纪录片《为何讲话》 第37期：追踪语言（在线收听）

Once we had the anatomy and physiology required for speech,

从我们拥有说话必备的生理结构那刻起

we were primed to talk.

就准备好了说话

Enriched their lives enormously.

极大地丰富了他们的生命

I don't know why I said it.

我不知道我为什么要这么说

To create everything that exists up till now.

创造至今存在的一切

But when did we actually start to speak?

但我们究竟是何时开始讲话的呢

The dawn of speech is one of the great puzzles of evolution

语言的黎明是进化史上的巨大谜题之一

because there's no fossil record of verbal communication

因为并没有记录语言交流的化石

for scientists to look back through.

供科学家来回溯过去

Mark Pagel is an evolutionary biologist

马克·帕杰尔是位进化生物学家

on the hunt for the origins of language.

专门寻找语言的起源

There's a lot of ideas about this.

关于语言起源有很多说法

They're all speculation

都是推测

but they rely on having the right genetics in place

但他们都依赖于适当的基因

and having the right anatomy in place,

以及适当的生理结构

and we know that by 200,000 years ago,

我们知道 在二十万年前

both of those things were available.

人类就具备了这种基因和结构