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Ohm

Junior Member
Mar 4, 2018
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#61
Globally, when we talk of languages, we never mean Mathematics, the reason i keep saying words and their meanings. Mathematics is not about words and their meanings.
Mathematics has meaning.

1. A human language can not at one point constitute one or two or ten words, a human language is a language because it has Nouns/pronouns/ verbs/adverbs and many other features. So, a human language grows but it never grows from one or two words, it starts from 100s of words already (minimum).
Says who?

If a word (new word) and its meaning are to be calibrated to the population, you'll need other words with meanings to explain that new word.
The idea that it grew from few words is a lie and an impossibility which can never be proven.
I've demonstrated to you several times how vocalizations can convey instinctual meaning. At this point you're simply repeating yourself despite this.

2. A human language does not reside in an individual but a population. At one given moment, several people should be understanding the words and their meanings. So it can not start with an individual
This is getting silly. You're creating limitations that don't exist and trying to compartmentalize linguistic development to suit your own needs for the purposes of this debate. It is clearly demonstrable how meaning can spontaneously generate between individuals, and that such meaning can propagate through populations.

3. New words need to be captured for remembrance and reference. Our evolutionary ancestor couldn't develop words and keep remembering their pronunciation and meaning through the years. The reason people go to school today and write down is for reference and remembrance.
Says who? People learn language long before they go to school. They learn all kinds of communication.
 

Ohm

Junior Member
Mar 4, 2018
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#62
You are basically dwelling on instincts but my point is, instincts can never develop words and their meaning(s). I have to repeat this because it is what it is.

Even medically, a person born with hearing abilities never speaks a language not because they have not developed necessary tools of speech but because they never get to hear words and never get to learn their meaning.
This is really silly. Deaf people do have languages, and they do vocalize; they do move their lips; they do use gestures; they do use body language. At any rate, deaf people make up a minority of the human global population.


Our evolutionary ancestor as much as they developed all the faculties of speech, they would never speak a language because they never got to learn one. Where did language come from?
Like I keep saying to you, languages form, like all modes of human communication, from small beginnings. From body language, from the correlation between body language and vocalizations; from pattern recognition; from shared behaviours; from rhythm; from vocal pitch and inflection; from emphasis.
 

Noose

Senior Member
Apr 18, 2016
5,096
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#63
Mathematics has meaning.
Correct because you are talking English
1+1=2 is not a language though.

Says who? People learn language long before they go to school. They learn all kinds of communication.
Schooling doesn't necessarily meaning attending an institution, learning at home is schooling, the main word is 'learning' and a school is where people learn. So you are basically saying "people learn languages long before they learn"- doesn't sound right at all.
 

Noose

Senior Member
Apr 18, 2016
5,096
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#64
This is really silly. Deaf people do have languages, and they do vocalize; they do move their lips; they do use gestures; they do use body language. At any rate, deaf people make up a minority of the human global population.
The reason i keep saying 'words and their meaning(s)'; deaf people don't have that despite their faculties of speech being well developed.
Sign language is a different kind of language. It is different signs with their meanings and also these signs have to be learned form knowledgeable sources, they don't come about spontaneously.


Like I keep saying to you, languages form, like all modes of human communication, from small beginnings. From body language, from the correlation between body language and vocalizations; from pattern recognition; from shared behaviours; from rhythm; from vocal pitch and inflection; from emphasis.
Body languages are instinctive, they can never develop into words and their meaning in a billion years.

What is so difficult in saying God did it now that there's no other theory? Whatever you are trying to peddle here can never be proven scientifically.
 

Ohm

Junior Member
Mar 4, 2018
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#65
Evolution is a theory, that word does not mean fact


In scientific vernacular, a theory is not a hypothesis. A theory is a robust body of explanatory information based on factual data. Like, for example: the theory of gravity; germ theory; atomic theory; the theory of relativity.

They are much more developed and robust than what we think of as a "theory" in every day language.


Darwin himself said it could be disproved
The whole point of the scientific method is that it allows for something to be disproved.

Science is changing all the time when new discoveries are made, at least that use to be what science was before it became a religion to the left
This is still what science is, at least within the body of peer reviewed academic research.

Now we must accept as fact everything they say even when data might show differently. Like the climate change cult.
Climate change is also a theory that has yet to be disproven.

