How did language originate?

[SugarMoses]

I find all of this very interesting. I'm currently in China studying Chinese and recently I've found myself wondering how in the world did or letters end up shaped the way they are, as opposed to Chinese characters, most of which are pictographs, and other writing systems. The answer to this question is bet served in another thread probably... so I guess I don't have much of a point except to say....... interesting. Keep up the good talk

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by SugarMoses

I find all of this very interesting. I'm currently in China studying Chinese and recently I've found myself wondering how in the world did or letters end up shaped the way they are, as opposed to Chinese characters, most of which are pictographs, and other writing systems. The answer to this question is bet served in another thread probably... so I guess I don't have much of a point except to say....... interesting. Keep up the good talk

There is a special on the PBS NOVA series about the young guy who just recently deciphered the Mayan writing and found that it is phoentic. He went with his Dad there as a little kid while his Dad studied the writings on stella, and took up the interest himself as a young adult. Mayan writing has a lot of different characters on the face of it (Mayan writing joke. ), but it turns out many are merely variations of a core symbol set.

Not sure how your access is over there, but here is a link to the program. >> NOVA | Cracking the Maya Code | PBS

[sman]

I keep saying that language is in a class by itself, and has no precursors.

There are absolutely no intermediates.

This really creates an ill-posed problem though. We are so used to explaining complex things by the accumulation of small incermental steps. To say that something just appeared one day, as an event instead of a continuum, to me sounds like crying irreducible complexity. But I think I may have an analogue, and I expect to be told I'm way off base, but here it is.

The formation of the eukaryotic cell from very different lineages of bacteria. Apparently, bacteria thrived and diversified on earth for a while(one billion years), until some forms started to behave as simbionts on one another, simply due to proximity and the idiosyncratic chemical things that each had evolved to do. So, one form exhausted/excreated the chemicals that another needed for fuel/food. At this point, they could have been selected for optimal concordance with the simbiotic colony, but that's just natural selection - gradually becoming adaped to a new environment by slow, incremental changes. The formation of this beneficial collaboration of highly different organisms was, in comparison, an event.

Is this at all helpful in our attempts to explain the origin of language? It is a beneficial outcome brought on by the collaboration of many different features, all already grown by natural selection for a completely different benefit.

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by sman

...selected for optimal concordance with the simbiotic colony, but that's just natural selection - gradually becoming adaped to a new environment by slow, incremental changes. The formation of this beneficial collaboration of highly different organisms was, in comparison, an event.

Is this at all helpful in our attempts to explain the origin of language? It is a beneficial outcome brought on by the collaboration of many different features, all already grown by natural selection for a completely different benefit.

there is the matter of catastrophic selection that may have played a role.

for humans & language, imagine that during a transitional period in a group/tribe of people when "speakers" were a minority, they might gather together as a subgroup as we peeps are wont to do. along comes a natural disaster of some sort and by some virtue of their speakabilities, whether physically grouping or crying out warnings/instructions or some such a matter, the sub-group survives the disaster and the rest not. voila. a new starting group exclusively of speakers.

just some thoughts.

[Miranda]

Originally Posted by Turtle

for humans & language, imagine that during a transitional period in a group/tribe of people when "speakers" were a minority, they might gather together as a subgroup as we peeps are wont to do. along comes a natural disaster of some sort and by some virtue of their speakabilities, whether physically grouping or crying out warnings/instructions or some such a matter, the sub-group survives the disaster and the rest not. voila. a new starting group exclusively of speakers.

But that's a wee bit convenient, eh?

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by Miranda

But that's a wee bit convenient, eh?

so what if it is/was? catastrophic selection happens & we be speakin'. the global catastrophe of 65 million years ago, also convenient for us mammals; not so much for the dinos. did you know some of the earliest cave drawings are thought to be 'porn' from teenagers?* so it goes.

* >>Cave paintings show aspects of sex beyond the reproductive - DominicanToday.com

Madrid.– Cave men had sex on their mind and they put it on their walls in etched and painted images that portray an aspect of carnal pleasure beyond the merely reproductive, according to two Spanish experts on the subject.

Eroticism is not an interest exclusive to modern humans, and the first Homo sapiens to arrive in Europe 40,000 years ago already exhibited complex sexual behavior that they illustrated in a few cave paintings, creating humanity's first Kama Sutra.

Two professors at the Universidad del Pais Vasco in northern Spain, Marcos Garcia Diez and Javier Angulo, are among the few archaeologists who are studying these artistic renderings of erotic behavior among early humans.

[Miranda]

So a portion of the population of whatever time period had the beginning abilities for language...a big accident happens, and wipes out the non-speakers making way for language to flourish. Alright, I suppose. I'm just saying it's not likely.

[sman]

Originally Posted by Miranda

So a portion of the population of whatever time period had the beginning abilities for language...a big accident happens, and wipes out the non-speakers making way for language to flourish. Alright, I suppose. I'm just saying it's not likely.

Or necessary. If we assume a portion of the population had the beginning abilities for language....the behavior of primate groups takes care of it from there. Primate groups, to take the model of chimpanzee groups, are always growing and splitting. They split along lines of similarity. Similarity is usually in the form of some very subtle behavior marker, completely non-salient when the group is small, but when the group splits up it is picked out by the individuals of one group and made more conspicuous, and by the other group made taboo. Soon the two will go to war and one will be exterminated. I'm just going by Jane Goodall.

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by Miranda

So a portion of the population of whatever time period had the beginning abilities for language...a big accident happens, and wipes out the non-speakers making way for language to flourish. Alright, I suppose. I'm just saying it's not likely.

not likely compared to what? how have you calculated that probability? let me ask you, what is the probability of something happening that has never happened before?

[Miranda]

If such a disaster was big enough, wouldn't it destroy those who have language abilities as well? When and where did this mass population wipeout occur?

It is also unlikely based on how language works to begin with. I also agree with what Sman said about language being more of a continuum. It sounds like the idea of catastrophic selection (as applied to language) is assuming that language is a genetic trait that came into existence through a mutation that is passed down to special individuals, and can attributed to phenotypic characteristics. However, it has yet to be shown that language abilities really work like this at all. If we had a definitive ‘language gene’ that we could identify, then it would imply that language abilities could also be a recessive trait, and not show in some people. But this isn’t the case. Every human is born with the capability to acquire language, and language impairment in some individuals arises due to indirect means, such as damage to brain areas, etc. and not because their phenotype is suppressed. Language ability is an amalgamation of other traits, such as hearing, seeing, and the structure of the mouth and vocal tract. Thus, language isn’t a self contained genetic entity, but is dependent on the development of the rest of our brain and body. So to talk about it as if there’s a phenotype for language that can be (naturally or catastrophically) selected is to jump to many unproven conclusions.

But it is a creative idea