Why have humans been able to develop language? Even "primitive" cultures still have language. Yet somehow no other creature has been able to get past basic signals. Even monkeys, gorillas, dolphins, dogs, cats, and birds don't have a language. Sure they can "get by" just fine, but they could express a lot more with an equivelant to words and sentences.
Humans that are isolated from other humans actually lose brain function and language ability, while a stimulated brain grows the language areas of the brain as the human learns early. An "animal language" taught at baby age should be able to work, as long as the animal can repeat different noises. It doesn't have to sound human. Bears would have different noises that mean something, like Wookies.
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Anonymous2005-11-26 23:15
I'm not aure what you're claiming here, are you saying that we could hypothetically get babies to speak bear? Not mocking, just confused.
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Anonymous2005-11-27 0:42
>>1
They probably lack the audio perception and language syntax hardware that we have. It'd be like trying to play doom 3 on an old 4mb video card.
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Anonymous2005-11-27 1:04
Humans evolved language after we first began to use tools, humans have been throwing rocks and using them to split acorns for millions of years and im sure many differnet skills were developped htat helped people survive which had to be passedo n to their children. Those which were better at communicating could teach their children more complex ways of doing things, aswell as other benefits of language that come after that and speed up the evolution of our brains and lips.
Why do you think black people have sloped foreheads and big lips?
If humans, INCLUDING black people, can develop language, then why can't bears develop their own language? Humans wouldn't be able to speak it since we don't have the same anatomy, but bears should be able to teach meaningful noises to themselves, or have a machine attempt it like with dolphins/whales. Animal noises are very basic signals, but they aren't standard noises used to construct meaningful sentences. Yet you can teach animals to make certain noises when they're babies, such as birds, dogs, etc. Why can't they give that knowledge to their children like we do? If you teach a human baby basic words it will learn them and attribute meaning when you point at things. Neglect a human baby and it will nver grow language skills. Animal parents teach their young basic survival skills and noises, so language should develop at some point. But it hasn't.
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Styrofoam!DWDMFPPpRw2005-11-27 17:24
Apes have at least the brain components necessary to learn language. Perhaps they use a language, perhaps they don't, but apes have learned sign language and have constructed new sentences.
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Anonymous2005-11-27 17:55
Why do you think black people have sloped foreheads and big lips?
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Because they're niggers.
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Anonymous2005-11-28 7:02 (sage)
This thread is made of lol.
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Anonymous2005-11-28 17:28
>>5
Because we have evolved it, they haven't. Basically, if they did have the capacity for language, then they would probably be a threat to us, and therefore we would murder their asses before they did anything. I think we've already done this to the neanderthals or the other something i think yes.
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Anonymous2005-11-28 19:20
I think Noam Chomsky is full of it.
If by language you mean attaching meaning to arbitrary symbols (symbols in any form) in order to communicate, then I think it's wrong to assume that animals do not have language. Most animals, even squirrels, communicate in this means. (A bunch of scienetist have codified squirrel squeaks and grants that follow the basic 'universal grammar' rules Noam Chomsky pionnered)
If you are wondering why the language humans use is so much more complex and can communicate so much more semantics, then I would agree with most above statements in that it is an accidental Darwinian feature. Using the language we used helped us survive better thus promoting those genetics (I.E Natural Selection).
Why we can't teach, say, a Dog to speak a human-type language is probably because of anatomical-physical limitations in their brain structure, as well as something like their eye-sight.
Again, I think animals use language but not human-like language because of anatomical-physical limitations. You could teach Koko or some other high-ape sign language, but the pace is painfully slow and they do reach a limit. Maybe Gorillas could have evolved to employ a more semantic-rich language. I don't see that happening though.