Evolution has wrought it's own destruction through the likes of Planned Parenthood, and the Nazis before them. Darwins "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life," has nearly wiped out the black race thanks to eugenics which is still very much at work today.
Evolution by means of natural selection is not about developing eugenics policies in human societies. It is an explanation of genetic diversification among Earth's lifeforms, as catalyzed by beneficial mutation and sexual success.


Quote "Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of."
I'll leave you to make the moral judgements on this. It has nothing to do with the validity of the theory of evolution by natural selection.

Who said it? Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She tried to explain it away later, but it was already there, eugenics.
I'm morally opposed to eugenics. The theory of evolution by natural selection does not opine about the morality or immorality of human eugenics, however. They are, really, two entirely distinct things. Eugenics is the belief that some human races are superior to others. Evolution is an explanation of how the sexual success of individual lifeforms on Earth is driven by adaptational advantages, which leads to diversification of life. Example: an elk is born with a mutation that allows it a higher rate of calcium extraction from its diet, causing it to grow bigger antlers at relatively little cost to its energy needs. Females are attracted to bigger antlers. The gene gets sexually selected for and the elk procreates.

That isn't human eugenics. There's no moral judgement in that. It's just nature playing itself out.
 
U

UnderGrace

Guest
#66
You are basically dwelling on instincts but my point is, instincts can never develop words and their meaning(s). I have to repeat this because it is what it is.

Even medically, a person born with hearing abilities never speaks a language not because they have not developed necessary tools of speech but because they never get to hear words and never get to learn their meaning.

Our evolutionary ancestor as much as they developed all the faculties of speech, they would never speak a language because they never got to learn one. Where did language come from?
With regards to language and evolution there are many suppositions in evolutionary linguistics... important to drill down and reveal the suppositions.
 

Noose

Senior Member
Apr 18, 2016
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#67
With regards to language and evolution there are many suppositions in evolutionary linguistics... important to drill down and reveal the suppositions.
There is no empirical evidence for evolutionary linguistics but from what we know and what we experience today, a language can only develop from another language not from instincts.
 

Ohm

Junior Member
Mar 4, 2018
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#68
Correct because you are talking English
1+1=2 is not a language though.


Schooling doesn't necessarily meaning attending an institution, learning at home is schooling, the main word is 'learning' and a school is where people learn. So you are basically saying "people learn languages long before they learn"- doesn't sound right at all.
I said people learn language long before they attend schools. That is correct.
 

Noose

Senior Member
Apr 18, 2016
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#69
I said people learn language long before they attend schools. That is correct.
For our ancestor to develop a single word and remember its pronunciation and meaning over the years, they had to write it down. Writing is a recent concept that can be obtained from Schools (institution). Our ancestor did not have that luxury yet the words kept coming over 1000s of years?!
I doubt.
 

Ohm

Junior Member
Mar 4, 2018
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#70
There is no empirical evidence for evolutionary linguistics but from what we know and what we experience today, a language can only develop from another language not from instincts.
Except, of course, the wealth of empirical evidence.

It is more or less accepted in scientific circles that language genesis requires only the pairing of an object or action with a vocalization, intelligible to two or more individuals. From there, the process develops. Very simple.
 

Ohm

Junior Member
Mar 4, 2018
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#71
For our ancestor to develop a single word and remember its pronunciation and meaning over the years, they had to write it down. Writing is a recent concept that can be obtained from Schools (institution). Our ancestor did not have that luxury yet the words kept coming over 1000s of years?!
I doubt.
There are many people who can neither read nor write, and yet can speak fluent languages. Also, many languages are not phonetic, meaning that the way in which they are written, does not usually correlate to their pronunciation.
 

Noose

Senior Member
Apr 18, 2016
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#72
Except, of course, the wealth of empirical evidence.

It is more or less accepted in scientific circles that language genesis requires only the pairing of an object or action with a vocalization, intelligible to two or more individuals. From there, the process develops. Very simple.
Even after talking this much you still don't get it. A language can never constitute one or two words, even at its inception it has to be 100s of words understandable by other people.

1. It is for communication, if one individual knows a language but can not make the other person understand, then it is not a language because they won't communicate.

