Page 578 - Atlas of Creation Volume 2

The Impasse of Language Evolution

In recounting the myth of the evolution of mankind's history, evolutionists encounter a number of serious

problems. One is how human consciousness emerged in the first place. Another concerns the origin of
speech—one characteristic that distinguishes human beings from all other living creatures.
When we speak, we are able to shape our thoughts thanks to language, and to express them in such a way
that another party can understand them. Although this requires highly specialized muscular movements of the

lips, throat and tongue, we are hardly aware of this. We merely "want" to speak. Sounds, syllables and words
emerge through the harmonious contraction and relaxation of some 100 different muscles, and sentences com-
prehensible to others are formed by the appropriate sequences of such grammatical elements as subject, object
and pronoun. The fact that we do nothing more than "wish" to use such an ability, based on such complex

stages, clearly shows that speech is not merely an ability that arises from essential biological structures.
The human capacity for speech is an exceedingly complex phenomenon that cannot be explained in terms
of the imaginary requirements or mechanisms of an evolutionary process. Despite lengthy research, evolution-
ists have been unable to produce any evidence that an exceedingly complex ability like speech evolved from

simple animal-like sounds. David Premack from Pennsylvania University made this failure abundantly clear
when he said, "Human language is an embarrassment for evolutionary theory ..." 68
The well-known linguist Derek Bickerton summarizes the reasons for this "embarrassment:"

Could language have come directly out of some prehuman trait? No. Does it resemble forms of animal communica-
tion? No ... no ape, despite intensive training, has yet acquired even the rudiments of syntax ... how words emerged,
how syntax emerged. But these problems lie at the heart of language evolution. 69

There are many races in the world speaking many languages, and every language is highly complex.
Evolutionists cannot even imagine how such complexity might have come about gradually.

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