Why Did We Evolve Language?

[Qfwfq]

We were not nomads then! Nomads are a people who range large areas with their herds. That began less than 10,000 years ago. Until then we were hunting-gathering people. One should not guess in science forums.

Perhaps you should avoid guessing too.

 

Not all nomadic peoples herd animals, nomadic simply means people that don't settle permanently or for a long time in an area. Nomads can be traders, they can be craftsmen that peddle their own products here and there, they can be travelling performers, they can even be just beggars and pilferers, or... they can be hunter-gatherers.

 

It's quite reasonable to say that language was a great advantage to hunting, it is also held that it replaced mutual pruning as a way of constructing social bonds. In any case many animal species and not only primates have some kind of language (including both sound and gesture) and in some species researchers have been able to identify linguistic differences between communities. What distinguishes us is that we have what is called complex language: sentences with full syntactical and grammatical structure.

[charles brough]

Verbal language likely began during the latter part of the nomad days, before humans set up camps and towns, wherest spoken language would play a pivitol role in future writings.

 

My apologies, mcgyver! I looked up "nomad" and discovered it has three definiitions. Hunting/gatherers, pastoral herders and traveling iternants such as gypsies. In my work, I settle on only one defintion for each key word and put it in my glossary. For the forum purposes I should have said pastoral nomads. I regard the use of mulitple-meaning terms is one of the worst problems of the social sciences---especially social theory. It would be better for there to be three separate terms instead of one for all three. I often say that if the surgeon reads that you have heart valve stenosis, it is good that the term has only one meaning!

 

charles, HOME PAGE

[hamihaha]

Last time I was looking at my cat and ask myself...

What is he thinking about. Then I ask, can we think without language?

[Queso]

Last time I was looking at my cat and ask myself...

What is he thinking about. Then I ask, can we think without language?

 

Yes.

I don't know about you, but I can feel certain things without words.

Once meditating I felt time spiral into itself causing a crescendo and it felt so intense I could feel it happening right now, extending into the future.

And yes, I can explain it with these words

but in that moment it was wordless,

a feeling.

[Queso]

And although you may think "I want water"

your body tells you to go get some without words.

Words can get in the way. Words can make magic.

Whatever

[hamihaha]

And although you may think "I want water"

your body tells you to go get some without words.

Words can get in the way. Words can make magic.

Whatever

 

Yes but I will think "I'm thursty, let's go get something to drink, a glass of water, the bottle is in the fridge...".

What would the cat think?

[Queso]

It would think the feeling.

The "instinct"

[hamihaha]

It would think the feeling.

The "instinct"

..

 

Maybe.

 

What does your signature mean "Rome falls nine times an hour"?

[Qfwfq]

Yes but I will think "I'm thursty, let's go get something to drink, a glass of water, the bottle is in the fridge...".

What would the cat think?

IMHO the words we often think are only the end result of thought. By the time you put those words together, you've already thought, you already know what you mean.

 

Perhaps, even... you've already got yourself the drink.

 

What does your signature mean "Rome falls nine times an hour"?

I suspect it means something hard to put into words. :confused:

[TZK]

Why? It is only natural given the way our mind works in my opinion. If you see a palm tree, you might think of a frequent location in which you have seen palm tree occur. If you hear a sound you might think of a frequent location in which that sound occurs. If you want someone to go there, you might mimic the sound. Before you know it you have the basics of a language.

[Queso]

..

 

Maybe.

 

What does your signature mean "Rome falls nine times an hour"?

 

He asked;

 

YouTube - timewavezero clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu6WFr61I-g&mode=related&search=

 

Amazing video! Terrence McKenna explains why rome falls nine times an hour.

 

Think like an animal. Names are like answers. Answers are like dead ends.

[charles brough]

I found this thread of interest :pirate: I know that in language and cognitive development, a human being will not develop his language and/or language use unless he is compelled to do so by an external locus.

 

This statement is (unintentionally) misleading. Yes, an infant or child left in isolation or in the wild with animals, will develop no desire to speak and can learn it only poorly when re-introduced to society. But since we are social animals and do not live in isolation or only with other animals (!) infants and children take to speech babbling with gusto and employ it as a means of achieving a feeling of closeness with others.

 

What we do is determined by what we believe, and since all our world-views and way-of-thinking are set by ideology and mostly by religious ideology---all expessed in spoken words---people want to speak in order to show each other their common viewpoint and achieve validation as one of the group.

 

So for all practical purposes, speech needs to be studied and analyzed as something we do naturally and voluntarily.

[charles brough]

Post #28's U-tube video was such an amateur, simplistic look at world history that it was not really worth watching--much less bothering to criticize it.

[chlotilde]

If you want to discuss the origins of religion, however, that's a different story altogether. In my mind, religion is merely an illustration of how inquisitive we are. .

 

Some think it is an "evolution" of knowledge, with our inquistive knowledge evolving into science...which will evolve to ? :) Not that this is my opinion, mind you.

As for language, many linguists will distinguish human language from other communicative forms by adding a definition of grammar.

Even plants are able to communicate with eachother (chemically).

 

chlo