Abstract

Thoughts are mechanisms that regulate behaviour. In humans, conscious thoughts play a larger role than in animals, because they can be mulled and decided upon. As brain mass increases across species, memory capacity surges significantly, rapidly multiplying the number of possible thought combinations that regulate behaviour. One such tool that allows thought combinations is chunking thoughts. It is apparent that instead of uttering a whole thought, we can use a single signal that promptly changes the other’s behaviour. These fragments may just as well be called words. When humans started using words to designate some of the behaviour-regulating thoughts, a fascinating array of possibilities opened up. The chunking of thoughts and denoting each chunk with a sound or a word equipped the human group to use several types of thoughts, several types of words in a cooperative fashion. There have been great debates about when and why spoken language appeared and what relation it had with other requirements of social life. This paper proposes a scenario for the emergence of language.