Language is a distinct human feature that most of us depend on daily. It is the foundation on which human communication is based. Language is primarily spoken, but is also used in witten form. Because language forms such a central part of our being, much effort has been spent trying to find its origins.

In exploring the origins of language it is investigated whether language originated through cultural evolution, through biological evolution and/or a language instinct. Usually, it is assumed that the human ability to learn language is innate, in other words whether humans are born with the ability to learn language. Humans come equipped with a number of innate rules (principles) that determine the possible shapes of human languages. When a child learns its mother tongue, it learns the lexicon (words in a language and their meaning, like a in dictionary) and uses sets a number of devices in the brain to learn the language.

Another idea investigated for the origins of language states that language is not basically innate, but that it is a cultural phenomenon. Once humans have reached a certain level of cultural and cognitive complexity they will automatically develop language through cultural evolution. Of course this cultural evolution will have repercussions on the biological evolution of the humans, but only as a much slower and secondary effect.

Some experts, such as paleoanthropologists, have stated that the development of language was part of a genetic mutation that appeared suddenly. Through language, cultural growth was rapid in the Upper Paleolithic era. Traditionally, language has been thought of as an ancient innovation that may have evolved over many years. Fossil evidence from the cranial revealed that the brain in early humans may or may not have been evolved enough in the speech areas to sustain language. Many skulls are still open to further investigation.

Others still have speculated that our primate heritage as evidence that language must have started early in our evolution. As a social group, early humans lived in large groups. The sized created a need to from a bond to keep these groups together. Language was the strong link to this bonding. Vocal communication was something that could fill this function. The exchange of useful information by certain words in a group setting was the foundation for interaction by language. The extent of social communication in other animals indicates that human language must have emerged in a social setting. Language, whether written or spoken, exists in all human societies today and existed in almost all known past societies.

All languages possess complex rules of grammar, and certain nonfunctional rules. This suggests that the one factor is not culture but nature, in the form of the human brain. All social orders have the same potential to learn language, as do all individuals within a society. Language could be considered by some to be an organ such as a heart, because it serves a useful function of the body. Language also can be learned independently from the other systems of the body. A person does not need to be athletic, tall, short or have any type of intelligence to learn a language. The most effective way to communicate that is built into our biology is language.

The creation of speech is finely organized. Air we breathe is quickly converted by the valve action of the larynx into the sound waves of speech. Vocal cords release air in short bursts, making sound waves by breaking the air into minute, oscillating (vibrating) puffs having a regular pitch. The brain refines these sound waves into acoustical patterns that make intelligible not only the thrust of our meaning, a question or command, an accusation or plea, but its emotional content as well. The sudden surge of sound flows through the double-story vocal tract of nose and mouth. Masses of brain-controlled muscle and tissue mold and alter the shape of the tract walls. They cause the soft palate to lift, shutting off air to the nose. This prompts the tongue to change shape and position, then the lips will purse and spread, which will channel the air to crash between the teeth.

The brain is also specialized for speech. Two of its three language centers were named after the 19th-century scientists who discovered them. Wernicke's area, in the left temporal lobe, enables us to comprehend speech. Broca's area, in the folds of the frontal lobe, lies next to the brain area that coordinates the movement of the tongue, lips, palate and vocal cords. Broca's area controls the flow of words from brain to mouth. Every minute, two hundred syllables are exquisitely synchronized in what experimental phonetician Dennis Fry calls "the most brilliant technical achievement of the human brain."