Confronting Friends and Family

[Shell B]

As Tiberius put it, you cannot produce an infinite number from a finite set. I'll leave it to him to do the math defeating, but even a layman can see that is just ludicrous.

It's not semantics. It's just a silly thing that lots of people like to do. Again, I studied a number of things in school. I don't call myself any of them. Are you a banker if you count money at a bank? This is just a continuation of another conversation I had for me. I am baffled as to why people do this.

[Hovik]

As Tiberius put it, you cannot produce an infinite number from a finite set. I'll leave it to him to do the math defeating, but even a layman can see that is just ludicrous.

It's not semantics. It's just a silly thing that lots of people like to do. Again, I studied a number of things in school. I don't call myself any of them. Are you a banker if you count money at a bank? This is just a continuation of another conversation I had for me. I am baffled as to why people do this.

You're missing the component of grammar. When I say "infinite" I mean "theoretically infinite" in the sense that not all permutations will ever be represented, but there exists the possibility for infinite novel utterances. This is captured in the idea of recursion, the fact that I can say "I know that John thinks that Mary believes that ..." or "I saw the man by the table with the lamp from Walmart in Idaho in the United States ..." and so forth. This is not a trivial point; only language can have this sort recursion in its structure that allows for an infinite number of novel utterances.

Edit: I want to add as well that it's possible that another communication system can have recursion and still not meet the criteria of language. There are things like displacement (the ability to discuss topics removed spatially and temporally from the speaker) and other criteria that are involved as well.

Tell me, then, what does define a banker? At what point does "a guy working in a bank, counting money and performing the duties of a banker" become "a banker"? At what point does "a guy who scientifically studies language in a university and is trained in the subject of linguistics" become "a linguist"?

[Shell B]

When you are a professional linguist, I would say. I'm trying to determine how other people define this shit. It confounds me.

Also, I was just browsing reddit and thought of all of us here.

[Hovik]

When you are a professional linguist, I would say. I'm trying to determine how other people define this shit. It confounds me.

At what point does someone become a "professional" anything? What defines professional?

Edit: To take a quick definition from Wikipedia: "A professional is a person who is paid to undertake a specialized set of tasks and to complete them for a fee. The traditional professions were doctors, engineers, lawyers, architects and commissioned military officers. Today, the term is applied to nurses, accountants, educators, scientists, technology experts, social workers, artists, librarians (information professionals) and many more."

I am a scientist. I work in a lab. I produce academic literature (not substantive, but it's something). I may not be as experienced or knowledgeable as someone who's spent a decade in the field, but I still fit the bill.

[Brakeman]

How exactly did the Tower of Babel incident cause the birth of all modern languages, all at the same time. Is it not true that modern languages are derivatives of older languages?

The biblical history of language is completely pathetic.

Did I use the Biblical history of Language? No.

The Tower of Babel followed Noah's flood...
Nevertheless, if you want to take it literally, that places the Tower of Babel at around 40,000 BC...

I see you can really stretch it out to cover your religion's pure stupidity. Did you reply about how the tower was so high god was afraid man was going to get into heaven uninvited, or about how all modern languages resulted from that one instance of divine confusion? No, you didn't,

you dodged the question like a dodge ball. You started talking about the flood, which is equally ridiculous, but a subject that you have concocted some bizarre web of pathetic apologia.

Be a man and admit it was a stupid story written by uneducated ancient goat herders.

[Rayaan]

Animals don't use language, at least so far as we know up to this point. Many different studies have been done on the capacity of animals to have language, and none have satisfactorily met the requirements. There are several that have a few of the criteria (bee communication is actually pretty neat in that it has a few of the less-found aspects of language such as displacement), but no animal communication system meets all of the baseline requirements for it to be considered language.

If you mean to say that no other animal communication is complex enough as human language, then I agree with you (though not without a doubt).

But you know that animals do communicate with each other - mostly in non-verbal ways, perhaps - like the variety of bird calls, through smell, sounds, dancing, gestures, body language, changing their colors, and so on. By doing such things, they are technically sending and receiving information between each other in ways that are not fully known to us.

The point is, just because the animals are not uttering words and sentences, doesn't mean that they are not using language.

Other animals just use a different language than ours, but they do use language.

lan·guage (noun}:
a. Communication of thoughts and feelings through a system of arbitrary signals, such as voice sounds, gestures, or written symbols.
b. Such a system including its rules for combining its components, such as words.
c. Such a system as used by a nation, people, or other distinct community; often contrasted with dialect.

