Studies of severe, monogenic forms of language disorders have revealed important insights into the mechanisms that underpin language development and evolution. It is clear that monogenic mutations in genes such as FOXP2 and CNTNAP2 only account for a small proportion of language disorders seen in children, and the genetic basis of language in modern humans is highly complex and poorly understood. In this review, we examine why we understand so little of the genetic landscape of language disorders, and how the genetic background of an individual greatly affects the way in which a genetic change is expressed. We discuss how the underlying genetics of language disorders has informed our understanding of language evolution, and how recent advances may obtain a clearer picture of language capacity in ancient hominins.

中文翻译：

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语言的基因组景观：对进化的洞察

对严重的、单基因形式的语言障碍的研究揭示了对支持语言发展和进化的机制的重要见解。很明显，FOXP2 和 CNTNAP2 等基因的单基因突变仅占儿童语言障碍的一小部分，现代人类语言的遗传基础高度复杂且知之甚少。在这篇综述中，我们研究了为什么我们对语言障碍的遗传景观了解如此之少，以及个体的遗传背景如何极大地影响遗传变化的表达方式。我们讨论了语言障碍的潜在遗传学如何影响我们对语言进化的理解，以及最近的进展如何更清晰地了解古代人类的语言能力。