The origins of language: Signs of success

The Economist ^ | Feb 19th 2004 | Anon

[Ciexyz]

btt

[stripes1776]

My cat uses sign language too. When he puts his tail straight up into the air, he is saying feed me. He is obviously an accomplished grammarian, speaking a dialect of Proto-Feline.

[RightWingAtheist]

All humans have the same brain structure, but reading and writing are not found across all cultures the way spoken and gesutral languages are, nor is there any satisfactory explanation as to account for how reading, writing and drawing might have evolved through selective pressure. They are exaptated, as opposed to evolved traits, which arise through the co-option of one feature for a purpose other than the evolved one. A good example of an exaptated feature are the hammer, anvil and stirrup bones in the inner ear, which are found in all mammals. These were originally part of the jawbones of our reptilian ancestors, and wound being pushed in to the ear as the jaw evolved into a more efficent single-boned structure for chewing. You can feel this evolutionary legacy every time you sit down to a meal-the reason you can't follow a conversation while chewin and swallowing is because your jaw keeps jutting upwards into the ear canal.

[angkor]

It has been postulated that the visual and linguistic modules are strongly correlated, and possibly even "split" from the same ancestral module

Interesting, I pick up Bateson's Steps To An Ecology Of Mind, and here in the thesis "Redundancy And Coding" is the following:

"I suggest that this separate burgeoning evolution of kinesics and paralanguage alongside the evolution of verbal language indicates that our iconic communication servers functions totally different from those of language and, indeed, performs functions which verbal language is unsuited to perform."

Bateson's main argument is that kinesic and verbal communications exist independently for the sake of redundancy.

[js1138]

I think it is undeniable that humans have an innate ability to tokenize experience and string the tokens together in syntax. This is supported by studies of people with brain damage who lose the ability to follow specific grammatical constructs.

There are people who inherit an inability to form regular verb tenses. The learn language, but have to learn every verb the way most of us learn irregular verbs.

[SauronOfMordor]

It has been postulated that the visual and linguistic modules are strongly correlated, and possibly even "split" from the same ancestral module. It would explain why we have have both a "spoken" and "gestural" grammar, as well as our abilities at writing and visual representation (drawing and sculpting, etc.), traits which can NOT be explained as being a result of selective evolutionary pressures, as language can.

Gestural communication is used widely as a supplement to verbal communication, although most of the time you don't notice it. As an Italian, I tend to "speak with my hands" a lot.

The ability to communicate with gestures and hand signals would have been valuable to early hunters (to avoid being heard by the hunted) and is in use today in the military (hand and arm signals to silently communicate things like "danger ahead", "take cover", etc)

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from 2/21/2004. Thanks Pharmboy.

[null and void]

Judging by the way these kids are acting, I'd say they must be Kunich supporters.

Nahh, they are just deaf, not dumb...