Ricky De Gove

Student’s Last Name 1 Student’s full name Professor’s full name Subject DD MM YYYY The Fundamental Reason for Human Speech There are many traits that are entirely unique to human beings. Features such as a fully upright posture, long childhoods and the ability to intentionally create and control fire. However, there is a characteristic so distinctive to humans that it is almost a mystery: Speech. Most people can do it effortlessly. They do it with such ease; so much so that it is barely noticeable in its execution. The ability to talk is a unique and astonishing trait that defines humans. One of the several elements that allow humans to speak is the fact that the larynx seats lower in the throat than in other animals such as chimpanzees. However, the wonder of language, as well as the concrete reason for its development, is still quite a question mark. From the very start, language is a common variable in human life. It is a distinctive and a sophisticated skill, and while not yet fully understood, children seem to learn it with minimal effort. A person can engage with another person, which can be a stranger or a familiar face, and a sequence of noises can be made by pushing air through the mouth; and via this action a thought or an idea can be transferred from one person’s head to another person’s mind. Talking: it is almost similar to a trick. Other animals may use sound to communicate, but humans are the only species that can talk. Other forms of human communication do exist, such as written communication, but since human beings are ultrasocial creatures, talking, specifically face-to-face communication, creates physiological and physical benefits that might not seem so obvious at first. The ability to talk enables the transfer of ideas, feelings and thoughts; as well as the sharing of information, asking of Student’s Last Name 2 questions and expression of desires and needs. However, other people are also necessary to the sophisticated equation of communication. For instance, we may talk to other people in order to increase our self-awareness through auto-evaluation, but the opinion that other people form about ourselves is just as important as our opinions about their opinions. This is due to the fact that quite often it is very difficult to look and perceive things objectively from the inside. Human brains seek balance. They get used to things through exposure, where alertness and anxiety find an equilibrium point. Therefore, the human brain, although powerful and reliable, has a limited amount of power. It cannot pay attention to every small detail; therefore, it learns to filter what might be considered mundane. That is where talking to other people proves to be a benefit. Other people, acting as outsiders, can generally see things with a fresher point of view about ourselves, the same way a tourist might point obvious characteristics about a city to a native from that place. These things about ourselves can be positives, such as strong qualities we may not know we possess, or they can be negative properties such as a nasty personality habit. Nevertheless, they help increase and accelerate our self-awareness and they help us improve ourselves. Moreover, in today’s technological driven world, talking is proving to be of greater importance. Today, most people accomplish most of their communication needs through the internet, texting or through the ever more popular use of symbols such as emoji’s. Face-toface talking is sometimes avoided or limited as people concentrate more on clicking their devices. Nonetheless, talking to other fellow human beings is hard-wired into all of us and there is very little we can do to avoid it. It is what allowed our ancestors to share precious information about food supplies, dangers and possible opportunities, as well as allow them to transfer information and knowledge from generation to generation. This allowed human beings to evolve more rapidly since whatever knowledge other animals learn during their Student’s Last Name 3 lifetime is lost when that animal dies; it does not have the skills to pass it to its offspring’s and fellow creatures. In essence, talking makes life easier. Human beings essentially talk because they can. They can because our unique anatomy allows us to. The fact that no other species has developed speech is quite remarkable and unbelievable. Humans also talk because we need to. We have the need to be heard. We have the need to express what makes us human, because talking is never just talking, it is also the narration of the complex and poetic process of thoughts, feelings and ideas that makes us human. Student’s Last Name 4 Works Cited Choi, Charles. “Top 10 Things That Make Humans Special.” https://www.livescience.com/15689-evolution-human-special-species.html Klosterman, Chuck. Eating the Dinosaur. Scribner, October 20, 2009. Pagel, Mark. “Why We Speak” An evolutionary biologist argues that humans started talking because they needed to negotiate. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/06/why-humans-speak-languageorigins/396635/ Paul, Margaret. “Why We Need Each Other.” https://www.huffingtonpost.com/margaretpaul-phd/love-and-relationships_b_-.html Shoba, Sreenivasan. “Why We Need Each Other.” Loneliness is a negative condition resulting from aloneness. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/emotionalnourishment/201612/why-we-need-each-other