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Imagine a vast plain, and on it a single population speaking a single language. Together, they can accomplish almost anything — and because of this, they feel invincible. From that confidence comes an ambitious idea: to build a tower so tall it reaches the heavens and challenges God.
Work begins, and the tower rises, stone after stone. But when God sees the boldness of humankind, He decides to intervene. His punishment is simple and devastating: their language is confused. Suddenly no one understands the others, the workers can no longer cooperate… and the tower remains unfinished.
According to the myth, from that moment onward humans began to speak different languages, and communication became a fragile bridge — one that must be rebuilt every time. The Tower of Babel is a symbol not only of human ambition, but also of a simple truth: without mutual understanding, no project can rise high.
How long have we humans been communicating?
Around 60,000 years ago, for the first time, human groups reached Australia. To get there, they built boats and crossed vast stretches of open sea — no maps, no instruments, no navigation technology. A feat like that cannot happen by accident: it requires planning, sharing information, coordination, roles, and collective memory. It requires language.
This journey to Australia is one of the strongest clues that our ancestors already had a complex, fully functional form of language — not just sounds, but meanings, intentions, and ideas capable of traveling from one mind to another.
As MIT linguist Shigeru Miyagawa writes: “Language was the spark that ignited modern human behavior.”
But when and why did language first emerge?
According to British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, language may have had a very pragmatic purpose: to keep us together.
Before language, our ancestors strengthened social bonds the way many primates still do: by removing insects, dust, and knots from each other’s fur — a practice known as grooming. But grooming had a problem: it only worked in small groups. As human groups grew larger, something more efficient was needed — a way to build trust, belonging, and social coordination.
From Dunbar’s perspective, language emerged as a tool to maintain relationships, make promises, coordinate actions, and transform groups into something larger, more stable, and more cooperative. A kind of grooming made of words.