Lingusitics Age & Origin of Language: 10K-100K Yrs, Debate Remains

[wolram]

And did it have a sigle origin ? the few pages i have read on this topic do
not agree, some say language originated 10,000 yrs ago, others suggest
100,000.
Some say the origins came from verbalising sign laguage," i suppose it is hard
to sign in the dark", how would one say, not tonight dear ? so it would have
been better to make some noise for yes or no at least.
Did we imitate animal sounds, may be for hunting at first, but later it becomes a way to cominicate, hubby comes home after a days hunting and utters Moo, Moo, which means beef for dinner ?
Or did language start as a way of warning stranger off, some thing like
gerr owww became gerowt?

 

[arildno]

Since, for example, chimpanzees (at least bonobos) use distinct warning calls for different predators, the RUDIMENTS of language should be considered to pre-date the ascent of modern man.

 

[loseyourname]

Given the ability of gorillas to use sign language, we know that the mental capability to comprehend and use language pre-existed the emergence of humanity (a capability well beyond differential signals for predators, which even prairie dogs can do). I would imagine that the ability to use a vocal language emerged at the same time as the peculiar jaw structure that humans have that allows us to make the complex vocalizations that we can make.

 

[wolram]

Given the ability of gorillas to use sign language, we know that the mental capability to comprehend and use language pre-existed the emergence of humanity (a capability well beyond differential signals for predators, which even prairie dogs can do). I would imagine that the ability to use a vocal language emerged at the same time as the peculiar jaw structure that humans have that allows us to make the complex vocalizations that we can make.

Given we now have the mechanical means to make complex sounds, how did
man choose which sound should have which meaninig ? and how did the,"new
vibe" spread, so as every one new what it meant ?

 

[wolram]

Since, for example, chimpanzees (at least bonobos) use distinct warning calls for different predators, the RUDIMENTS of language should be considered to pre-date the ascent of modern man.

Do you think a mixture of signs and sounds were the rudiments ? from what
i know population were small and hunter gatherer, so how is that each family
did not have an independant language ? it must have taken ages for say the
population of england to agree on what sound meant what.

 

[loseyourname]

Given we now have the mechanical means to make complex sounds, how did man choose which sound should have which meaninig ? and how did the,"new vibe" spread, so as every one new what it meant ?

Beats me. You're asking a historical question about pre-history. I can guess, but the guess won't be terribly educated, as I'm not a linguist. Actually, you might want to take a look at the private languages that develop between twins, or similar phenomena. I would imagine that the way in which language first developed is not that far removed.

 

[wolram]

Beats me. You're asking a historical question about pre-history. I can guess, but the guess won't be terribly educated, as I'm not a linguist. Actually, you might want to take a look at the private languages that develop between twins, or similar phenomena. I would imagine that the way in which language first developed is not that far removed.

I read some thing about this ages ago, they make up a," perfectly normal",
language between them selves, but i think lagauge all ready exists and they
some how modify it in a unique way.
can you imagine going to a bar and pointing to the beer you want, but the
barkeep is so alien and pointing means some thing totaly different, without
being able to grab it how could you convey what you want ?

 

[zoobyshoe]

Given we now have the mechanical means to make complex sounds, how did
man choose which sound should have which meaninig ? and how did the,"new
vibe" spread, so as every one new what it meant ?

I think this would happen the same way anything else is decided in a community. First off, some members are always going to be more word oriented than others and will automaticaly name any new thing or concept by "feel" as it were. Other, less creative types, will simply adopt the term since it's been presented and is handy. In other cases, there will be disputes over two or more terms. All the terms may survive the dispute and be used alternatively, or some dictatorial person may be able to promote one and squelch the others.

 

[wolram]

If you took just for example, england and started with a population capable
of speach but with as yet no language, how long do you think it would be
before Fred from the east coast could converse with Barney, from the west
coast ?

 

[wolram]

Amoung others this paper explains an experiment where robots attempt to
form a common sound, robot A emits a signal, robot B attempts to replicate
the signal, if after several attempts robot B replicates the signal, " to within
acceptable limits", robot A marks up a hit, if however robot B fails to replicate
the signal robot A starts again with a new sigal.

http://arti.vub.ac.be/steels/coe.pdf

The paper is highly cited, and explains other language experiments.