Animal communication falls under the first definition of language (see above) because they communicate their thoughts and feelings through signals, voice sounds, and gestures, among other things. Even though they are not using words, those activities are still considered to be language. If you disagree with that definition, then I'd like to ask you, what is your understanding of the word "language"? And how are animals not using language?

[Hovik]

Animals don't use language, at least so far as we know up to this point. Many different studies have been done on the capacity of animals to have language, and none have satisfactorily met the requirements. There are several that have a few of the criteria (bee communication is actually pretty neat in that it has a few of the less-found aspects of language such as displacement), but no animal communication system meets all of the baseline requirements for it to be considered language.

If you mean to say that no other animal communication is complex enough as human language, then I agree with you (though not without a doubt).

But you know that animals do communicate with each other - mostly in non-verbal ways, perhaps - like the variety of bird calls, through smell, sounds, dancing, gestures, body language, changing their colors, and so on. By doing such things, they are technically sending and receiving information between each other in ways that are not fully known to us.

The point is, just because the animals are not uttering words and sentences, doesn't mean that they are not using language.

Other animals just use a different language than ours, but they do use language.

[...]

Animal communication falls under the first definition of language (see above) because they communicate their thoughts and feelings through signals, voice sounds, and gestures, among other things. Even though they are not using words, those activities are still considered to be language. If you disagree with that definition, then I'd like to ask you, what is your understanding of the word "language"? And how are animals not using language?

You and I are basically completely on the same page. I understand that other animals have complex systems of communications, but none of them are as complex as or expressive as human language (as far as we're currently aware).

I believe we'd be arguing semantics if anything at all. I don't agree that animals use what we would describe as language because it isn't language. I should point out that a dictionary definition, while useful, does not match up with the linguistic definition of language. Dictionaries report usage only, and so it would be sensible that it reflects scientific as well as layman definitions of words. That's just how they're used.

As far as linguistics is concerned, a language is a system of communication which is sufficiently complex to produce a non-finite set of novel utterances. Our language (and I mean language in the broadest sense of "all human languages") allows for the recursive nesting of elements within elements such as when we nest noun phrases into noun phrases e.g. [[the boy]'s ball] or when we use complementizers such as "that" or "if". As I've said before, this is not a trivial point. These features allow us to produce a theoretically infinite number of novel utterances. We're also able to freely create new lexical items (words, essentially).

Another important aspect of language is in the fact that abstractions and grammar can only be acquired through social contact. That perhaps speaks more to the human propensity for cultural transmission, but I argue that it's an important aspect of what makes language language.

I would basically argue that while other animals may use words, they don't appear to use "sentences."

Edit: Thinking more about the gorilla sign issue, Annik raised a pretty good point as well. The appearance of grammar in gorilla sign is really a result of the handler's interpretation due to the fact that sign-based systems have that sort of propensity. Koko, for example, can sign concepts together to associate them, for example CAT and HAPPY, to indicate that "Cat makes me happy." However, this doesn't constitute a grammar, only a relationship of emotion to stimulus. Interestingly, I would posit that this might be how human language began, but that's a whole different discussion.

[Shell B]

Sign is not the only language other great apes use. It is just an interesting example because we understand it and taught it to them.

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From wiki's animal language page: "While the term is widely used, researchers agree that animal languages are not as complex or expressive as human language."

I can agree with that, to an extent, given that we don't understand monkey. However, no person in their right mind would argue that animals do not have languages as methods of communication. As I mentioned before, it appears that tossing out the definition of language and assigning it strictly human traits is how you, and others, come to the conclusion that only humans have language. I do believe there is a stipulation in the rules here about using definitions because so many people like to make up their own definitions and it provides for page after page of absolutely useless conversation. (I can't remember where that was or if it was moved/removed. I do recall it being a big enough problem that the staff talked about it multiple times.)

[Cato]

Fuck! You need to make up your minds. Does the Dog Whisperer understand Dog or not? I was getting ready to send him this...

"Bark! Bark bark, woof...whine, whimper. Bark bark bark. Baaaark, whimper."

If I now learn that the Dog Whisperer doesn't understand Dog, I'll have to spend time translating the preceding.

Kidding of course, good conversation.

[Rayaan]

I believe we'd be arguing semantics if anything at all. I don't agree that animals use what we would describe as language because it isn't language. I should point out that a dictionary definition, while useful, does not match up with the linguistic definition of language. Dictionaries report usage only, and so it would be sensible that it reflects scientific as well as layman definitions of words. That's just how they're used.

Then yeah, I suppose we're arguing on the semantics only.

I find that the linguistic definition of language is narrower than the common, dictionary definition of the word, thus it is not complete.

According to the linguistic definition, yes, I agree that animals don't use language ... but I don't go by that definition.