Confronting Friends and Family

[Aractus]

It wouldn't be identifiable as language in the same way we think of language because our language is specific to our species. The language (if it can be called that) of another species wouldn't be in any way recognizable.

But it would still express and convey the same quantity and quality of information. My point isn't that you could go to an alien world inhabited by humanoids and learn their language, my point is that they will have language, and it will have exactly the same characteristics as ours has (there'll be a verbal or visual form plus a written form, there'll be pragmatics, etc).

We have not taught ASL to gorillas. We have taught a different type of sign to orangutangs and gorillas that is much less complex grammatically and lexically than natural language. It definitely does not meet the criteria that formally define language; therefore, what they've learned is not language.

How does it not meet the criteria that formally defines language?

Linguistics is not physics. I'm not sure what relevance your analogy has to language. Care to elaborate further?

It is derived from physics. So is evolution, so is population growth rates, just about everything is. Given the right starting conditions, language will self develop, just as life itself springs forth from the "right conditions".

That's entirely wrong. First of all, language is dependent on genes.

Then try teaching a language to a feral human.

Again, I'm not exactly sure what you're talking about. Pragmatics is observable in looking at natural language in the context of usage. Pragmatic concepts are derived from empirical observation.

Okay, how do we know the speed of light in a vacuum? We observe it. Can we predict it using calculation? No it's a "fundamental constant". Pragmatics are not a "fundamental constant", thus they are predictable, although we don't know what theory predicts it yet.