On Demand
The Origins of Language
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Language is a distinctly human gift, yet we’re only now beginning to understand how it came into being. Christine Kenneally has written about language and science for the New Yorker and Discover, and in her new book, The First Word, she investigates the evolution of language and introduces the major players in the field of linguistics and behavioral studies.
The First Word is available for purchase at amazon.com
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I was curious about the origins of sign language. When, where, and how did it arise?
Has your guest read Fouts' book NEXT OF KIN? This book documents the teaching of sign language to the multiple chimpanzees, and makes parallels to breakthroughs that have been made with autistic children.
It is important to put it to rest that chimpanzees have in fact learned language. It WAS a human language, but they did then take this and taught it to their offspring!
I love the premise suggested in the movie Quest for Fire which shows that tribes who have a sense of humor and therefore a developed sense of objectivity gave rise to not only more sophisitcated verbal language, but the enduring objects of culture: architecture, social organization, etc.
What about the effect of left to right written languages vs. right to left written languages?
Didn't Wittgenstein cover all of this a long, long time ago?
I am a fairly well spoken person as well as a person who likes to talk a lot. As a result my 9 year old son is far more well spoken than his peers and I find him either correcting their speech or simplifying what he is trying to say when his normal word choice is more sophisticated than theirs. I think that this just goes to show how much of language is NOT innate, but learned.
Interesting discussion. Thanks.
Not sure if Leonard and his team reads this board, but I was somewhat taken aback by the fact that Chomsky, whose name figures prominently in this interview, and whose perspective is criticized, has never been given the opportunity to discuss his seminal ideas on language and the mind on Leonard's show.
Perhaps this can be corrected-while Noam is still around to do so.
May not be for much longer, alas.
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