evolution of man and development of languege

[mangaddict_reborn]

One day I pose a question to my chem teacher "How did humans develop the languege system?" and he's like "that question doesn't have anything to do with chemistry" and I think that he just doesn't know the answer because if you think about it, to develop a grammar system for humans would be unfeasable to consider. Nothing can be taught without communication and communicating languege to someone without languege is unimaginably difficult. I'm not sure how Hellen Keller did it. Most of my friends are unfortunately Christians jerks and they just answer "tower of babel" over and over again while making fun of evolution and I'm like "shut up! I wasn't asking you!"

For you evolutionists out there, what's your explanation or theory to how humans developed languege?

[genryou]

there is a theory which say that language evolution occurs because the existence of 'meme' in humans mind...

and the term meme refers to a unit of cultural information transferable from one mind to another. in other words, meme r sumthin like tunes, catch-phrases, beliefs, clothes fashions, ways of making pots, or of building arches...when this kind of thing r combine together, there goes a language 4 u...


in other words, language evolution occurs bcoz of the vary in human culture and experience..... take the example of japanase language which consist of kanji (chinese char), hiragana (japanese syllabary), katakana (japanese syllabary) and arabic numeral....pretty obvious isnt it?

unfortunately, this theory doesnt really explain the real origin of language...

[mangaddict_reborn]

Right! Universal languege existed before human languege. But I really am curious about the origin of human languege- scientifically speaking.

[genryou]

theoritically, human didnt use language when their first exist... they communicate using picthograph and body movement.....

religiously, if adam and eve is the first human in this world, what kind of language did they use?

[mangaddict_reborn]

The languege of love
They had 99 children, who needs to talk?

[genryou]

[mangaddict_reborn]

I'm saying, 99 children means a lot of sex.
And who has time for talking when so much sex?
That's what I meant.

Just doin the math
99 is roughly 100
There are 12 months in a year
9 months of pregnancy.
100 X 9 is 900
900 / 12 is 75

That's 75 years of sex, which is actually impossible because menapause would take place before then, since Adam and Eve were both adults, around 30 when they magically appeared on earth, giving them maybe 20 years of sex before she became unable. They could have quintouplets each time but if so, Eve would have died from blood loss.

[genryou]

[Max315]

You have to remember that evolution is not just physical, it's mental and cultural as well. Language came into being because it was necessary for our survival. Every sentient animal has some way of comunicating with others of it's species, whether it's touch, for ants and other insects or sound for most other animals.

The reason we have such a complex system of comunication is because we have the one thing that other animals don't have: the ability to reason and think logicaly. With this ability we furthered are method of comunication from gestures and guteral sounds to speech by applying logical rules (grammar) to our language, and over the years (centuries) we refined it until we have the many diverse languages we have today. Without being able to comunicate the way we do, and without out our ability to work in well organised and strategially led groups, we would have been extinct long ago because we didn't have the strenght of many of the other prehitoric animals. It was our resourcefullness which came about through our comunication and ability to think as a group that helped us survive. So in short, it was simply a part of our evolution, we evolve to survive and adapt to our environment, and without this crucial step, thered be no human race, or at the very least, we'd still be hunter gatherers in small waring bands.

By the way, this is just my opinion, I just kinda pieced together a few things I learned to make a thesis. It could just as well be complete garbage . But at least it sounds intelligent... I hope.

[mangaddict_reborn]

[Max315]

I'm afraid anything I do from now on is going to be guess work and opinion, but hey, thats what this is about. Language, like every other part of evolution didn't happen over night, it happened over what was most likely thousands of years. At first yes, i'm sure someone decided to call the "hot orange stuff" fire, and then it caught on, and people start mutually calling it "fire". And so, slowly more words came about in this way until a small vocabulary was developed, and a rudementory language established. Basically it was a language with no words that weren't grounded in the material plain. For example the words "tree", "bird" and "you" would exist, but words that didn't describe something physical probably came much later. Therefore a typical caveman conversatiopn probably still involved a great deal of complementary pointing, and very short sentences, such as "fire! (points in direction)" or "you (points) bird" (for you get the bird).

Later, i'm not even going to speculate on the amound of years later, they probably noticed the need to use words that described things that wern't physically in existence, such as verbs and other more complex nouns, but mostly verbs at this stage. So now the cavemen would be using the same methods they used to get people to understand what "fire" meant with actions. He might jump and say the word jump, or whatever, althought i'm looking at it almost from the point of someone smarter trying to teach children how to learn, but there always has to be a leader, so it's plausible I supose. Once they were able to form phrases with nouns and verbs they would be able to comunicate much more effectively, and would be able to organise themselves, a key point in our evolution.

The other words, words that are neither physical entities, or verbs would probably come later, when the need for more complex conversation arises. It would probably happen along the same lines as what I described previously so I won't go into detail about it.

Thats about the best explanation I can come up with, not having studied anything in this field. It's pretty basic, and involes a lot of conjecture, but I suppose it makes some sense, although I'm also starting to get interested in how language truly arose. I'm sure theres probably more too it then this, most likely involving a lot of large scientific and technical terms that i wouldn't understand .

[napoleon459]

Most social animals, especially the more advanced ones like mammals, and some insects, have some form of communicating with one another. Chimps for instance, can gauge the emotions of their companions by their facial expressions, honeybees can let their hivemates know the location of flowers through dancing, and ground squirrels will warn other squirrels of approaching predators (they actually have different calls for different predators). It's not implausible to assume that preman primates could communicate similarly to chimps.
That's just communication though, the more advanced actual language with its complex syntax and grammar seems to be a hallmark of humans. Recent research by Fitch and Hauser in the January 2004 edition of Science magazine showed that cotton-top tamarins, a type of monkey, are capable of grasping simple syntactic constructions with finite lengths but not more complicated unbounded syntax, a task which humans were capable of. It has also been found that the FOXP2 gene, located on chromosome 7 in humans, is necessary for an individual to be able to grasp certain aspects of syntax and grammar. The product of the FOXP2 gene is a protein which causes differences in neuron growth in certain parts of the brain, associated with language (see Shu et al. 2006 for an experiment they did on mice without the FOXP2 gene), I'm not exactly sure about the details. Anyway, this FOXP2 gene shows up in a lot of animals in mostly the same form, but the human version seems to have a few key differences. That's what I've heard on the subject, if you're interested in it, I'd suggest at least taking a look at the research on the FOXP2 gene, which seems to be fairly important in the evolution of language.

[RossBhoy]

Man has evolved to far. Just look at the fat people who can't get out of bed and are growing more and more till you have to take a wall out there house to get them out. We may be the first animal to de-evolve.

[PsiKro]

A logical guess would be that they first communicated with simple sounds like growls, yells, hoots, etc.

Eventually the sounds began to vary based on the levels of danger / excitement, and eventually spread, further developing into a broader range of sounds that we began to associate with certain things until a form of language was formed.

[Objectivist]