Proto-human language
The proto-human language (also proto-sapiens, proto-world) is the hypothetical direct genetic predecessor of all the world's spoken languages.
| Proto-human | |
|---|---|
| Proto-sapiens, Proto-world | |
| (widely rejected) | |
| Reconstruction of | All extant languages |
| Era | Paleolithic |
The concept is speculative and not amenable to analysis in historical linguistics. It presupposes a monogenetic origin of language, i.e. the derivation of all natural languages from a single origin, presumably at some time in the Middle Paleolithic period. As the predecessor of all extant languages spoken by modern humans (Homo sapiens), proto-human language as hypothesised would not necessarily be ancestral to any hypothetical Neanderthal language.
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