2. A language can never be one or two words. If there's a new word, you have to use other words to explain the new word

3. A language can never be one or two words. Communication is about understandable statements/sentences; one word sentences are very rare. So if we start a language and have one or two words only, we still can not communicate therefore we don't have a language

4. If instincts and pheromones were working perfectly (for our ancestor)in terms of communication, why strive to develop words and their meanings? it is like i know Swahili and the people around me all know Swahili and we can understand each other perfectly when we speak Swahili, why should we strive to start creating another language (e.g. Germany) within ourselves?
 

Noose

Senior Member
Apr 18, 2016
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#73
There are many people who can neither read nor write, and yet can speak fluent languages. Also, many languages are not phonetic, meaning that the way in which they are written, does not usually correlate to their pronunciation.
Correct, many people can speak but can not write but i was talking about developing words from scratch like i the case of our ancestor.
If you have a new word this week, how will you remember its pronunciation and meaning next week?
 

Ohm

Junior Member
Mar 4, 2018
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#74
Even after talking this much you still don't get it. A language can never constitute one or two words, even at its inception it has to be 100s of words understandable by other people.
Yes, but this is a semantic distinction. You are appealing to the definition of a language as a complex body of syntax, grammar and vocabulary, to suggest that it is impossible for language to arise organically. However, this is a weak argument. Nobody is saying that language just popped out of thin air one day. It had to develop over centuries, millennia even. Nobody is saying "a fully fleshed-out language can be two words". What we are saying, is that the faculties necessary for language genesis are shared among almost every human. What we are saying is that people can develop spontaneous modes of communication, that can develop and become more complex over time. What we are saying, is that languages develop from small beginnings. Two words become four, four become eight, eight become sixteen, thirty two, sixty four, a hundred, a hundred become phrases, phrases become sentences, become syntax, become grammar, become fully developed language.

Languages don't pop into existence overnight. Nobody is disputing that. They develop slowly in human populations through generations of people. However, they do have their origins in rudimentary communication. It's like every other complex human construct: they start out very, very simple and develop over time.

1. It is for communication, if one individual knows a language but can not make the other person understand, then it is not a language because they won't communicate.
So French is not a language if only one person speaks it? I would dispute this.

2. A language can never be one or two words. If there's a new word, you have to use other words to explain the new word
I disagree. Babies learn words one at a time. We don't teach babies rudimentary language by explaining the nuances of of a word with verbosity. We point to an object and say "cup". And the baby learns "the thing with the liquid in it is called cup".

3. A language can never be one or two words. Communication is about understandable statements/sentences; one word sentences are very rare. So if we start a language and have one or two words only, we still can not communicate therefore we don't have a language
Again, semantic argument. Nobody is disputing that a fully formed language can consist of one or two words. I am disputing the idea that one or two words cannot develop into more.

4. If instincts and pheromones were working perfectly (for our ancestor)in terms of communication, why strive to develop words and their meanings?
This question doesn't make sense. You're assuming that I am saying that everything which is necessary for modern man to communicate, can be done through body language alone. That's not what I'm saying at all. That's clearly a false idea. What I am saying is that body language constitutes a good basis for people to pair vocalizations with gestures, and the vocalizations become words with inherent meanings.

If I shake my head to an infant and say "nein" (German for "no"), they'll instinctively grasp the meaning. The same is true if I shake my head and say the word "boogalooga". The word "boogalooga" becomes no. If I point to running water and say "shigi-wiggi", water becomes "shiggi-wiggi". If I lift a cup of water, drink the water, and show it to the infant, and say "shigi-wiggi boogalooga", it becomes "waterless". Ergo, it is entirely possible to create a new language and for a new human being to understand it, despite them having absolutely no real concept of language.


it is like i know Swahili and the people around me all know Swahili and we can understand each other perfectly when we speak Swahili, why should we strive to start creating another language (e.g. Germany) within ourselves?
Now you're talking about polyglots and learning new languages. It's not really relevant to the genesis of language itself. Language arose out of a need to communicate. If you can ALREADY communicate, you have no need to create a completely new language.
 

Ohm

Junior Member
Mar 4, 2018
160
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#75
Correct, many people can speak but can not write but i was talking about developing words from scratch like i the case of our ancestor.
If you have a new word this week, how will you remember its pronunciation and meaning next week?
Ehh ... by memory ...
 

PennEd

Senior Member
Apr 22, 2013
12,955
8,670
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#76
The freedom of expressing our beliefs is protected under the Constitution in America.

