Origin of Language (Origins)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Tuesday, December 24, 2013, 18:33 (3775 days ago) @ dhw
edited by unknown, Tuesday, December 24, 2013, 18:39

MATT (under "Different in degree or kind"): We obviously don't know how language originated, but if we note that captive gorillas, (koko, in particular) were able to develop a vocabulary of about 2000 words, we have some kind of an idea that the ability to learn language isn't unique. What makes us unique is quite simply (to me) an issue of instinct. Other ape communities don't rely on other members quite as intricately as we do--we're more social, not less. 
> It isn't a stretch to say that we have an instinct for language, and that I think it was this instinct, this desire to more effectively communicate that allowed us to develop constant word-symbols over time, passed on via music and culture.
> 
> ... I agree that our social interdependence is a vital factor, but all social animals (including insects) are interdependent, and so for me the main difference is the range of subjects we feel we "need" to communicate, and that arises directly from our heightened awareness of the world and ourselves.
> -I personally think that the selective pressure that brought us out of the trees is sufficient to explain this: As selection worked to have us walking more upright we (because apes ARE pretty smart) started figuring out that we could hunt large game as well as gather. Hunting large game *requires* a team effort. So right away we see social behavior taking center stage. I'm of the opinion that until we were able to create stable nomadic societies, we didn't have the luxury of time that necessitates using our minds for reflection, which in my view, was the driver of more complex language and understanding. This is trivially true when we look at snapshots of western civilization where the poor simply were less sophisticated in art and language than their well-kempt brothers in the castles. -Since you're probing me more deeply, I think that as we developed strategies for hunting big game, we gained an immediate advantage in terms of calories: A half pound of bison meat will give keep you fuller longer, and provide nutrition that you don't have access to from gathering alone. -And in the cold (as we left Africa) meat is also a self-preserving food, in that it will keep for far longer than any stores of food you gathered. (H. Erectus penetrated all of southern Europe, so they would have had to adapt for winters in Spain, France, and Northern Italy.) Not to mention mountain life. -With big game, you don't need to hunt as often to feed your people, so this creates downtime, and its that downtime that allowed us to begin creative construction of language. And then we were nomadic... we couldn't have survived long if every nomadic band attacked and killed each other. So there was the beginning of an economic life here as well, which would also drive selection pressure to increase demand for verbal language. -> As regards the anatomical differences, before the invention of writing, we used mainly sound, but as David says, our vocal instruments have had to be greatly refined in order to provide the range of sounds necessary for our huge variety of communications. If I were pushed into choosing one explanation over all others, I'd say it was our heightened consciousness that created the need for an ever expanding vocabulary, and the need for new sounds created pressure on the cell community to reshape itself into the organs we have today. I certainly prefer that to random mutations, but no doubt David will opt for God planning and preprogramming it a few billion years ago, or stepping in to do a dabble.-I don't think the emergence of language in humans is a strong case for a creator. I really do think that the rapid advancement we see here is the result of the human organism responding and adapting to a new set of circumstances driven by the economic fact that energy stores allow for leisure and trade... and that both leisure and trade put great stress and demand to communicate in a universal fashion. Leisure allows us to create music and stories, which require the invention of words and sounds, which in turn drive anatomical changes.-[EDIT]-It also isn't a stretch to say that these ancestors were wise enough to identify those in the tribe that were better at making sounds... maybe for entertainment, maybe because they were better communicators. And then we see intelligence beginning to internally select for those individuals that could make sounds no one else could... and its complications like this that I've always said makes intelligence difficult: If human beings were smart enough to use genetics to come up with all our varieties of domestic animals, dogs, cats, etc., then it becomes really difficult to determine *how much* of our evolution wasn't co-opted by human beings ourselves. Good luck unraveling that mess...

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