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October, 25, 1977. ON THE BIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE. Henry Edelheit, M.D.
In discussing the evolution of the human capacity for language and its correlation with the evolution of the human brain, Dr. Edelheit stressed the dialectical interaction between the human brain and environmental factors which were in turn altered by the brain's developing capacity for language. Thus, cultural evolution, which is dependent on language for its elaboration and transmission from generation to generation, and biological evolution stimulated each other to lead to great evolutionary change.
Dr. Edelheit reviewed the evidence for the genetic basis for the human capacity for language by stressing the relevant anatomic differences between man and ape and by citing the structural differences in their language achievements. All human languages show phonemic and grammatical structure and, because of inborn qualities in the species, can be transmitted to subsequent generations. The "language" of apes, on the other hand, is organized on only a single level, and the thirty or forty signs involved correspond to an equally small number of meanings, which cannot be transmitted from generation to generation.
Dr. Edelheit went on to discuss empathy as an ego function potentiated by and related to language. Distinguishing this conception from nonverbal or preverbal models of empathy based on the idea of regressive merger with the mother, he suggested that the development of empathy is epitomized in the child's striving for vocal congruence as it learns to speak. As such, it is part of the child's attempt to encompass the whole experience, not just the articulations, of the mother; it thereby serves to reconstitute the bond with her severed in the separation-individuation phase and the concurrent development of the child's psychic organization. Thus, both language and empathy are biologically inherited capacities which mature and develop under the impact of cultural influences, mediated through the