A simple-minded view is presented here on the problem of the origin of language, which dismisses any relation with hitherto unobserved specific language microcircuits in the cortex as well as with gross connectional hierarchies which are seen also in other mammals. In this view, language arises out of a capacity for spontaneous latching dynamics, which emerges when the connectivity of an extensive cortical network, which need not be hierarchical, crosses a critical phase-transition threshold.
