Re: Proto-World, Nostratic, etc.

From: Ivanovas/Milatos
Message: 251
Date: 1999-11-13

˙ţ<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META content="text/html; charset=unicode" http-equiv=Content-Type> <META content="MSHTML 5.00.2014.210" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV><FONT face="Lucida Sans Unicode" size=2>Hello,</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Lucida Sans Unicode" size=2>Mark wrote:</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Lucida Sans Unicode" size=2>>Without real language, you cannot exchange information except by physically showing someone else what it is you want to tell them. With language, you can tell your grandchildren what your grandmother told you her grandmother said about food and water sources at some distance. With language, you can discuss hunting and gathering strategies, <</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Lucida Sans Unicode" size=2>I think there is one important addition to this. My husband - as a doctor and psychotherapist - has been working in the field of reception-theory lately and made me aware of some important facts in the theories of language acquisition (basically by Neurologists and Neurophysiologists). From working with deaf and aphasic people they learnt that language and thinking are connected in a very basic way. Someone who is deaf and hasn't learnt any language "ist außerstande, die Eigenschaft oder Handlungen vom aktuellen Gegenstand zu abstrahieren, also abstrakte Begriffe zu bilden und die Phänomene der Außenwelt mit Hilfe der durch die Sprache gelieferten abstrakten Signale zu systematisieren; denn diese Signale sind der visuell oder praktisch erworbenen Erfahrung nicht von Natur aus eigen" (cf. Lurija/Judowitsch, Die Funktion der Sprache in der geistigen Entwicklung des Kindes, Frankfurt 1982, in: Oliver Sacks: Stumme Stimmen, Reinbek 1997, p. 73). The fact that without language there is no abstract thought shows us that not only, as Mark said, there was no communication about facts and realities, but there wasn't even any kind of conceptual perception of these realities before there was language. Deaf people without language also have no realization of future or past, they can't conceptualize their reality (cf. Sacks p. 68), even if they are intelligent (that's why they are often treated as dumb: they can't express their intellect until they learn to 'speak' - meaning gesture-languages, too.)</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Lucida Sans Unicode" size=2>This is for me the best proof why speaking individuals developed so much better: speaking gave their best tool, their brain, the ability to form abstract concepts and with that only founded the possibility to tell each other about the things Mark wrote about (possibilities for food, places, options, dangers, futures).</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Lucida Sans Unicode" size=2>Who doesn't speak, doesn't make plans and doesn't have a future.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Lucida Sans Unicode" size=2>Sabine</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>