The First Language

Available for over a year

Michael Rosen asks what the earliest language was and how it evolved. Michael joins linguist Dr Laura Wright on a journey to meet our meat-scavenging, fire-harnessing ancestors to discover the primal sources of language. There are thousands of languages today - is it possible to trace them back to a single ancestor? With anthropologist Robert Foley and linguist Maggie Tallerman. Producer: Melvin Rickarby