The issue of language foundations has been of great controversy ever since it was first raised in Lenneberg's (1967) monograph Biological Foundations of Language. Based on a survey of recent findings relevant to the study of language acquisition and evolution, we propose that: (i) the biological predispositions for language are largely domain-general, not necessarily language-specific or human-unique; (ii) the socio-cultural environment of language serves as another important foundation of language, which helps shape language components, induce and drive language shift; and (iii) language must have coevolved with the cognitive mechanisms associated with it through intertwined biological and cultural evolution. In addition to theoretical issues, this paper also evaluates the primary approaches recently joining the endeavor of studying language foundations and evolution, including human experiments and computer simulations. Most of the evidence surveyed in this paper comes from a variety of disciplines, and methodology therein complements each other to form a global picture of language foundations. These reflect the complexity of the issue of language foundations and the necessity of taking a multidisciplinary perspective to address it.

自从Lenneberg（1967）的专着《语言的生物学基础》提出以来，语言基础的问题就一直引起很大争议。。根据对与语言习得和进化研究有关的最新发现的调查，我们建议：（i）语言的生物学倾向在很大程度上是领域通用的，不一定是特定于语言的或人类独特的；（ii）语言的社会文化环境是语言的另一个重要基础，它有助于塑造语言成分，诱导和推动语言转换；（iii）语言必须通过相互交织的生物和文化进化与它相关的认知机制共同发展。除了理论问题外，本文还评估了最近加入语言学和语言发展研究的主要方法，包括人体实验和计算机模拟。本文调查的大多数证据来自各种学科，并且其中的方法互相补充，形成了语言基础的全球图景。这些反映了语言基础问题的复杂性以及采取多学科观点解决这一问题的必要性。