When language marries biology: embodiment, mutation or design?

Language is this strange thing we take for granted every day. It feels extremely natural to us, like breathing or walking. But when you really think about it, it is nothing short of miraculous that we can take these abstract thoughts floating around in our heads and turn them into sounds that other people understand, while understanding others in return. The standard explanation is that language evolved along with our bodies - our brains got bigger, our vocal tracts changed, and boom, we could talk. That makes sense, but there are some things about language that feel too “perfect” for that theory to be true.

Think about how easily children pick up language. They're not just memorizing words - they're instinctively grasping grammar rules no one taught them. Many linguists (legacy of Chomsky’s) would claim that that is due to a single, massive mutation, but I can’t see how. Those mutations don’t occur out of the blue, and when they do, they are usually very detrimental. On top of that, language is so intrinsically linked to so many other systems (our psychology, our neurology, our motor center, etc.), that the mutation would have had to be inconceivably big, and perfect. I don’t think so…Instead, if a designer had created language, grammar and all its beauty… then I could believe it.

Another curiosity: why do completely unrelated languages share some of the same underlying structures, even when historically and geographically, they couldn’t be any farther apart? Some linguists attempt to link them via a “proto” (made up) ancestor, but the amount of guessing and patching up of data that is required to make the theory fit leaves much to be desired. In the best case scenario, I would say that we end up with three or four original “mother tongues”. And yet, even going that far into speculation, nobody can explain how such complex structures developed to begin with! Grammar doesn’t evolve gradually, or at least not to the extent that is often believed. It is intrinsically linked to how we think. More on that later.

Finally, another curiosity: An important field in linguistics, mainly popularized by George Lakoff, claims that language evolved alongside our bodies and cognitive development as a species, because of what is commonly known as “embodiment”, applied to language. The theory of embodiment proposes that human language is not an abstract, disembodied system, but rather emerges from, and remains deeply rooted in our physical experiences. It suggests that our capacity for language depends on the neural architectures of perception, movement, and emotion—meaning we understand words by unconsciously reactivating sensory and motor experiences (e.g., "grasp" engages hand-related brain areas), structure abstract concepts through bodily metaphors (e.g., "time is money", that’s why we “spend it”…), and develop linguistic skills through sensorimotor interactions with our environment. In this view, language isn’t purely symbolic or innate in a vacuum; it’s shaped by the constraints and possibilities of our bodies, grounding even our most abstract thoughts in the reality of being physical creatures.

The embodiment camp is usually at odds with the “giant mutation” camp. But I think that they don’t have to be mutually exclusive. It’s just that they are both shallow explanations for a much more complex problem. I would say that language isn't just something that evolved randomly (neither gradually nor suddenly), but that it was more likely designed to work with our particular kind of mind and body. And our biology was designed alongside language, probably by the same “higher intelligence”, not in some creepy alien experiment way, but in the same way an engineer designs hardware and software to work together. Our vocal cords, ear structures, and brain wiring would all be optimized for language, and language would be perfectly tailored to our capabilities. Suddenly the "coincidences" described above make more sense - why we can produce exactly the range of sounds we need, why our memory works in chunks that match sentence lengths, why abstract concepts map so neatly onto physical experiences.

This would explain why language feels so natural yet so powerful. The metaphors we use aren't just handy tricks - they're built into the system at the deepest level. When we talk about "grasping an idea" or "feeling warmth toward someone," we're not just being poetic. We're using the interface exactly as intended, where physical experience and abstract meaning connect seamlessly. Even the limitations make sense in this view - the fact that we can't process infinitely complex sentences or hear ultrasonic speech sounds wouldn't be arbitrary limits, but carefully placed boundaries to keep the system running smoothly (and perhaps, for tighter controls of human beings…).

What's really mind-blowing is considering what this suggests about reality itself. If language and our biology were co-designed, then our entire experience of the world - how we think, how we communicate, even how we perceive - might be part of an elegant system far more sophisticated than we realize. The implications: our art, our science, even our conflicts might all be playing out within parameters set by this deep architecture of human experience.

This isn't to say everything is predetermined. A well-designed system allows for maximum creativity within its framework. Think about how many novels can be written using the same grammar, how many new ideas can be expressed with existing words. The constraints aren't cages. Maybe that's the most beautiful part of this whole idea: that within this designed system, we're still somehow free to discover, create, and surprise even our designers with what we come up with.