Talk:FOXP2

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2006 discussions

The link to www.timesonline.co.uk appears to be broken.

D. F. Newbury, E. Bonora, J. A. Lamb, S. E. Fisher, C. S. L. Lai, G. Baird, L. Jannoun, V. Slonims, C. M. Stott, M. J. Merricks, P. F. Bolton, A. J. Bailey, A. P. Monaco (2002) "FOXP2 Is Not a Major Susceptibility Gene for Autism or Specific Language Impairment" in American Journal of Human Genetics.

In the absence of any mutation or association evidence to suggest otherwise, we must therefore conclude that FOXP2 is unlikely to play a major role in the onset of autism or SLI.

I think FOXP2 is the name of a particular a locus not a gene. To call it a gene is misleading. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.41.31.3 (talk • contribs) 23:01, 5 May 2006

From the NCBI Genbank database, "This gene encodes an evolutionarily conserved transcription factor expressed in fetal and adult brain. This transcription factor is a member of the forkhead/winged-helix (FOX) family of transcription factors, and contains a FOX DNA-binding domain and a large polyglutamine tract. Members of the FOX family of transcription factors are regulators of embryogenesis. The product of this gene is thought to be required for proper development of speech and language regions of the brain during embryogenesis. Although a point mutation in this gene has been associated with the KE pedigree segregating developmental verbal dyspraxia, no association between mutations in this gene and another speech disorder, autism, has been found. Four alternative transcripts encoding three different isoforms have been identified." Braingrind 00:14, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Development as morphogenesis vs. evolution

I don't think FOXP2's role in the evolution of language has been firmly established yet. FOXP2's protein sequence has had very few mutations across species and those that have occurred don't associate well with species that have learned vocalizations (humans, songbirds, certain marine mammals such as dolphins and whales, etc.). It is possible that the evolutionary shift to language wasn't a result of changes in the FOXP2 protein sequence but changes in the regulation of the FOXP2 protein. But so far a number of studies looking at FOXP2 expression patterns in the developing brains of diverse animals such as humans, mice, zebra finch, and zebrafish haven't shown many differences. So even brain expression patterns seem to be very conserved.

The jury is still out, but I would be more comfortable saying FOXP2 is involved in the development (morphogenesis) of structures necessary for language. Based on the developmental verbal dyspraxia phenotype in the KE family, this is hard to argue against. Even if FOXP2 wasn't involved in the evolution of language, it is definitely necessary for language. Forluvoft 17:42, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

The fact that Neanderthals have the exact same FOXP2 as modern humans raises the question, did modern humans have the same FOXP2 before they encountered Neanderthals? I would like to see a comment in the main article giving the earliest known human fossil DNA exhibiting this exact version of FOXP2. Olan7allen (talk) 02:41, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

The neanderthal DNA is the earliest DNA where the modern human FOXP2 gene has been identified. While Paabo et. al. were very polite about it, this finding pretty much proves that the modern human version of FOXP2 evolved before the neanderthals and the humans split. That in turn implies that earlier estimates on the date of the modern human FOXP2 gene were wrong, or, less likely, that neanderthals and humans were not genetically isolated. I'm not sure how to reflect that in the text.Warren Dew (talk) 23:39, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

The concern that FOXP2 does not have an established role in language evolution is genuine. However, the mutation in FOXP2 that results in this phenotype is minor (arginine to histidine) and its affects appear to be limited DNA binding. Unlike the related FOXP3 that functions in immune development, other disease related mutations in FOXP2 have not been observed, suggesting that more severe mutations in FOXP2 are either lethal or have mostly inconsequential developmental affects. Considering the importance of the other forkhead proteins in development, it will likely be the former. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.125.87.138 (talk) 11:13, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Not a "language gene"

The lede of this article currently misrepresents FOXP2 as being a language gene, and does so using only a single 9-year-old study. (Yes, I know it uses the somewhat neutral language "implicated", implying that it's just some people who are making that connection and that the connection may not be right...but it should probably be more clear than that.) The idea that FOXP2 is "the language gene" has been drummed up by popular media and science reporting, but as far as I know real scientists don't take that claim seriously, just like they no longer believe Broca's area is "the language area" in the brain. I don't have any journal articles to cite because I'm not very familiar with this literature, but here are a few other things:

• Liberman, Mark (4 June 2009). "Mice with the "language gene" stay mum". Language Log. Retrieved 6 June 2009.
• Pullum, Geoffrey K. (5 September 2005). "The continuing misrepresentation of FOXP2 effects". Language Log. Retrieved 6 June 2009.
• MacAndrew, Alec (1 March 2003). "FOXP2 and the Evolution of Language". Evolution Pages. Retrieved 6 June 2009.