 

[Evo]

Amoung others this paper explains an experiment where robots attempt to
form a common sound, robot A emits a signal, robot B attempts to replicate
the signal, if after several attempts robot B replicates the signal, " to within
acceptable limits", robot A marks up a hit, if however robot B fails to replicate
the signal robot A starts again with a new sigal.

http://arti.vub.ac.be/steels/coe.pdf

The paper is highly cited, and explains other language experiments.

I can't read it right now, but do they take it past replicating a sound?

The robots can't point and gesture to enable the other to connect the sound with an object or movement, etc... Also facial expressions, is the sound loud or soft, angry or happy. All of these things would have played a part in our ancestor's development of a common language.

 

[zoobyshoe]

If you took just for example, england and started with a population capable
of speach but with as yet no language...

I doubt if there was ever a time people were capable of speech without having it. Find the first homo sapiens sapiens and you will have found the origin of language as we know it.

 

[wolram]

I can't read it right now, but do they take it past replicating a sound?

The robots can't point and gesture to enable the other to connect the sound with an object or movement, etc... Also facial expressions, is the sound loud or soft, angry or happy. All of these things would have played a part in our ancestor's development of a common language.

They had no way of expression, the experiment was purly to find out if the
robots could, "learn", sounds and repeat them.
I will post a few clips for you busy people

 

[wolram]

gestures and formant shapes evolves through cultural transmission and adaptation.
Distinctive features then become emergent properties seen in retrospect by
a descriptive linguist. The adaptation is driven by two types of selectionist criteria:
perceptual constraints such as the limitations of the human ear, maximisation
of distinctiveness and symmetrical balance, and articulatory constraints such as
expressability, repeatability and energy minimisation. Several researchers have
shown theoretically that these criteria are sufficient to constrain the kind of sound
systems that occur in human languages [40], [7], [6], [17], et.al.
However these demonstrations do not yet show whether sound systems can be
originated and acquired by local interaction between agents. This is where agent based
modeling and simulation comes in. A simulation experiment by de Boer and
Steels [15] has successfully demonstrated the self-organisation of a sound system
through adaptive imitation games. The experiment has the following structure:
1. Agent population: There is a population of agents and an in- and outflux of
agents which is independent of their linguistic performance.
2. Innate structure: There is no innate phonetic knowledge. The agents have
a synthetic articulator modeled after the human vocal tract and a perceptual
apparatus that decomposes real-time signals into formants.
3. Linguistic interaction: One agent (the initiator) produces a sound or sound
sequence from its repertoire, which is initially empty. The other agent (the
replicator) attempts to imitate the sound, which implies that he is able to
recognise the sounds produced by the initiator and instantiate a gestural
score that corresponds to the sounds. The initiator in turns interprets the
sound produced by the imitator and gives a positive feedback when the imitation is deemed to be close enough.

 

[wolram]

I doubt if there was ever a time people were capable of speech without having it. Find the first homo sapiens sapiens and you will have found the origin of language as we know it.

Are you suggesting a sort of," inbuilt", language, sort of pre programed to
become effective when man had evolved to a certain stage?
researchers have as yet not found speech in, "genetics", AFAIK

 

[zoobyshoe]

Are you suggesting a sort of," inbuilt", language, sort of pre programed to
become effective when man had evolved to a certain stage?
researchers have as yet not found speech in, "genetics", AFAIK

Are you saying that speech is "ungenetic"? Unnsupported by our genes? How did we manage that, then?

 

[selfAdjoint]

Chomsky's generative grammar, presumably evolved in our brains, suggests how we might have it both ways, as we must (all normal human toddlers learn language, but the language each learns is a social construct).

 

[Smurf]

Are you suggesting a sort of," inbuilt", language, sort of pre programed to
become effective when man had evolved to a certain stage?
researchers have as yet not found speech in, "genetics", AFAIK

There is a section of the brain that is dedicated to language learning. We've obviously evolved to accommodate language, social construction or natural phenomena.

 

[wolram]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=8906789&dopt=Citation
VA Northern California Health Care System, Martinez, California 94553, USA. dronkers@garnet.berkeley.edu

Human speech requires complex planning and coordination of mouth and tongue movements. Certain types of brain injury can lead to a condition known as apraxia of speech, in which patients are impaired in their ability to coordinate speech movements but their ability to perceive speech sounds, including their own errors, is unaffected. The brain regions involved in coordinating speech, however, remain largely unknown. In this study, brain lesions of 25 stroke patients with a disorder in the motor planning of articulatory movements were compared with lesions of 19 patients without such deficits. A robust double dissociation was found between these two groups. All patients with articulatory planning deficits had lesions that included a discrete region of the left precentral gyrus of the insula, a cortical area beneath the frontal and temporal lobes. This area was completely spared in all patients without these articulation deficits. Thus this area seems to be specialized for the motor planning of speech.

I have read that people with brain damage that effects their speech, can learn to use other
parts of the brain

 

[wolram]

Are you saying that speech is "ungenetic"? Unnsupported by our genes? How did we manage that, then?

Not me Zooby, the people who seem to be the experts, i was amazed to find
out that our abillity to speek is so little understood.

 

[wolram]

Parrots can talk and learn english, a science article that suggests language
may be an animal thing rather than a human thing.

http://www.sciencenetlinks.com/sci_update.cfm?DocID=135

 

[wolram]

Primate use of language.

The subjects, Nim, Loulis, Washoe and Kanzi, all demonstrate the use of
language, don't give Nim a loaded syringe though.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Not me Zooby, the people who seem to be the experts...

I don't think so. Obviously all the parts of our brain that contribute to speech are there because there are genes for them. There's no one "speech" or "language" gene because it's such a complex process and involves so many different things. To say they haven't found a "language" gene is like saying they haven't found a "walking" gene, or a "piano-playing" gene or a "garden-cultivation" gene. All these things are complex processes. Whatever genetic underpinnings they have are spread out over many parts of the brain.

Communication is extremely important for survival. All the members of a band of primitives were dependent on each other and you can't engage in group endeavors without each person understanding what their role is. Hunting the wooly mammoth, or whatever animal, took observation, planning, and communication among the hunters. Early man wasn't sitting around while the ability to speak developed unnoticed somehow until someone discovered it one day. They were constantly at work trying to communicate with each other in any way they could. They had to be. Their survival depended on it.

Langauge is the ability to symbolize: to use one thing to refer to another. In the case of speech, this is sound. As Arildno and Loseyourname pointed out early in this thread, apes already have this ability, and it's very doubtful homonids didn't. I am sure that as soon as cro-magnon man existed as such the use of verbal symbology was very much in place and probably every bit as sophisticated as any current language in use among, say, Amazonian Indian tribes.

 

[wolram]

I am inclined to agree with you Zooby, what worries me is, if humans had the
language skills for milenia before the first known written words, what were they
waiting for ?
I think the oldest written word is sanskrit some 4000yrs old ?

 

[zoobyshoe]

I am inclined to agree with you Zooby, what worries me is, if humans had the
language skills for milenia before the first known written words, what were they
waiting for ?

The notion of symbolizing symbols is quite a bit more complex, and we know from the myriad primitive peoples who never developed a written language that the idea of breaking words into component sounds that might be symbolized by an alphabet is really counterintuitive. I suspect this was only done, when it was done, by remarkable, unusual individuals who then managed to teach others to do it. It's not something everyone, or even most people, would think of.

On the other hand "picture writing" is quite a bit more accessible, more easily developed, and forms of this were probably springing up all over the place. This is the basis of hieroglyphs and Chinese written language. Sophisticated ideas can be communicated this way, but it's not the elegant and simple phonetic writing we enjoy.

 

[wolram]

I can not agree entirely with you Zooby, the time span is just so vast, if humans
had language milenia ago it is counter intuitive for me that the written word only
emerged in the last four thound or so, i would expect to see some high degree
of sophisticated cave drawings at least.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I can not agree entirely with you Zooby, the time span is just so vast, if humans
had language milenia ago it is counter intuitive for me that the written word only
emerged in the last four thound or so, i would expect to see some high degree
of sophisticated cave drawings at least.

So you believe human language is no more than 4000 years old?

 

[wolram]

So you believe human language is no more than 4000 years old?

