00:50:01,160
and I think we can start to see that
we need language to regulate that.

749
00:50:01,160 --> 00:50:04,320
We need language for people to
be able to talk to each other

750
00:50:04,320 --> 00:50:07,400
about what they're doing and to
be able to represent what

751
00:50:07,400 --> 00:50:11,200
their contribution is to the society
as opposed to everyone else's.

752
00:50:13,400 --> 00:50:16,720
This motivation to
clarify social tasks

753
00:50:16,720 --> 00:50:20,400
was the final push we needed
to get us talking.

754
00:50:24,560 --> 00:50:28,800
How we adapted the first sounds
we made into language

755
00:50:28,800 --> 00:50:32,080
is now being revealed
for the first time.

756
00:50:32,080 --> 00:50:34,680
Because no-one designed
English, say,

757
00:50:34,680 --> 00:50:38,080
no-one sat down and thought,
"English would be useful

758
00:50:38,080 --> 00:50:39,840
"if it had relative clauses

759
00:50:39,840 --> 00:50:42,960
"or some other piece of grammar,"
it just happens,

760
00:50:42,960 --> 00:50:47,160
it happens by this blind unconscious
process of transmission

761
00:50:47,160 --> 00:50:48,720
and, for the first time,

762
00:50:48,720 --> 00:50:51,840
we're able to see that
happen in the laboratory.

763
00:50:53,520 --> 00:50:55,120
Renana.

764
00:50:58,720 --> 00:51:01,560
Nepilu.

765
00:51:01,560 --> 00:51:04,960
Can you remember this language?

766
00:51:04,960 --> 00:51:06,360
Lapiranana.

767
00:51:07,880 --> 00:51:12,160
It's one you've never
seen or heard before.

768
00:51:12,160 --> 00:51:14,800
Kisafiki.

769
00:51:16,920 --> 00:51:19,160
It's been created by Simon Kirby

770
00:51:19,160 --> 00:51:23,040
and is made up of words
that describe alien fruit.

771
00:51:24,880 --> 00:51:26,400
Neheki.

772
00:51:29,680 --> 00:51:33,920
Kirby and his team have devised an
experiment where they can watch

773
00:51:33,920 --> 00:51:38,200
this language evolve over hundreds
of years in just one afternoon.

774
00:51:38,200 --> 00:51:40,040
Nahuna.

775
00:51:40,040 --> 00:51:43,560
We start the experiment with
this garbage language,

776
00:51:43,560 --> 00:51:45,120
this random language.

777
00:51:45,120 --> 00:51:48,520
In fact, to call it a language is,
is in some sense misleading.

778
00:51:48,520 --> 00:51:49,920
It's not even a language.

779
00:51:51,440 --> 00:51:54,280
Nereki.

780
00:51:54,280 --> 00:51:57,560
In the beginning, the alien
words are completely random.

781
00:51:57,560 --> 00:52:00,120
Pilu.
With no common factors between them.

782
00:52:02,520 --> 00:52:05,960
Lapalu. Kirby's guinea pigs
have to familiarise themselves

783
00:52:05,960 --> 00:52:10,600
with the new words before being
tested to see what they remember.

784
00:52:17,280 --> 00:52:19,600
But there's a twist.

785
00:52:19,600 --> 00:52:22,720
Some of the fruit are familiar

786
00:52:22,720 --> 00:52:26,120
but half of them
have never been seen

787
00:52:26,120 --> 00:52:30,000
and the volunteers couldn't possibly
know the words that describe them.

788
00:52:32,680 --> 00:52:36,840
Something most of
them don't even notice.

789
00:52:38,760 --> 00:52:40,760
Kinamula.

790
00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:47,520
Neki.

791
00:52:47,520 --> 00:52:53,840
The early participants do very badly
in the test because the language is
completely random and unstructured.

792
00:52:53,840 --> 00:52:59,840
Unfortunately you didn't get any
of them right. Oh, my God! Sorry.

793
00:52:59,840 --> 00:53:04,400
It was really hard. I just
couldn't seem to find any patterns.

794
00:53:04,400 --> 00:53:07,920
I thought I'd be able to see a
pattern with maybe the colours

795
00:53:07,920 --> 00:53:09,680
and I put in key or ka for yellow

796
00:53:09,680 --> 00:53:12,200
and then maybe I thought
lu could mean two.

797
00:53:12,200 --> 00:53:15,880
It was a bit of a shock to hear I
hadn't seen half of the language.

798
00:53:15,880 --> 00:53:19,160
I just felt a bit cheated, really!
I didn't have a chance.

799
00:53:22,400 --> 00:53:24,000
Napilu.

800
00:53:24,000 --> 00:53:26,000
But the experiment
doesn't end there.

801
00:53:26,000 --> 00:53:28,960
All the words produced
by the first candidate

802
00:53:28,960 --> 00:53:32,480
are used to create the language for
the next person in the experiment,

803
00:53:32,480 --> 00:53:37,080
including the words they
invented for the unfamiliar fruit.

804
00:53:37,080 --> 00:53:41,200
Each of these learners thinks
that they're giving us back

805
00:53:41,200 --> 00:53:45,240
the same thing that we trained
them on, as best they can,

806
00:53:45,240 --> 00:53:48,120
but in fact each of them,
unconsciously,

807
00:53:48,120 --> 00:53:52,720
is changing that language, changing
it piece by piece over time.

808
00:53:55,560 --> 00:53:57,240
Nahuna.

809
00:53:57,240 --> 00:53:59,960
As it's passed through
generations of users,

810
00:53:59,960 --> 00:54:02,960
the language slowly turns
from a random chaotic one

811
00:54:02,960 --> 00:54:05,240
to one of structure
with combinations

812
00:54:05,240 --> 00:54:07,120
that can be easily remembered.

