Language

[chimp3]

Because it is impossible to think beyond your vocabulary; I would say that man could not, and did not invent language. It must have been given to him from the start. Any thoughts?

Why could language abilities not have evolved gradually over very long periods of time ?

[Simon Moon]

There is know freakin way Bruddah, that man could even somehow invent intellect, or language! I think, therefore, I am! It's not I am and therefore I think! Your bass ackwards! And yes, I think OP is a good, valid question.

Yes, I agree. How humans acquired language, is a valid question. There are scientists in several applicable fields studying the subject.

I probably also agree that humanity did not 'invent' intellect or the ability to use language. They were acquired through natural evolutionary mechanisms.

What is not valid, however, is your claim that we must have been given language. Unless you can support it with demonstrable evidence and reasoned argument, that we were indeed 'given language'.

Who is the language giver? What is your evidence?

[ignoramus]

The spoken sound is just another in the myriad of ways we as intelligent creatures can use to communicate.
I don't find the notion of language special at all... in an evolutionary sense. It's just another way of communicating.

It all comes down to the complexity of the brain. The rest is just mechanics.
How do we know that whales aren't telling each other stories passed down from generation to generation?

If you take God out of the picture, everything seems to make more sense. (new post coming)

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I loved the Doctor Doolittle books when I was a kid.  There's a pertinent passage early on in the first book where Polynesia (a very wise parrot) tells the Doctor that learning the language of animals has precious little to do with speech.  The way a dog tilts its head or how a cat twitches her whiskers can convey as much information as speech. 

Language doesn't appear to be an exclusively human concern.

Boru

[Godscreated]

I loved the Doctor Doolittle books when I was a kid.  There's a pertinent passage early on in the first book where Polynesia (a very wise parrot) tells the Doctor that learning the language of animals has precious little to do with speech.  The way a dog tilts its head or how a cat twitches her whiskers can convey as much information as speech. 

Language doesn't appear to be an exclusively human concern.

Boru

 What animals do is less a language and more of demonstrating, power, position, survival and ect. A dog will give a man a warning other than vocally and expect us to understand exactly what was demonstrated. man will make certain motions around a dog and it will believe it understands what you were demonstrating when you have no idea what you did. This is a total lack of understanding between to different animals. We learn what dogs mean by observing their actions and dogs never learn our language, There is a huge difference in what animals do and what man does, yes both communicate but one is for existence the other can derive pleasure through it's communication. True language is a special thing that is exclusive to man. We like to infer our feelings and understanding upon animals and they just do not see it as we do.

GC

[Drich]

Because it is impossible to think beyond your vocabulary; I would say that man could not, and did not invent language. It must have been given to him from the start. Any thoughts?

 

Sure we can.

Well visual people can.

It is not hard for me to see and observe a practical process, that I have no name for a way to describe it. however that does not mean I can not break down this process into bit I can understand and lable that other bits by function until we/I can determine an appropriate way to name it.

This is how your "precious' works (science) and that spirit of unification would have two or a clan of people working together to agree on a common core groups of sounds and words inorder to come together.

[JackRussell]

[downbeatplumb]

Because it is impossible to think beyond your vocabulary; I would say that man could not, and did not invent language. It must have been given to him from the start. Any thoughts?

I think that its bullshit. People make up words all he time and concepts can grow. 

There is for example a word in german for giving your wife a present after you've upset her.

Can you think of that concept with knowing the word?

And here we have a new meaning for an old word. When someone in my office makes a stupid desicion nowdays we call them "presidential". A year or so ago no one would have known what we mean.

---

So do bees but, they cannot read a book!

Neither can many humans.

My next door neighbour never learnt to read and he's about 80.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Where is this thread going? What a train wreck.

[drfuzzy]