Different in degree or kind (Introduction)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Monday, December 23, 2013, 17:19 (3988 days ago) @ David Turell


> > Matt: 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. 
> 
> I've thought it was 200 words, which she used in simple declarative sentences about her needs, a three-year-old human level. Not real language in our sense. 
> -We're both wrong:-http://www.koko.org/world/signlanguage.html-She had a vocabulary of 1000 words. -
> > Matt: 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.
> 
> Pinker says we have an instinct for syntax which is the same in all languages. The rest is from our intellect. Our throat and larnyx and tongue muscles had to have major modificaitons for the speech we employ, compared to ape anatomy.-Which I argue can be explained that as we shifted from living in trees to living on the plains, walking upright, hand gestures (which are used extensively by gorillas in the wild) no longer worked for nomadic hunters that had to spread out in order to catch large prey. The driver for translating hand gestures into sounds created a selective pressure based on the survival demands of hunting.

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