Re: Proto-World, Nostratic, etc.
From: Ivanovas/Milatos
Message: 251
Date: 1999-11-13
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<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>