Cognitive psychologists Steven Pinker and Paul Bloom, pioneers of a Darwinian approach to language, suggest a less bespoke history, one in which language emerged and developed through the familiar pattern of a gradual buildup of incremental changes that each conferred a degree of survival advantage.12 As our hunter-gatherer forebears roamed the plains and forests, the capacity to communicate—“Group of wild boar grazing at eleven o’clock,” or “Watch out for Barney, he’s got his eye on Wilma,” or “Here’s a better way of attaching that sharpened stone to the handle”—was vital for effective group
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