Also, the most recent study on this is pretty underwhelming, although of course it can be interpreted in different ways (naturally, the NYT piece exaggerated the findings, par for the course in science reporting0.

Anyway, I don't have the expertise to make any major changes to this article, but I do think someone who has been involved here should consider rewriting at least the language bits of the article to avoid giving readers the wrong impression. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 15:45, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

German wikipedia

Pictures from the excellent German Wikipedia article should be used in this article as well. --Rajah (talk) 19:10, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Merge from FOXP2 and human evolution

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was to merge FOXP2 and human evolution to FOXP2. Chhandama (talk) 12:59, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

---

I am not a FOXP2 or human evolution expert but as an interested reader, I propose we merge content from FOXP2 and human evolution here.

• This article appears to cover the same content plus more.
• Much of the extra content in FOXP2 and human evolution appears to be more technical than necessary for Wikipedia.
• Someone familiar with the topic will likely find valuable contributions to be merged here.

Jojalozzo 01:34, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Oppose The FOXP2 article is FOXP2 specific where as FOXP2 and human evolution can explain in detail the various classifications of FOXP2 across species in realtion to evolution and to discuss the other FOXP protien family issues related to evolution epsecially FOXP1 as the research improves our unmderstanding of these much wider issues. So alternative may be to slim down the Evolution section of this article and improve the technical explanations in the FOXP2 and human evolution to make the article more accessable by all. dolfrog (talk) 18:20, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

• Merge, by all means. FOXP2 itself is a feature of human evolution, and having a separate FOXP2 and human evolution article is awfully redundant. Human evolution will naturally comes when we talk about FOXP2, whether we want it or not. Noticeably most of the information are overlapping. In other words, one can not avoid human evolution when talking about FOXP2. There is no FOXP2 specific realm that can segregate it from human evolution, it is an inherent component. The write-up of FOXP2 and human evolution article anyway is ridiculous. While its title explcitly bears "human evolution", yet it contains birds and mice, in an unacceptably elaborate manner. Having FOXP2 article serves all the purposes, we don't need two separate articles for one topic, so merge. Chhandama (talk) 11:50, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
• NB: I also notice from the revision history that the FOXP2 and human evolution article was created rather carelessly from the start, with mutlitple negative tags; and that from the Talk:FOXP2 and human evolution page, FeatherPluma had already suggested merge and delete, soon after it was created. Chhandama (talk) 12:04, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
• Finally, Lugia2453 had proposed FOXP2 and human evolution for speedy deletion on 4 August 2013, Way2veers supported it, then no further action was taken, other than proposed merger. The creator Sulez raz never defended though he continues to make edits regularly. Hence, the conclusion is obvious, merge. Chhandama (talk) 12:39, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
• This is very strange, some !0CaterPillar0! simply replaced the speedy deletion tag without justifying on 22 October 2013 with merge proposal tag.Chhandama (talk) 12:59, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Italic weirdness

Not italics:

FOXP2 is a transcription factor, meaning that it encodes for a regulatory protein.

Yes italics:

The FOXP2 protein contains a forkhead-box DNA-binding domain, making it a member of the FOX group of transcription factors, involved in regulation of gene expression.

Normally I associated "encodes" with a genetic constituent, so I would have expected the first example italicized.

In the second example, I can't tell which is correct, there are valid linguistic precedents on both sides.

• FOXP2 could be the gene, modifying the word "protein".
• FOXP2 could be the protein, in a redundant formulation (languages like Chinese do this routinely, in order to resolve ambiguity; English does this rarely, but it's not unknown).

If English were to be found operating in the territory of the second case, this must be regarded as an ideal circumstance: the gene and protein are not distinguished orally, or lexically, but only typographically. If that doesn't walk up to a linguistic edge case, spit in its eye, and growl "bring it on!" I don't know what would.

If it were me, I would scour the whole of Wikipedia and write "the FOX2P gene" or "the FOX2P protein" in every last instance, and for every similar page, to render the italics convention supplementary. — MaxEnt 20:02, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

H sapiens allele of FOXP2 is fixed in our species

There's reference to evolution, but nothing about when the allele became fixed. With the appearance of H sapiens 220 KYA? With the hypothetical leap to behaviorally modern humanity? Jonathan Tweet (talk) 18:03, 15 June 2019 (UTC) Found a source and filled out the basics, but I think there's more too it. Jonathan Tweet (talk) 18:29, 15 June 2019 (UTC)