Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnnyB
The reason that Neanderthals wouldn't have been capable of full human speech is a physical one. Their supra-laryngeal vocal tracts would not have been capable of producing the vowels [ i ], [ u ], or [a] which are fundamental to full human speech because they are the most discernible vowels in speech perception. They're crucial to full human speech. Because Neanderthals' did not have a glottis that had dropped down in their throats like us humans develop as we mature out of babyhood Neanderthals would have been capable of only a sort of quasi-human speech lacking those super-vowels and with a sort of constant nasal quality.
Yeah, I agree. I think the article in the link is kind of silly and beside the point. It's nothing revolutionary that Neanderthals may have had speech, it's just the discovery that they possessed the modified FOXP2 that is associated with language abilities in humans, and which can now be traced further back than previously thought that is the real point of interest.
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touche... Do you think they wouldnt have been able to have any "full" speech, or just not speech that we would recognize as totally human? By full, I mean capable of communicated complex thoughts to the same extent and articulation our language is.