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05 Aug 06
The problem with the argument that 'if you isolate a person from birth and expose them to no language stimulus of any kind they would not develop language is that one person alone has no one that they could conceivably communicate with. Now if you were to isolate a gang of babies and conduct the same experiment they would eventually develop there own private language (twins often develop their own private language (usually a derivation of the language their parents speak). language is not developed by one individual but by the entire society that uses it.
06 Aug 06
Originally posted by ErwinOf course this is true. However, language is a complex thing. It did not evolve spontaneously, it took many generations to evolve, and continues to do so. Old words drop out of the "word pool" whilst new ones are coined all the time. Language is not static, but develops and evolves. We can think therefore that language used to be simpler than now. We can think that 200 years ago the word "carburettor" would not have existed. We can easily think that in the past language was simple - go further back and all you have is grunts. After all, what is language except noises made by your larynx? The written word is merely a convention of symbols used to represent those sounds. "Reading to yourself" is a relatively new thing - even only a few hundred years ago everything was read aloud, and we come back to our series of grunts.
Yes I know that as a baby grows and gets older that its' ability to communicate increases, everyone knows this especially people with children. But then how would this baby learn to talk if his/her parents dont teach him/her to do so.
It is commen knowledge that you have to teach babies to do this, by for exaple repeeting words like mommy, dady etc. to them u ...[text shortened]... ging to them even etc, then they will strugle with their language, reeding and writing skills.
08 Aug 06
1 edit
Originally posted by scottishinnzOfcourse it makes sense to me as well that a gang of babbies isolated together would probbably form their own private language, googelfudge. But they still will not be able to speek an any tipe of language that we know of today as no one has tought them.
Of course this is true. However, language is a complex thing. It did not evolve spontaneously, it took many generations to evolve, and continues to do so. Old words drop out of the "word pool" whilst new ones are coined all the time. Language is not static, but develops and evolves. We can think therefore that language used to be simpler than now. few hundred years ago everything was read aloud, and we come back to our series of grunts.
In fact even if you give them a pen and paper to write with, then they will be more likely to injure themselves or eachother because they dont know how to write, because again no one is teaching them to do so.
Also even if they do eventualy manage to put pen to paper, they would still only manage to scribbel all over the place and never learn to write properly, because again there is no one to teach them to do this.
Scottishinnz I also agree with you that indeed language is not static and develops over time. English is a verry good example, it was not always "around" so to say but instead it was formed from a groop of languages, that was combined and "ajusted" so to speak over a long period of time to eventualy end up as English, not as we know it to day ofcourse but in a more "out dated" form so to speak like the English used in the old King James versions of the Bible.
But my point here is still although English as a language was new in that time, it was still formed over time by combineing groops of exsisting languages in order to form a new one.
In other words English needed an existing "base" of languages to "draw" from in order for it to have gotten started in the first place.
I also know that animals can comunicate with each other in their own way and indeed even with other species, like a cat and a dog for example that growl and hiss at each other in order to try an intimmedate one another.
Now like with my Enlish example, I think that primative man would also have needed an existing langauge (with actual words, like with modern languages and not just sounds, grunts etc.) that would have been tought to them by thier parents, to learn from and then even develop other languages.
As far as I know, animals today such as the primates for example still comunicate with each other in much the same way as they comunicated with each other from the biggining of recorded history and possibly even before that.
Therefore what I am tryinng to say is that if you start of with grunting and making noises etc as your form of cumunication, then your species will contineu doing so generation after generation untill you are tought otherwise, like a chimp learning sign language for example.
Lastly, say you have primative people form Europe that "bump" into primative people from Asia, now both groops use sounds, grunting etc as a form of cumunication. They do not understand each other how ever, because each groop has its' own specific way of using these sounds etc, that is uneeck to them (like a French person trying to talk to an English person, and each use their own language). Now I would also think that they will try to find a way of comunicating with eachother like hand gestures etc, but even if they live together for a few generations and in so doing form a new system of sounds, grunts etc that all of them understand (again like with the English example), then you are still left with them grunting etc at each other.
