A new contender for a human 'language gene' can change the way that mice squeak when it is incorporated into their DNA.
The gene is called NOVA1(
NOVA1 is thought to help regulate learning in humans, and mutations in this gene can cause severe psychiatric disorders and abnormalities in motor development.), and in our own species, it is remarkably unique. While virtually all other mammals have the same NOVA1 variant in their genetic code, a single change of an amino acid is seen in the human version.This one, subtle tweak may have played a critical role in the origins of spoken language and the expansion and survival of Homo sapiens, according to researchers at Rockefeller University and the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York.
Not even Neanderthals and Denisovans have the same variant, which means it must have evolved in the last few hundred thousand years, after our species split from these extinct relatives.
Other proposed 'language genes', like FOXP2, which also make mice squeak differently are found in the DNA of Neanderthals. So even though they probably also contributed to the origins of human language, they may not be responsible for our more recent evolutionary success.
It's not clear what the language capabilities of our extinct relatives once were, but this recent change has proved highly successful in the human genome.
In more than 650,000 human DNA sequences, researchers found only six anonymous people who did not have the modern NOVA1 variant. Nothing about these individuals is known.
When it comes to the origins of complex human language, NOVA1 is "the new kid on the block", geneticist Wolfgang Enard who worked on the FOXP2 gene told Carl Zimmer at The New York Times. Read more..