No Zooby i think human language is much older, but the written word is only traceable to 4000yrs ago, i think if humans had language milenia ago the
written word or some sophisticated form of depicting instructions or some such
should be apparent but that is not so, that is my only concern.
I can not believe our ancestors could not advance from crude paintings over
such a vast time span, unless some outside influence repeatedly halted their
progress.

 

[Evo]

Think of how many cultures found that had verbal language but no written language. Think about tribes in the Amazon, in Africa, American Indians, etc... Written lanugauge is not something that happens quickly after verbal language, or at all.

 

[wolram]

Think of how many cultures found that had verbal language but no written language. Think about tribes in the Amazon, in Africa, American Indians, etc... Written lanugauge is not something that happens quickly after verbal language, or at all.

Over a few hundred or even a few thousand years i agree, but not tens of thousands, the written word or some symbology would be an invaluable tool,
a way of recording the best hunting sites ,what plants not to eat, where water
could be found etc, etc, and we are not talking about local peoples, i can not
think that over milenia some one some where did not think of leaving messages.

 

[Evo]

Over a few hundred or even a few thousand years i agree, but not tens of thousands, the written word or some symbology would be an invaluable tool,
a way of recording the best hunting sites ,what plants not to eat, where water
could be found etc, etc, and we are not talking about local peoples, i can not
think that over milenia some one some where did not think of leaving messages.

But we have living proof that these people didn't have written languages. Everything was passed down through oral traditions.

 

[zoobyshoe]

But we have living proof that these people didn't have written languages. Everything was passed down through oral traditions.

Absolutely true. The fact that there are today tribes in the amazon with no written language proves there is nothing particularly inevitable about it.
Written language arises in very settled, well established, large civilizations that also have such things as engineering and advanced agriculture. So long as a peoples are hunter-gatherers they don't seem to get beyond cave paintings and petroglyphs. That, as we know from the present day Amazonian Indians, can go on indefinitely.

 

[wolram]

Absolutely true. The fact that there are today tribes in the amazon with no written language proves there is nothing particularly inevitable about it.
Written language arises in very settled, well established, large civilizations that also have such things as engineering and advanced agriculture. So long as a peoples are hunter-gatherers they don't seem to get beyond cave paintings and petroglyphs. That, as we know from the present day Amazonian Indians, can go on indefinitely.

The very fact that language is considered easily passed through sparsley populated peoples and some form of agreement is reached as to what a
word means is an attestment to human learning ability, do you think that
learning is one track, amazonian indiands are a second in human evolution
not a millenia.
So language would have to come from well established large civilisations.
is that what you mean or are you putting some handicap on the power
of human evolution and ability?

 

[wolram]

But we have living proof that these people didn't have written languages. Everything was passed down through oral traditions.

If what you say is true then you are using some sort of divine intervention, a
spark that informs the peoples on Earth that, let there be writing, we need it now, but never before, if the peoples that inhabited the Earth could comunicate
verbaly for thousands of years, why the heck does it become so important in
later years to be able to record what has been said?

 

[zoobyshoe]

amazonian indiands are a second in human evolution not a millenia.

Incorrect. Amazonian tribes represent the same 40,000 years of human history that we do.

So language would have to come from well established large civilisations.
is that what you mean or are you putting some handicap on the power
of human evolution and ability?

I'm saying this is where written language always develops. Stone and clay tablets, scrolls, and delicate parchments don't travel well. Writing develops among people who stay put, and who have the engineering abilities to construct permanent buldings, to quarry stone and make kilns to fire clay, and to make parchments, papers, and inks.

 

[wolram]

Incorrect. Amazonian tribes represent the same 40,000 years of human history that we do.
I'm saying this is where written language always develops. Stone and clay tablets, scrolls, and delicate parchments don't travel well. Writing develops among people who stay put, and who have the engineering abilities to construct permanent buldings, to quarry stone and make kilns to fire clay, and to make parchments, papers, and inks.

Amazonian indians represent a branch of human evolution, a people that lived
in the main in isolation.
I would think that a hunter gatherer life style would be a huge reason to develop writting, people on the move would leave messages, or would want to record where they found water or caves.
Along with speech comes learning, i think it would be incredible that a people
that had speech for 10, 20, 30, "1000 years" would be blind to the fact that
a picture is worth a thousand words.

