Language and its origins have been a heated source of debate for centuries, with the end result being that there’s no clear consensus on its origin or even its age. In fact, many scholars have flat out avoided the subject, claiming that there is no factual basis on which to even begin to derive an opinion.

The debate was reignited in 2011, however, when Quentin Atkinson, a cultural anthropologist at Auckland University in New Zealand, proposed that the cradle of language had its origins in southwest Africa. Much of Atkinson’s research was based on a comparative analysis of the numbers of phonemes found in about 500 contemporary languages. Remember Hooked On Phonics? Well, that’s basically what phonemes are—the phonetic elements of a word; they’re the most basic elements of a spoken language. They include sound units, such as consonants, vowels and tones and are a major element in the study of linguistics, as they play a large role in semantic differentiation between languages.

A biologist and psychologist by training, Atkinson discovered that the greatest levels of phoneme diversity appeared in languages spoken in southwestern Africa. Much of this was based on the amount of phoneme inventory found in the genetic diversity of the area, where it is believed that our species originated. This genetic diversity apparently decreased over time as people migrated from this specific area, with each phoneme eventually representing a shrinking fraction of the overall African population, dating back roughly 70,000 years. More.

See: Beyond Words