This chapter emphasizes the emergence of language phylogenetically from gestural/motor roots, showing how biological evolution went “beyond” mirror neurons to yield brains that could in turn support imitation, pantomime, and protosign, the last‐named providing the scaffolding for protospeech and the human language‐ready brain. The aim of this chapter is to develop one specific theory, the mirror system hypothesis (MSH) of the language‐ready brain, showing how it exemplifies an emergentist perspective, but doing so within a larger framework to reveal its relation to some of the key areas of debate. It assesses the diversity of possible approaches to a theory of language evolution by considering six dichotomies. The chapter examines how an understanding of both language acquisition and historical change militate against the idea of a Universal Grammar, at least if that is taken to provide an innate encapsulation of abstract principles and parameters that span the syntax of all human languages.