 

[wolram]

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-03/uoca-eie032102.php

The Kostenki sites, which date beyond 40,000 years ago, may have hosted Neanderthals as well as modern humans, he said. “It looks like there were two separate industries at work here. One culture was advanced in terms of bone and ivory tool-making and decorative figurine art, while the other produced little more than crude stone tools.”

A 40,000yr old spring board for writting ?

 

[wolram]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1753326.stm

70,000yr old abstract art.

Dr Christopher Henshilwood, from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, says: "They may have been constructed with symbolic intent, the meaning of which is now unknown.

UNYSB
Dr Christopher Henshilwood believes the items are significant
"The engraving itself is quite a complex geometric pattern. There is a system to the patterns."

"We don't know what they mean, but they are symbols that I think could have been interpreted by those people as having meaning that would have been understood by others."

 

[wolram]

http://donsmaps.com/indextools.html

A 30.000yr old musical instrument, evidence for stone age use of maths.

Seems our ancestors were not as savage as depicted in some books, and
they had a good understanding of abstract art.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Amazonian indians represent a branch of human evolution, a people that lived
in the main in isolation.

Before the European occupation of the Americas no Native Americans had a written language except the Aztecs and Mayas (I think). I believe the same is true of all African peoples except the Egyptians. Australian Aborigines: no written language.
All these people come from the same ancestor, and it proves that the development of written language is not an inevitable concommitant of spoken language. Written language seems only to have arisen from a certain kind of society.

I would think that a hunter gatherer life style would be a huge reason to develop writting, people on the move would leave messages, or would want to record where they found water or caves.
Along with speech comes learning, i think it would be incredible that a people
that had speech for 10, 20, 30, "1000 years" would be blind to the fact that a picture is worth a thousand words.

You are thinking like someone who has had written language handed to them, which is what you are. Just because you can learn such a concept relatively easily doesn't mean you could have developed it yourself. As I said before it's not something anyone could have though of, in all cases where it developed, I'm sure it was the work of remarkable, unusual individuals, and it caught on because it serves a purpose in a particular kind of society.
Hunter-gatherers, who generally move their whole band at least twice twice a year to follow game and take advantage of what different areas have to offer in different seasons, are concerned with the portability of their necessities. Other bands are their competition for resources. They aren't about to leave them messages about where they found game or water or shelter.
It is an unusual, counterintuitive step from spoken language, which anyone can develop, to written language, which seems to require an unusual, especially symbol-oriented mind. Spoken language predated written language by millenia, and it is never inevitable that written language is developed at all.

 

[arildno]

As I see it, the main cause behind the development of a written language is the establishment of relatively stable power structures that have a sufficiently wide sway.

A case in point is the so-called redistribution economies that prevailed in Mycenean times (and also, in Pharaonic Egypt):

Basically, you had the big guy in the middle of the region who had underlings spread through the region. On regular times, people traveled to the big guy's palace with their own produce, and was a given a proportionate amount of other goods stored in the big guy's house.
This was actually a rather rational form of division of labour; the inhabitants could get more varied goods out of this organization than if they had kept to a strictly local barter economy on the village level.

But this type of societal structure requires that the palace administration has efficient techniques to store goods, and not the least, have some record of what goods they have, and where they once had placed them..

Thus, a written language will be very advantageous for the palace officials to develop for their own and their community's benefit.

 

[wolram]

If you do not mind Zooby i will leave this open, i have some personal ideas that
peaks in human learning may have been lost in the mists of time, there are clues
but the interpritation of them is vague. empires have come and gone in a few
hundred years, who knows for sure that our ancestors did not have the same
but more catastrophic problems.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Basically, you had the big guy in the middle of the region who had underlings spread through the region. On regular times, people traveled to the big guy's palace with their own produce, and was a given a proportionate amount of other goods stored in the big guy's house.

Exactly, Arildno. If I'm not mistaken most cuneiform tablets are "bills of goods". Written language may well, in all cases, have arisen as a flourish to the pedestrian usage of "keeping talley".

 

[arildno]

Exactly, Arildno. If I'm not mistaken most cuneiform tablets are "bills of goods". Written language may well, in all cases, have arisen as a flourish to the pedestrian usage of "keeping talley".

