Were the Neanderthals capable of speech?

Question

Did they have the physical capabilities for speech and could they have made as big a range of sounds as humans?

Answer 1

Absolutely.  In fact, Archaeologists and Anthropologists have determined that they not only had speech but were able to communicate ideas in order to work together to hunt and carry on the normal chores of living.

Obviously, their vocabulary was limited but it was enough for their needs.

Answer 2

yes

Answer 3

The physical anthropologists I know say that the jury is still out on this one. There is some evidence that they were capable of speech, but none of it is actually conclusive. There isn't any cultural evidence left behind to indicate that they actually spoke. We just don't know, we might not ever.

Answer 4

Yes, Neanderthals were capable of speech but not necessarily a complex language. Since life revolved mainly around hunting and gathering they probably had a few unique sounds refering to different types of game. As I understand it even "modern" humans did not develope any kind of set complex language until much later.

Answer 5

This is still a topic that is highly-debated within the anthropological community.

The Neandertal hyoid bone is very similar to a modern person's hyoid bone, so many people think that they WERE capable of fully-modern speech.

However, it is a fact that humans don't NEED all of the phonemes that we are capable of producing.  We remember the ones specific to our language, and forget those that are not.

So whether Neanderthals could produce the full range of modern speech sounds is only PART of the issue.  They could've had a fully-functioning language even if they couldn't quite produce the sounds that we produce.  

Their culture is fairly sophisticated, so most anthropologists think that they had a sophisticated system of communication.

Answer 6

Reciently, Neanderthal DNA has been found to be missing the genes that have to do with speach.  Its really no known whether they could talk or not.

Answer 7

Oh definitely, I'm sure even in the primitive age there were speech/some sort of communication.  I mean look at old stone writings in museums  you can see there's some intelligence in these primitive beings.

I would think somewhere along the lines of "ooga booga" yeah that's it.

Answer 8

of course, if you weren't capable of speech, you couldn't form verbal understandings, so you couldn't form your thoughts in "words" because there wouldn't be any; imagine how dreadful that would be?

Answer 9

Did [GoD] decide to rest from his divine works on the seventh day?