Abstract:

There are many unanswered questions about human cognitive capacities. Language is one of these cognitive capacities. Since the discoveries by Paul Broca and Carl Wernicke in the second half of the 19th century, significant advances have been made regarding the language processing in the brain. The Broca-Wernicke model, also called the classical model, assumes “modules” in the brain that serve for different functions. This view is known as the localizationism. The model called connectionism in recent years rejects the approach of modules in the brain. It suggests that brain regions work holistically in connection with each other. Researches on the origin of language also shed light on the relationship between language and brain. It is observed that the role of the brain in the functioning of language and the findings about the brain in archaic human species are frequently discussed in research on the origin of language. In this article, current findings on the relationship between brain regions and language are evaluated, and the implications of these findings on the evolution of language studies are discussed.

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