That's basically what I think...
I have at times, wondered why, say, the massive lore the druids were to learn was never written down as some sort of memnonic aid.
I think that the very fact that they remembered and knew so much personally was a key factor to their social position.
After all, who would you admire the most:
The guy who can answer straightaway on your question who your family's ancestors were and seems personally familiar with your great-grandfather's heroic actions, or the one who says "Uhm, well, yeah, I didn't bring that book with me, I'm sure your great-granddad is worthy of remembrance"

From this perspective, I would think that the idea of writing down your knowledge as a memory aid will just seem as if you are willing to let mediocre individuals become Druids.

But think of a storage clerk in a palace:
It wouldn't enhance his social position a lot if he rattled off at a social gathering how many barrels of wheat were stored in his employer's palace..

 

[wolram]

As I see it, the main cause behind the development of a written language is the establishment of relatively stable power structures that have a sufficiently wide sway.
A case in point is the so-called redistribution economies that prevailed in Mycenean times (and also, in Pharaonic Egypt):
Basically, you had the big guy in the middle of the region who had underlings spread through the region. On regular times, people traveled to the big guy's palace with their own produce, and was a given a proportionate amount of other goods stored in the big guy's house.
This was actually a rather rational form of division of labour; the inhabitants could get more varied goods out of this organization than if they had kept to a strictly local barter economy on the village level.
But this type of societal structure requires that the palace administration has efficient techniques to store goods, and not the least, have some record of what goods they have, and where they once had placed them..
Thus, a written language will be very advantageous for the palace officials to develop for their own and their community's benefit.

None of this prohibits a lost culture, there was plenty to barter for 100,000yrs
ago, if you look at some of the links, you will note," centers of industry", were
in place about 40,000 yrs ago

 

[arildno]

None of this prohibits a lost culture, there was plenty to barter for 100,000yrs
ago, if you look at some of the links, you will note," centers of industry", were
in place about 40,000 yrs ago

No, but I haven't read most of the previous posts in this thread..

 

[wolram]

No, but I haven't read most of the previous posts in this thread..

That is forgiveable as most people do not have the time to weigh the evidence,
and search through endless web sites.

 

[zoobyshoe]

None of this prohibits a lost culture, there was plenty to barter for 100,000yrs
ago, if you look at some of the links, you will note," centers of industry", were
in place about 40,000 yrs ago

"Industry" in this context refers to a style of toolmaking, not manufacture for trade.

This mention of "lost culture" makes me think you have a theory that written language could have been developed farther back than 4000 years ago, but the culture was lost. Is that what you're leading up to?

 

[wolram]

Zooby, we have only just recovered from a historical decline in civilisation,
and around the wolrd there have been many. anywher people gather en mass
could be a starting point for human learning, trade, art, the evidence for art is
found in artifacts, "if the link abve is correct", 100,000yrs ago, music 30,000
there is also mention of a counting system, time is not kind to artifacts and
archeaology is not well funded or wide spread so apart form decay of these
things they are not even looked for. and sever climate changes could have
destroyed most of the evidence, my personal view is that over 100,000yrs
there is every chance for culture to peak and decline, many times.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I don't have any objection to the notion that someone developed a writing system prior to the sanscrit one you mentioned but which we haven't unearthed, or which may have been so impermanent that the traces are gone forever. Old, unknown cities have turned up from time to time all over the place, and it is sometimes a matter of conjecture linking them to the written record.
Homo Sapiens Sapiens, that is us, only go back about 40,000 years at the very most, though. Before that it was all Neanderthals and other homonids, who have only left the crudest form of stone tools, examples of the Mousterian industry. Art, beads, bone flutes, ritual burial, sophisticated tool making, are all more recent than 40,000 years ago, and are from Cro-Magnon and more recent Sapiens Sapiens sites.
However all tribal people encountered by Europeans around the world had art, beads, bone flutes, ritual burial, and sophisticated tool making without also having written language. So, while it's possible that in some lost city written language was developed in the past, say, 30,000 years, but the evidence has perished, it isn't inevitable as you seem to think. That lost city might have existed, but it doesn't have to have existed to account for anything at all. We know of too many diverse peoples who have come from cro-magnon times to the present without developing written language to know that it is, really, an unusual thing to develop.