At least that is how I think of it, and that is what makes sense to me. 🙂
08 Aug 06
Originally posted by ErwinWho cares what anyone "thinks"? You have no evidence for this. Indeed all languages can be linked, some more closely some less so, in a type of cladistic analysis. All languages have the same common root.
Now like with my Enlish example, I think that primative man would also have needed an existing langauge (with actual words, like with modern languages and not just sounds, grunts etc.) that would have been tought to them by thier parents, to learn from and then even develop other languages.
What is [spoken] language except a series of standardised grunts anyway. Why is written english so important in your narrow view of the world? The Egyptians used hyroglyphs, the Russians cyrilic, the Japanese use kana. The written word is simply a convention - if your hypothetical babies invented a series of squiggles that mean something to them is that not language?
09 Aug 06
Originally posted by ErwinWoah, what I want to know is where you learnt your English.
Ofcourse it makes sense to me as well that a gang of babbies isolated together would probbably form their own private language, googelfudge. But they still will not be able to speek an any tipe of language that we know of today as no one has tought them.
In fact even if you give them a pen and paper to write with, then they will be more likely to injure them ...[text shortened]... ther.
At least that is how I think of it, and that is what makes sense to me. 🙂
It's shocking.
But anyway, back to your point ...
English, as with some other modern languages is huge and complex. It's earlier forms were incredibly simpler, not having drawn so much - as our current form has - from other languages. English's root languages were also likely much simpler - and by simpler I mean smaller vocabulary, simpler grammatical rules, and so on.
Follow this back and you can see how the English language and it's ancestors may have derived from increasingly simpler and simpler roots ... until we get to what?
I would suggest the grunts that scottish has mentioned might be a good starting point.
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09 Aug 06
Originally posted by ErwinYou say that more than just grunts were needed to form a language, that you need some common meanings to build on, You may or may not be correct about them being essential, but such links do exist, pre-programmed (for evolutionary advantage, I can explain if you like) into the brain, studies have shown for example that people can spot an 'angry' male face faster and remember it in more detail than any other face (happy, sad, male or female...). Also you can automatically recognise crying, wailing and screaming as unhappy (babies make these sounds before language develops) regardless of what race or nationality the unhappy person comes from, in fact such 'unhappy' sounds can be identified from a range of animals, a dog yelping for example, Also there has been shown to be common links between different shapes and types of sounds, for example, in one (demonstration) test, a man walks down a beach with two foam shapes, one is blue and rounded, the other is red and spiky. He tells people on the beach that one is called (I am making them up here I can't remember what they were actually called) spack and the other called flump. The people on the beach are then asked to guess which is which, 70 to 80% of the people instantly call the soft one flump, and the spiky one spack, people automatically associate the 'spiky' word with the spiky object and vica verca. These and many other automatic associations in our brains which can all be shown to be useful evolutionarily, would have been of great use when building a language, and remove any need for an external source for our root language.
Ofcourse it makes sense to me as well that a gang of babbies isolated together would probbably form their own private language, googelfudge. But they still will not be able to speek an any tipe of language that we know of today as no one has tought them.
In fact even if you give them a pen and paper to write with, then they will be more likely to injure them ...[text shortened]... ther.
At least that is how I think of it, and that is what makes sense to me. 🙂
09 Aug 06
Originally posted by amannionIn response to where I learnt my English, that would be before I and during my years at school. But as I have mentioned earlier in this thread, English is not my first language but my second, I grew up in an Afrikaans speeking familly, and English spelling and grammer have never been my strong points at school. In fact manny of my old teachers can attest to that.
Woah, what I want to know is where you learnt your English.
It's shocking.
But anyway, back to your point ...
English, as with some other modern languages is huge and complex. It's earlier forms were incredibly simpler, not having drawn so much - as our current form has - from other languages. English's root languages were also likely much simpler - an ...[text shortened]... hat?
I would suggest the grunts that scottish has mentioned might be a good starting point.
So sorry yet again for my bad English and grammer 😳
But anyway thank you for your well thought out replies. As they say you are never to old to learn someting new hey.
😉