Origin of human language may be 25 million years old: Study

Researchers have found an earlier origin to the human language pathway in the brain, an advance that pushes back its evolutionary origin by at least 20 million years.

Earlier, a precursor of the language pathway was thought by many scientists to have emerged more recently, about five million years ago, with a common ancestor of both apes and humans, according to the study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

"It is like finding a new fossil of a long lost ancestor. It is also exciting that there may be an older origin yet to be discovered still," said Professor Chris Petkov from Newcastle University in the UK.

The scientists carried out the brain imaging study and analysis of auditory regions and brain pathways in humans, apes and monkeys.

They discovered a segment of this language pathway in the human brain that interconnects the auditory cortex with frontal lobe regions, important for processing speech and language.

Although speech and language are unique to humans, the link via the auditory pathway in other primates suggests an evolutionary basis in auditory cognition and vocal communication, the researchers said.

"We predicted but could not know for sure whether the human language pathway may have had an evolutionary basis in the auditory system of nonhuman primates," Petkov said.

"I admit we were astounded to see a similar pathway hiding in plain sight within the auditory system of nonhuman primates," he said.

The study also illuminates the remarkable transformation of the human language pathway.

A key human unique difference was found: the human left side of this brain pathway was stronger and the right side appears to have diverged from the auditory evolutionary prototype to involve non-auditory parts of the brain.

The study relied on brain scans from openly shared resources by the global scientific community.

It also generated original new brain scans that are globally shared to inspire further discovery.

Since the researchers predict that the auditory precursor to the human language pathway may be even older, the work inspires the neurobiological search for its earliest evolutionary origin -- the next brain 'fossil' -- to be found in animals more distantly related to humans.

"This discovery has tremendous potential for understanding which aspects of human auditory cognition and language can be studied with animal models in ways not possible with humans and apes," said Professor Timothy Griffiths from Newcastle University.

"The study has already inspired new research underway including with neurology patients," Griffiths said.