A History of Language

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The bow-wow or cuckoo theory, which Müller attributed to the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder, saw early words as imitations of the cries of beasts and birds. Gossip, according to Robin Dunbar in his book Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language, does for group-living humans what manual grooming does for other primates—it allows individuals to service their relationships and so maintain their alliances on the basis of the principle: if you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.

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Machiavellian intelligence: social expertise and the evolution of intellect in monkeys, apes, and humans. Critics point out that this theory fails to explain when, how, why or by whom "obligatory reciprocal altruism" could possibly have been enforced.These mechanisms may have played an evolutionary role in enabling the development of intentional vocal communication as a supplement to gestural communication.

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Evolution of the mechanism of language output: comparative neurobiology of vocal and manual communication.

Roger Blench suggests that Proto-Berber speakers spread into North Africa from the Nile River valley around 4000 to 5000 years ago, after splitting off from early Afroasiatic. Bird-song, singing nonhuman apes, and the songs of whales all display phonological syntax, combining units of sound into larger structures apparently devoid of enhanced or novel meaning. Saussure's solution to the problem of language evolution involves dividing theoretical linguistics in two.