Treffer: Computer Simulation: A new scientific approach to the study of language evolution

Introduction Language is such an important human characteristics that we would like to know how it first came into existence and how it managed to reach its present form. If we could go back in time for a sufficient number of generations we would encounter human ancestors that did not have language. In a succession of generations the descendants of those non-linguistic ancestors came to possess the ability to speak and to understand the speech of others. What made the transition possible? How did the transition occur? Were there intermediate forms of language in the sense of communication systems different from known animal communication systems but also different from language as we know it and as is spoken today by all humans? These questions constitute the scientific study of language origins and language evolution. The study of language origins does not directly include historical linguistics since this focuses on how human languages change historically and how new langua