Why Chimpanzees Can’t Give Lectures: The Evolution of Human Speech

The answer does not begin with the mouth, or even the brain, but with a seemingly unrelated change in how our ancestors walked through the world. This talk traces the evolutionary journey that restructured the human respiratory system to make speech possible in the first place.

Dr. Nkemdi Agwaramgbo, an internal medicine physician and hospitalist with a longstanding interest in human evolution, walks through the anatomy behind the human voice, from breath to whisper to lecture hall. Along the way, he explains why this same anatomy also makes humans uniquely vulnerable to choking, and how various diseases can disrupt our ability to speak.

Agwaramgbo views anatomy and physiology not just as biological machinery, but as part of a larger story of what makes us human. His hope is to leave audiences with a humbling realization: speech was never guaranteed, and we are remarkably lucky to have it.