Human Speech Didn't Evolve from Animal Grunts

All assumptions that human speech developed gradually from animal grunts (the so-called woof-woof theories) or that gestures changed incrementally into audible language, cannot be sustained. Such erroneous hypotheses compare the specifics of human speech with the communication systems of animals. It can be stated emphatically that the essence of human speech is not communication. Communication exists everywhere in the animal kingdom. But human language is in the first place a knowledge medium; this encompasses an intellectual/spiritual access to the observable world. The essence of speech lies in the possibility of assigning specific meanings to articulated sounds, thereby making them mentally accessible.'

H. Gipper (linguist), Sprachursprung und Spracherwerb. In: Herrenalber Texte number HT66, 1985, pp. 65-88. As quoted by Werner Gitt, Did God Use Evolution?, CLV, Bielefeld (Germany), 1993.