Proponents of this idea also maintain that grammar ‘popped’ into being some 50–65,000 years ago via a mutation. This suggestion, even though very widely accepted, has surprisingly little evidence in its favour and turns out to be a poorer fit with the facts than the idea that language was invented, but subsequently changed gradually through all Homo species, to fit different cultures. Though language is best understood as an invention, the mutation proposal is very influential. The theory comes from the work of Noam Chomsky, who began publishing in the late fifties and is, according to some,
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