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it is today used extensively in the mass media (television, books, email etc.).
It has been estimated (Dunbar 1993) that the human bonding mechanism of
language is about 2.8 times as efficient as social grooming (the non-human
primate bonding mechanism). Indeed, evidence suggests that conversational
groups usually consist of one speaker plus 2 or three listeners. Of course larger
groups can be formed easily, but in terms of actively participating and follow-
ing different arguments within the group 1+2(3) seem to be the upper limit
for avoiding information processing overload in the primate social brain. Also,
language because of its representational nature affords documentation, preser-
vation in storage media and transmission of (social) knowledge to the next
generation, as well as communication between geographically separated loca-
tions (cf. (Donald 1993) for a discussion of language and external symbols in
human cultural evolution).
Discussions in the social domain (e.g. on social relationships and feelings
of group members) are fundamentally about
personal meaning
, different from
e.g. discussions in the technical domain (e.g. about how to operate a tool or
where to find food). We suggest that narrative might be the 'natural' format
for encoding and re-constructing meaningful, socially relevant information
(e.g. emotions and intentions of group members). According to Dunbar (1993)
people spend about 60 % of conversations on gossiping about relationships
and personal experiences. Humans use language to learn about other people
and third-party relationships, to manipulate people, to bond with people, to
break up or reinforce relationships.
Thus, a primary role of language might have been to communicate about
social issues, to get to know other group members, to synchronize group be-
havior, to preserve group cohesion. Language is based on representations and
the possibility to combine them in arbitrary ways. Representations need not
be 'symbols', they can be spatial or visual in nature, and can be verbal or non-
verbal. Apes can be trained to a subset of American Sign Language in order
to communicate with humans, see e.g. studies with the chimpanzees Washoe
and Nim (Gardner & Gardner 1969; Terrace et al. 1979), the gorilla Koko (Pat-
terson & Linden 1981), or the orangutan Chantek (Miles 1990). Alternatively,
icon-based keyboards (lexigrams) have been used in human-ape communica-
tion, e.g. Savage-Rumbaugh's studies with chimpanzees and bonobos such as
Kanzi (Savage-Rumbaugh et al. 1986).
However, as of today, there is no convincing evidence that apes are using a
symbolic, representational system in the wild on a level of complexity that can
be compared to human language. Non-human apes do communicate exten-
sively with each other, using gestures, vocalizations, eye-contact, and a range of