People in Europe don’t understand what America is founded on.

The keyword is Freedom.

Freedom to form our own expressions of faith.
Those protections aren't worth the paper they are written on if the governing bodies do not ensure them, and allow, and even promote, the twisting of them through the courts, and contrary Laws.

You may say "then we can vote them out". In just one example, suppose they make a law, AS SOME CITIES HAVE DONE, that non-citizens can vote. Then the judges THEY INSTALLED rule in their favor. They can then alter any "right" or eliminate a right as they see fit.

That's why eventually the governed will have to once again fight to retain their rights. This basic cycle repeats itself over and over.
 

Noose

Senior Member
Apr 18, 2016
5,096
932
113
#77
Yes, but this is a semantic distinction. You are appealing to the definition of a language as a complex body of syntax, grammar and vocabulary, to suggest that it is impossible for language to arise organically. However, this is a weak argument. Nobody is saying that language just popped out of thin air one day. It had to develop over centuries, millennia even. Nobody is saying "a fully fleshed-out language can be two words". What we are saying, is that the faculties necessary for language genesis are shared among almost every human. What we are saying is that people can develop spontaneous modes of communication, that can develop and become more complex over time. What we are saying, is that languages develop from small beginnings. Two words become four, four become eight, eight become sixteen, thirty two, sixty four, a hundred, a hundred become phrases, phrases become sentences, become syntax, become grammar, become fully developed language.

Languages don't pop into existence overnight. Nobody is disputing that. They develop slowly in human populations through generations of people. However, they do have their origins in rudimentary communication. It's like every other complex human construct: they start out very, very simple and develop over time.
I'm not appealing to anything, a language is a way of communication and communication is way of interaction and making other people know what's in your mind. What's in a human mind can never be expressed in two words.

Two words can not make up a language on this basis and a language can not develop progressively from one or two words also on this basis.

So French is not a language if only one person speaks it? I would dispute this.
French is French because it is being spoken by a population, it is impossible for one person only to speak French.

I disagree. Babies learn words one at a time. We don't teach babies rudimentary language by explaining the nuances of of a word with verbosity. We point to an object and say "cup". And the baby learns "the thing with the liquid in it is called cup".
While 'cup' is a language to you, it is not a language to the baby until they get to learn everything pertaining to the cup and can construct a meaningful sentence like " mummy, i'm hungry, i need porridge in the bigger green cup". This is now communication, they are able to use language to let you know what's in their mind.

This question doesn't make sense. You're assuming that I am saying that everything which is necessary for modern man to communicate, can be done through body language alone. That's not what I'm saying at all. That's clearly a false idea. What I am saying is that body language constitutes a good basis for people to pair vocalizations with gestures, and the vocalizations become words with inherent meanings.

If I shake my head to an infant and say "nein" (German for "no"), they'll instinctively grasp the meaning. The same is true if I shake my head and say the word "boogalooga". The word "boogalooga" becomes no. If I point to running water and say "shigi-wiggi", water becomes "shiggi-wiggi". If I lift a cup of water, drink the water, and show it to the infant, and say "shigi-wiggi boogalooga", it becomes "waterless". Ergo, it is entirely possible to create a new language and for a new human being to understand it, despite them having absolutely no real concept of language.
I won't get tired of repeating; words and their meaning have to be learned from knowledgeable sources for anyone to speak. You can only speak a word to express what's in your mind if you know the meaning of the word and the meaning of that word you just have to learn, it doesn't come through pairing of vocalization and gestures and instincts. impossible.

So which one comes first, is it the word "boogalooga" or shaking of the head? either way, the meaning 'NO' has to exist in the mind first and the person that is directed to, has to know the meaning and if they don't, they have to be taught/learn first. And this is how language works- it has to be taught.

Now you're talking about polyglots and learning new languages. It's not really relevant to the genesis of language itself. Language arose out of a need to communicate. If you can ALREADY communicate, you have no need to create a completely new language.
Exactly my point. Our ancestor had perfect means of communicating with others just like the animals have their own means of communicating, why develop words with meanings? Evolution had to stop to pave way for learning?!
 
