| | Words in the News |
INTRO | | University Professor Tim Crow, in Oxford, England, proposed a controversial new theory on how we first began to speak. The BBC's Toby Murcott reported. |
IN FULL | |  | Listen to the report in full |
 |  | 30th March 2000
Controversial new theory on how speech began |
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NEWS 1 | | | Listen to the first part of the report |
| | | We know that modern human beings appeared in Africa around a hundred thousand years ago and most anthropologists agree that we had language by thirty thousands years ago. Now Professor Tim Crow is suggesting that a single genetic mutation sometime within that period changed the wiring of our brains and allowed us to develop language. He proposes that the change increased the division between the two halves of our brain, freeing one side to develop speech. He's also suggesting that the change happened to one man and the advantage his new found ability gave him allowed his offspring to dominate. |
WORDS | | anthropologist: someone who studies people, society and culture
genetic mutation: a change to a gene (a gene is one of the parts of a human cell which control how a living thing develops)
wiring: the internal structure of the brain is sometimes referred to as wiring offspring: your offspring are your children; a formal word dominate: be the most powerful |
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| NEWS 2 | | | Listen to the second part of the report |
| | | The leading palaeontologist Professor Chris Stringer is cautious about crediting the development of language to a single event. He believes that language could have formed gradually over a long period of time. The idea is likely to spark a great dealof debate, not least because while fossils provide hard evidence of physical characteristics, language leaves no such traces in the ground. |
| WORDS | | palaeontologist: a person who studies the fossils of extinct animals and plants
crediting: if you are credited with an achievement or something is credited to you then people believe you are responsible for it. Here, the use of the word cautious implies that the new theory may not be correct.
spark: If one thing sparks another it causes it to start happening
great deal of: a lot of
fossils: the hardened remains of a prehistoric animal or plant, or a print that it leaves in rock
hard evidence: physical things that imply something is true
traces: a trace is a sign which shows that someone or something has been in a place |
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| | | Read about the background in BBC News Online |
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