Summary Of The Talking Neanderthals

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Johansson, S. (2013). The talking Neanderthals: What do fossils, genetics, and archeology say?. Biolinguistics, 7, 35-74.
Synopsis of Article:
This article explores Neanderthal cognition through speech. The author gives definition about what language is and how is it formed in the first half of the article. Then Johansson discusses Neanderthal speech ability. He concluded that Neanderthal did have the ability to voluntarily speak, but he could not definitively conclude on how much and whether or not they actually spoke a language or just made grammatical sounds. His conclusion is based on archaeological evidence such as one Neanderthal hyoid bone being and genetic evidence that is like to the capability of producing speech.

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