Proto-Human language

Proto-Human
Proto-Sapiens, Proto-World
(hypothetical; widely rejected)
Reconstruction ofAll extant and extinct human languages
EraPaleolithic

The Proto-Human language, also known as Proto-Sapiens, Proto-World, or the Urlanguage is the hypothetical direct genetic predecessor of all human languages.

The concept is speculative and not amenable to analysis in historical linguistics. It presupposes a monogenetic origin of language, that is, 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 as hypothesized would not necessarily be ancestral to any hypothetical Neanderthal language.

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