Abstract
Since there are accumulating evidences to show that Homo sapiens neanderthalensis could possibly speak in a primitive way, the author have proposed the term “Homo loquens” as the name of animal family including Homo sapiens sapiens and Home sapiens neanderthalensis. Recent technological advances have enabled us to investigate more accurately than ever the neural organization of the brain of Homo loquens. Through the clinico-anatomical correlation studies of the patients combined with the functional imaging studies upon normal subjects, cortical areas responsible for certain aspects of language functions have been discovered other than classical language areas. One of these areas is the left inferior temporal area including Areas 38, 21 and 37 of Brodmann which is now thought to be the cortical area of lexicon. Another new-face cortical area participating in the language function of Homo loquens is the left posterior inferior temporal area which was revealed to be the crucial cortical area responsible for semantic reading process. On the other hand, the role of the left angular gyrus which had been regarded as the center of reading and writing is now to be seriously doubted, because our PET activation studies revealed thet the cortical area which is activated while reading phonograms is not the angular gyrus but the left lateral occipital area.