U

UnderGrace

Guest
#78
It had to develop over centuries, millennia even.
Or more accurately God created us with language ability right from the start.... Adam and God spoke to each other in the Garden of Eden
 
U

UnderGrace

Guest
#79
What we are saying, is that the faculties necessary for language genesis are shared among almost every human.
Exactly because God created us that way!
 
K

kaylagrl

Guest
#80
In scientific vernacular, a theory is not a hypothesis. A theory is a robust body of explanatory information based on factual data. Like, for example: the theory of gravity; germ theory; atomic theory; the theory of relativity.


Not anymore. Facts have little to do with science today. I believe Darwin himself would have changed his "theory" if he had the facts we now have today. But as I said, science is now a religion.


They are much more developed and robust than what we think of as a "theory" in every day language.

Apparently not...



The whole point of the scientific method is that it allows for something to be disproved.

No, that's not true today. It use to be. But anyone disagreeing today is silenced.



This is still what science is, at least within the body of peer reviewed academic research.

Climate change is also a theory that has yet to be disproven.

If we believed what Al Gore said we should all be dead or living under water. There are people who dissent and disagree with climate change and they are silenced and treated like they are morons because they don't believe we will all be dead in 10yrs like AOC, a bar tender not a scientist, is screaming about. I believe the founder of Greenpeace called her a "moron".





Evolution by means of natural selection is not about developing eugenics policies in human societies. It is an explanation of genetic diversification among Earth's lifeforms, as catalyzed by beneficial mutation and sexual success.

It began as eugenics, that was Darwins theory and title of his book and it's being carried out today.

Evolution-the process by which different kinds of living organisms are thought to have developed and diversified from earlier forms during the history of the earth.


I'll leave you to make the moral judgements on this. It has nothing to do with the validity of the theory of evolution by natural selection.

Yes, yes it actually does. Evolution says that man came from animal. The eugenics crowd is still pushing Darwins racist beliefs today. Changing the name doesn't change that fact.



I'm morally opposed to eugenics. The theory of evolution by natural selection does not opine about the morality or immorality of human eugenics, however. They are, really, two entirely distinct things. Eugenics is the belief that some human races are superior to others. Evolution is an explanation of how the sexual success of individual lifeforms on Earth is driven by adaptational advantages, which leads to diversification of life. Example: an elk is born with a mutation that allows it a higher rate of calcium extraction from its diet, causing it to grow bigger antlers at relatively little cost to its energy needs. Females are attracted to bigger antlers. The gene gets sexually selected for and the elk procreates.

We can go through the whole thing. Lack of transitional fossils,


That isn't human eugenics. There's no moral judgement in that. It's just nature playing itself out.
In scientific vernacular, a theory is not a hypothesis. A theory is a robust body of explanatory information based on factual data. Like, for example: the theory of gravity; germ theory; atomic theory; the theory of relativity.

They are much more developed and robust than what we think of as a "theory" in every day language.




The whole point of the scientific method is that it allows for something to be disproved.



This is still what science is, at least within the body of peer reviewed academic research.



Climate change is also a theory that has yet to be disproven.



Evolution by means of natural selection is not about developing eugenics policies in human societies. It is an explanation of genetic diversification among Earth's lifeforms, as catalyzed by beneficial mutation and sexual success.




I'll leave you to make the moral judgements on this. It has nothing to do with the validity of the theory of evolution by natural selection.



I'm morally opposed to eugenics. The theory of evolution by natural selection does not opine about the morality or immorality of human eugenics, however. They are, really, two entirely distinct things. Eugenics is the belief that some human races are superior to others. Evolution is an explanation of how the sexual success of individual lifeforms on Earth is driven by adaptational advantages, which leads to diversification of life. Example: an elk is born with a mutation that allows it a higher rate of calcium extraction from its diet, causing it to grow bigger antlers at relatively little cost to its energy needs. Females are attracted to bigger antlers. The gene gets sexually selected for and the elk procreates.

That isn't human eugenics. There's no moral judgement in that. It's just nature playing itself out.

No, nothing can be disproved because of the dogma of evolution, which has become a religion and is not to be questioned despite the holes in the theory. Darwin, who came up with the theory,believed blacks and others were closer to apes than white people. Eugenics was born out of this theory. And I am glad you are opposed to it as many are not and support Planned Parenthood. Darwins theory was influenced by Thomas Malthus and Thomas Malthus , both eugenicists .