Brielle Miano’s Reviews > The Talking Ape: How Language Evolved > Status Update

In this chapter he distinguishes between many types of calls: gesture-calls (laughs, sobs, etc), gesticulation & intonation (analog ways of imbuing speech w/ emotion), quotable gestures & vocalizations (nodding, "mmhmms"), and speech & sign language. They’re all related to speech somehow and distinct from really anything that animals do.

He makes an incredibly obvious yet intelligent point - comprehension of signals must have preceded production, because why would a hominid make a signal if they knew no one would understand it? Also, he says human language is totally different from animal calls, but our body language and other vocalizations are similar.

Jumping right in! He discussed the difference in language development between comprehension & pronunciation — we understand much more than we can speak when learning a new language. Bonobos and other apes especially (like Kanzi the bonobo comprehending like a 1.5 year old).