813
00:54:12,480 --> 00:54:16,400
By the ninth generation, the
words have been divided into parts

814
00:54:16,400 --> 00:54:18,640
and each of these has
a different meaning.

815
00:54:20,280 --> 00:54:23,800
N, L and R
describe the different colours.

816
00:54:23,800 --> 00:54:26,200
The middle of the word
describes the number,

817
00:54:26,200 --> 00:54:28,960
and the end of the word
like "plo" or "pilu"

818
00:54:28,960 --> 00:54:30,800
describes the type of fruit.

819
00:54:32,760 --> 00:54:36,200
This allows the parts to be joined
together in different ways

820
00:54:36,200 --> 00:54:39,400
to describe fruit the volunteers
have never seen before,

821
00:54:39,400 --> 00:54:41,560
a crucial feature
of human language.

822
00:54:41,560 --> 00:54:44,160
I think lahoki will be this one.

823
00:54:44,160 --> 00:54:46,800
Got all five out of five right.
Oh, good, excellent.

824
00:54:46,800 --> 00:54:50,280
The really striking thing
that we've discovered

825
00:54:50,280 --> 00:54:52,920
is that when we run
these experiments

826
00:54:52,920 --> 00:54:56,200
what we get at the end looks
like a real language,

827
00:54:56,200 --> 00:54:59,920
not one of the languages that
we see in the world today

828
00:54:59,920 --> 00:55:03,320
but it looks like a language
in that it's got those

829
00:55:03,320 --> 00:55:07,720
essential defining characteristics
that we see in language.

830
00:55:07,720 --> 00:55:09,560
In other words

831
00:55:09,560 --> 00:55:14,560
these languages that emerge are made
up of parts that can be recombined.

832
00:55:14,560 --> 00:55:19,240
This happens gradually,
it happens without anyone knowing it

833
00:55:19,240 --> 00:55:24,320
and yet it is the exact feature of
language that makes it unique,

834
00:55:24,320 --> 00:55:29,560
makes language different from
everything else we see in nature.

835
00:55:29,560 --> 00:55:32,040
Renana.

836
00:55:34,880 --> 00:55:39,000
I'll do it in Catalan.

837
00:55:40,800 --> 00:55:45,280
It's this ability we have to
combine sounds to make new meanings

838
00:55:45,280 --> 00:55:48,240
that means how we talk
will continue to change

839
00:55:48,240 --> 00:55:50,360
from generation to generation.

840
00:55:50,360 --> 00:55:52,240
That's mummy.

841
00:55:52,240 --> 00:55:56,640
And the fact that it's a living
entity makes it so fascinating

842
00:55:56,640 --> 00:56:00,360
but so evasive for scientists.

843
00:56:00,360 --> 00:56:03,680
We have come a long way
but, at the same time,

844
00:56:03,680 --> 00:56:06,520
it's really a window that has opened.

845
00:56:06,520 --> 00:56:09,200
We are only beginning
to get a glimpse

846
00:56:09,200 --> 00:56:12,240
of how complicated
the whole process is.

847
00:56:12,240 --> 00:56:14,760
Researchers are beginning
to understand

848
00:56:14,760 --> 00:56:17,720
that, beyond our innate
ability and our upbringing,

849
00:56:17,720 --> 00:56:20,760
there are more factors that
influence why we talk.

850
00:56:20,760 --> 00:56:24,960
One area of growing consensus
in understanding the biology
of language

851
00:56:24,960 --> 00:56:29,000
is the realisation that language
actually is not one monolithic thing

852
00:56:29,000 --> 00:56:32,360
but instead is made
up of multiple different components.

853
00:56:32,360 --> 00:56:34,400
Come on, £4 a pound, bananas!

854
00:56:34,400 --> 00:56:36,280
BABY BABBLES

855
00:56:36,280 --> 00:56:39,160
HE SPEAKS SERBIAN

856
00:56:39,160 --> 00:56:42,920
We talk about the innate abilities
and the learnt abilities,

857
00:56:42,920 --> 00:56:47,120
what we inherit and what we acquire,
what we're given by our culture,

858
00:56:47,120 --> 00:56:50,640
our society, our parents,
and what we get from our genes.

859
00:56:50,640 --> 00:56:53,240
Chapulin. Cricket.

860
00:56:53,240 --> 00:56:54,800
Cocone. Children.

861
00:56:54,800 --> 00:56:59,160
I think both of those abilities,
both of those sets of things

862
00:56:59,160 --> 00:57:02,240
need to be in place
for you to have the full,

863
00:57:02,240 --> 00:57:05,320
fully-fledged abilities
with language.

864
00:57:05,320 --> 00:57:08,760
And being able to
identify all these components

865
00:57:08,760 --> 00:57:13,680
and understand how they fit together
may tell us what it is to be human.

866
00:57:13,680 --> 00:57:15,200
A cat.

867
00:57:16,400 --> 00:57:21,640
And somehow out of this complicated
soup of interactions between people,

868
00:57:21,640 --> 00:57:26,080
language emerges, and that's really
what we need to understand

869
00:57:26,080 --> 00:57:29,640
if we are to understand
where language comes from

870
00:57:29,640 --> 00:57:31,400
and why it is the way it is,

871
00:57:31,400 --> 00:57:34,280
and it's a really difficult problem.

872
00:57:34,280 --> 00:57:37,280
But answering the problem
is important because

873
00:57:37,280 --> 00:57:39,560
it defines us,
it defines who we are.

874
00:57:39,560 --> 00:57:41,640
Nehilu.

875
00:58:01,200 --> 00:58:04,240
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

876
00:58:04,240 --> 00:58:07,280
E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk