Introduction Jurgen Trabant * New perspectives on an old academic question 1. Biological aspects of the question Philip Lieberman * On the subcortical bases of the evolution of language Eors Szathmary * Origin of the human language faculty: the language amoeba hypothesis 2. The first language Manfred Bierwisch * The apparent paradox of language evolution: can Universal Grammar be explained by adaptive selection? Wolfgang Klein * Elementary forms of linguistic organisation Bernard Comrie * From potential to realisation: an episode in the origin of language James R Hurford * Protothought had no logical names Jean Aitchison * The birth of rules Daniel Dor and Eva Jablonka * How language changed the genes: toward an explicit account of the evolution of language 3. Beyond bio-linguistics Merritt Ruhlen * Taxonomic controversies in the twentieth century Volker Heeschen * The narration "instinct": signalling behaviour, communication, and the selective value of storytelling Henri Meschonnic * The origin of origins: A play in five acts, with a prologue im Himmel and an epilogue auf der Erde
