page_title: Origin of speech
section_title: Biosemiotics
hierarchical_section_title: Origin of speech / Conceptual frameworks / Biosemiotics
caption_attribution_description: English: Animation of a rotating DNA structure. Created in the free program RasMol 2.7.2.1.1 using the 1BNA.pdb dataset and the following commands: GUI options were: Options-&gt;Specular, Display-&gt;Sticks Then, in the command line: write frame-000.gif set write true script script.txt where script.txt was a separate text file in the same directory, consisting of the same two repeating lines: rotate x 03 write frame-001.gif rotate x 03 write frame-002.gif rotate x 03 write frame-003.gif ... from 001 up to 119 (for a total of 120 images when combined with frame-000.gif). This was then loaded in Adobe ImageReady, and saved as an animated GIF. Čeština: Animace otáčejícího se prostorového modelu dvoušroubovice DNA. Vytvořeno ve svobodném programu RasMol 2.7.2.1.1 s použitím bdna.pdb. Română: Animație a unei structuri ADN rotindu-se. Creată în programul gratuit RasMol 2.7.2.1.1 folosind setul de date bdna.pdb și comenzile de mai jos. Opțiunile interfeței grafice au fost: Options-&gt;Specular, Display-&gt;Sticks. Apoi, în linia de comandă: write frame-000.gif set write true script script.txt unde script.txt este un fișier text separat din același director, constând din aceleași două rânduri repetitive: rotate x 03 write frame-001.gif rotate x 03 write frame-002.gif rotate x 03 write frame-003.gif ... de la 001 până la 119 (pentru un total de 120 imagini (cadre) atunci când este adăugat cadrul frame-000.gif). Acestea au fost apoi încărcate în Adobe ImageReady și salvate ca o imagine GIF animată.
context_page_description: The origin of speech refers to the more general problem of the origin of language in the context of the physiological development of the human speech organs such as the tongue, lips and vocal organs used to produce phonological units in all human languages.
context_section_description: "the deciphering of the genetic code has revealed our possession of a language much older than hieroglyphics, a language as old as life itself, a language that is the most living language of all — even if its letters are invisible and its words are buried in the cells of our bodies."
  — Beadle, G.; Beadle, M. (1966). The Language of Life. An introduction to the science of genetics. New York: Doubleday and Co.
  Biosemiotics is a relatively new discipline, inspired in large part by the discovery of the genetic code in the early 1960s. Its basic assumption is that Homo sapiens is not alone in its reliance on codes and signs. Language and symbolic culture must have biological roots, hence semiotic principles must apply also in the animal world.
  The discovery of the molecular structure of DNA apparently contradicted the idea that life could be explained, ultimately, in terms of the fundamental laws of physics. The letters of the genetic alphabet seemed to have "meaning", yet meaning is not a concept that has any place in physics. The natural science community initially solved this difficulty by invoking the concept of "information", treating information as independent of meaning. But a different solution to the puzzle was to recall that the laws of physics in themselves are never sufficient to explain natural phenomena. To explain, say, the unique physical and chemical characteristics of the planets in our solar system, scientists must work out how the laws of physics became constrained by particular sequences of events following the formation of the Sun.
  According to Howard Pattee, the same principle applies to the evolution of life on earth, a process in which certain "frozen accidents" or "natural constraints" have from time to time drastically reduced the number of possible evolutionary outcomes. Codes, when they prove to be stable over evolutionary time, are constraints of this kind. The most fundamental such "frozen accident" was the emergence of DNA as a self-replicating molecule, but the history of life on earth has been characterized by a succession of comparably dramatic events, each of which can be conceptualized as the emergence of a new code. From this perspective, the evolutionary emergence of spoken language was one more event of essentially the same kind.
caption: The structure of part of a DNA double helix