Language

Philosophy Forums Psychology and Mind
1

I’ve experienced this particular principle twice that I can think of, and find it quite interesting. It seems that language, the words we use and the grammar rules we abide by, are almost unnecessary. We follow language just as much, if not more, by the tone in which something is said or the way it is presented rather than by the words one chooses to use.

To illustrate this principle, I’ve had two sets of friends, at different times, who invented a language of their own: one made entirely of grunts, and one made entirely of cuss words (this was particularaly entertaining to watch.) The point I’m driving at is, they could speak to each other with sentences composed entirely of random grunts or random cuss words and the conversations were almost intelligible, despite a lack of … er… eloquence. Someone watching could figure out what they were talking about at times, and even follow the conversation a ways based just on how they “said” what they said.

Has anyone else seen any research into this or experienced anything similar?

2

I haven’t experienced anything familar. I’m reading a book about cognitive science though. I’m about 1/2 way done with it, but I flipped to a random page in the back and started reading it.

It was about proto-language. It’s believed that people (and sometimes even animals) communicated with single words (or rather, signs standing for objects) long before grammar came about. By grunting and gesturing, an early human could get their point across very well.

But then I skipped another page. I read like, 1/2 of it and it was about how language allows us to organize our thoughts into logical and self-consistent structures. Without it, we’d be just like animals, forever stuck in the moment, unable to think of ourselves in past and present contexts and inner states. The “inner voice” language and grammar give us through their powers of organization allow humans to build self identities.

I don’t know… it was kind of cool when I read it. I think I’ll be able to understand it better and respond to problems people may have with this view of language in a few days when I’ve actually finished the book…

3

Somehow I doubt that what they had to say was very complicated. And, grunts and especially cusswords are language. No language at all would be to sit in complete silence, not moving a muscle.

What was the depth of these conversations?

4

I don’t know if that is possible for people. There doesn’t seem to be an in-between primitive half-language. Language is either wired in or it is not.

Apes have complex social lives with a couple of hundred, or so, signals like grunts, movements, and grimaces to communicate.

But language in humans comes fullblown only. Even the most “primitive” people have complex grammar and vocabulary that they use not only to reason, but to convey experiences to future generations. Stories become as much a part of culture as habits.

5

Gramar not fulblown still understand you me no? Grunt!

6

I remember reading a proposal regarding universal grammar. Lemme see if I can find it:

Hmmm, still looking, but here is an interesting one posing a memetic origin of language that actually jives pretty well with the original poster:
cfpm.org/jom-emit/1998/vol2/vane … es_jr.html

Yeah . . . I can’t find it. Anyway, the idea was that there was one tribe from Africa that was able to spread very quickly and displace all of the other hominids in short order. This is already known. What the paper proposed was that the advantage this tribe had was language.

Think about the advantage that language technology would provide on a battlefield! Communication is key in war and language is pretty much a requirement for any sort of advanced strategy. Heck, you need language for tactics as well.

I thought it was a pretty cool idea.

7

creation imperfect,

I have some experience.

I can remember several European kids animation series. Particularly ones made using clay models.
The best example would be a Swiss character called ’ Pingu ’ the penguin. He spoke a made-up
language called Pinglish.

More recently of course we have the dreaded ’ Teletubbies '… eh oooooooooh !!

P.S. - This’ll mess with your head… How many ways can you say this simple sentence, [size=117]" Why Mrs. Smith."[/size]

8

If you unerdtasnd waht I am wirttnig now, you are on the good ptah.
Was a sutddy aoubt bairn’s caipacty to unerdtasnd the wrods eevn are icenrroct, the snigle rule: first and last letter has to be in the right place.
My guess about languages? If you have a good “musical ear” you can learn and speak well any language you want, just listen them long enough.

9

i’ve heard that before. i don’t know how universally true that is though because i have a good musical ear and a great memory and for the life of me, i’m bad at spanish. i took three years of it in high school and then saw a box of “KIX” in a store with six spanish words for kids on the back. i didn’t know two of them. :smiley:

10

Your work with friends has a few flaws, in terms of an experimental setting:

First and foremost, they come from the same culture, initially. This means that their tonal use will be similar when displaying similar emotions. The same goes for body language.

The true test of this theory would be to take a born and bred german, a home grown USer, and a Japanese man, and put them in the room. As I’ve been forced into this situation, I can assert that the German man will be recieved as much more hostile, because of the gutteral sense of the language, and the harsher tones of the actual words. The japanese, in contrast, will generally be softer spoken, as the cultural backing dictates it, and even when disagreeing or telling you that you’re wrong, he will sound polite and serene…most of the time.

The assertion that language can be taken out without removing the meaning relies on the base premise that the principle of nurturing will override nature — that similar clues found in a person’s environment will provide similar information about things.

Of course, there are bits of universal language, such as the tensing of muscles in flight or fight response, as well as species based language (Writing it that way cause I don’t know how in niefhelm to write speciel properly), such as the smiling and frowning habits of humans.

But all in all, those can only give guesses in terms of attitude, rather than actual meaning and implication. The rest is a matter of finding common grounds with the unknown unknown, and turning it into a known unknown (i.e. finding where your gaps in comprehension are, and working around them)…a function of intelligence as opposed to instinct, and not quite suitable for prolonged discussions.

That having been said, I will shut up now and find another topic to ramble on about.

11

The thing is, language is a combination of details: words, intonation (or pitch in some cases), accent, gestures, speed, eye-contact, etc.

Written language is neccesary to preserve, therefore there are some rules about how we’re supposed to write. Orthography and grammar are both historical results, they’re traditions like church on Sundays or trying to kiss the girl you like for the first time at the end of your date when you drop her at her flat.

Grammar of course is applied to oral language as well, more as a habit (like the aforementioned examples), but then of course vocabulary is more important. It’s the same old story many language teachers tell, but this actually happened to me when I was working in Tokyo: once a person asked me, in horrible Jap accent, something along the lines of (and I’m writting that phonetically) “suté-eshon tulen fua?” (station train where?). But I understood him and I could tell him in a not-less-hideous Japanese how to get there (I suppose I used similarly ridiculous pronunciation but he understood me anyway).

Some other time, a wakai-otokono-hito asked me, in a beautiful and meticulous British accent “can you please tell me how can I get to the … to the … to the…”. His grammar was perfect, his pronunciation was worth recording (he even spoke better than many Londoners I’ve met), but he couldn’t tell me where on earth was he going. We were on a packed area so he could be looking for anything (a store, a cashpoint, a park…). I asked him to tell me in Japanese and I couldn’t understand him.

That’s why I think vocabulary comes first. Still grammar affects certain situations (“what do people think” has got different meaning to “what people do think”), but its use is more out of tradition than anything else imo.

As for your experiment, it’s not that easy: if your friends had been born and taught how to communicate with so-called gibberish, they could understand each other that way because, for them, each sound would have a different meaning. That’s how crows speak to each other. For us it’s nonsense, for them it works.

If it’s working so far with your mates, it must be mere accident, or as somebody suggested, cultural correspondence.

12

We have to bitch and moan and show off to others somehow… language was bound to happen. What would you expect?

I agree that language can sometimes be unnecessary… we should just evolve some mood-ring telepathy so we can all know how each other is feeling.

13

It wouldn’t work. Why? Because guys, or at least guys like me, would eternally be shining lust-red…except for the half hour after sex, in which case we would be a contented blue.

And Well Said.