--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Andrew Jarrette <anjarrette@...>
wrote:
>
> To me, this raises the question: Is not all language ultimately
> invented? I think language must have originated in deliberate,
> premeditated manipulation of speech sounds for the purpose of
> communication, i.e. was invented, like Damin. I don't think it
> was just a natural automatic act like blinking or eating.
My own thinking's the opposite. It's fairly clear that
we're hardwired for language, evidenced by, among other
things, the language universals we often discuss here.
I think it's likely that our pre-human ancestors, say at
a stage of 80% of our present intellectual capacity, used
language about 80% as complex as modern language. This
means that, if there truly is an unbroken evolutionary
chain between modern languages and the first human language
ever spoken, that chain begins well before the first humans
appeared, one corollary being that the reconstruction of
the first link in the chain is even more improbable than
the rational among us already realized it to be.
> I think it was more akin to cooking, where choices are made as
> to the product of the action. Arbitrary, but deliberate. Is
> language not an invention? Is it an automatic natural act?
Human language nowadays, and for some time back, has been
subject to conscious manipulation, of course, but only to
a certain, generally very superficial, extent.
Even taking into consideration such conscious manipulation,
I don't think it's accurate to speak of human language as
an invention, at least certainly not the earliest language.
> Or are these unnecessary questions?
Scientia gratia scientiae.
David