Competition and cooperation in language evolution: A comparison between communication of apes and humans

Abstract

This paper analyzes the topic of conflict in reference to the evolution of language. Specifically, it examines two key elements involved in conflicting interactions, competition and cooperation, and shows how they are involved in the evolution of linguistic skills. According to a model of language origins recently proposed by Michael Tomasello, competition and cooperation are crucial to explain the transition from ape communication to human language. The idea is that ape communication is mainly individualistic because of the competitive nature of nonhuman primates; on the contrary, human language has an intrinsically cooperative nature and this makes human communication qualitatively different from animal communication. The aim of this paper is to call such a model into question by pointing to an “altruism of knowledge” in apes by discussing some recent experimental data on chimpanzee vocal communication.