Author Description

Last research results by Bickerton (2008) in the field of creolization challenge Chomsky's (1987) notion of language faculty, which is widely accepted by the majority of linguists. In particular, Bickerton considers pidgins as the first stage of the ontogenetic emergence of language, creols being the final stage — with some intermediate stages between. We put Bickerton's approach of considering the emergence of language as a complex biological program a step forward. In fact, our thesis is that creolization is valid both at an ontogenetic and phylogenetic levels. In other words, we argue that, in some way, these stages represent — at the best approximation we can experimentally study — the original language of the human species.