Chicken or Egg

[Narz]

Seems to me that the definition of language is pretty much the complex communication system of thinking organisms. If that's the measure than language & thought evolved together (as thought evolved, communication evolved into language).

 

[Fifty]

Seems to me that the definition of language is pretty much the complex communication system of thinking organisms.

What seems to linguists matters more to me than what seems to you! Furthermore, the standard definition of language seems much more useful, because "complex" is very vague, and figuring out whether an organism is thinking is very hard.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Communication obviously precedes thought, as thought is created by communication between brain cells. True language would require some thought to have been developed first though.

 

[bestrfcplayer]

Communication obviously precedes thought, as thought is created by communication between brain cells. True language would require some thought to have been developed first though.

But, sometimes people speak before they think about what to say....


bestrfcplayer

 

[classical_hero]

Even though some people "speak before they think" does not actually mean they did not think about what they were speaking about, it is just that they are more impulsive and say something they wish they had never said. There is a still a thought process behind what we say, even if we had not intended to say. I do that plenty of the time, it just means that my mouth is faster than my brain at times, which can be quite slow. So often, my mother would often say that my brain is one gear behind my mouth.

 

[PeteAtoms]

Do you define an egg by what layed it or by what comes out of it?
There's your answer.

Or maybe I'm missing the point. Is it "chicken or the egg" or "chicken or the chicken egg?"

Eggs existed before chickens. But they weren't "chicken eggs."

EDIT: Haha, I think I just hallucinated that this thread asked an entirely different question... that's freaky That's what I get for not reading the OP or the poll. How embarrassing.

 

[classical_hero]

The thread is supposedly about the chicken/egg question of language and thought, but I basically view them as one and the same.

 

[Narz]

What seems to linguists matters more to me than what seems to you! Furthermore, the standard definition of language seems much more useful, because "complex" is very vague, and figuring out whether an organism is thinking is very hard.

Your post would be more useful if it contained some information clarifying the matter.

Anyone, you misunderstand, linguists may define language a number of ways but at the end of the day it's, as I said, the "communication system of thinking organisms".

According to wiki what seperates animal communication from human language is :

The following properties of human language have been argued to separate it from animal communication:

* Arbitrariness: There is no rational relationship between a sound or sign and its meaning. (There is nothing intrinsically "housy" about the word "house".)
* Cultural transmission: Language is passed from one language user to the next, consciously or unconsciously.
* Discreteness: Language is composed of discrete units that are used in combination to create meaning.
* Displacement: Languages can be used to communicate ideas about things that are not in the immediate vicinity either spatially or temporally.
* Duality: Language works on two levels at once, a surface level and a semantic (meaningful) level.
* Metalinguistics: Ability to discuss language itself.
* Productivity: A finite number of units can be used to create an infinite number of utterances.

No non-thinking animal could use language as defined by those terms but those terms seem rather arbitrary. Original human language probably did have some rational relationship between sound & meaning, animal language/communication is culturally tranmitted, the discrete units part is a byproduct of sophistication, displacement is a product of being able to think certainly.

I could go on but anyway, I guess you could say communication became language as thought developed. I voted language before I read the wiki page for animal language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_language).

It seems they probably evolved together.

You can care what linguists think more if you like but we're all amateurs talking about amateur stuff on these forums so I think you're being disingenuous. Like going on a baseball forum & then complaining you'd rather hear the thoughts of baseball historians rather than misguided fans.

 

[Fifty]

Its not like language is some natural kind term that we figure out the definition of via investigation... language just is what linguists say it is.

What you are doing is like going on a baseball forum and saying football is baseball, citing various things to support your claims (they both use a ball! they both have points! they both have teams! etc. etc.) but not realizing it isn't up to you... its not a matter of investigation or debate. Baseball is just baseball, and language is just language. If linguists say that language requires x, y, and z, then it does. There has to be a dividing line somewhere between language and non-language, and the people who decide what it is are linguists, not laypeople. They choose the line not for some grand reason, but just because defining languages as they do brackets them off for study in a useful way.

 

[Link]

Thought came first. I imagine that before real languages, people still had primitive forms of communication, and they probably thought with pictures or feelings.

 

[Narz]

Its not like language is some natural kind term that we figure out the definition of via investigation... language just is what linguists say it is.

What you are doing is like going on a baseball forum and saying football is baseball, citing various things to support your claims (they both use a ball! they both have points! they both have teams! etc. etc.) but not realizing it isn't up to you... its not a matter of investigation or debate. Baseball is just baseball, and language is just language. If linguists say that language requires x, y, and z, then it does. There has to be a dividing line somewhere between language and non-language, and the people who decide what it is are linguists, not laypeople. They choose the line not for some grand reason, but just because defining languages as they do brackets them off for study in a useful way.

Yeah I understand that, except I don't agree with your complaint about what I'm doing, I'm not debating what language is, I'm just simplifying the essence of it for the purpose of the OP's question (I was all the aspects linguists have decided separate human language from more primitive communication are only possible for thinking creatures).

As I've said, I don't think a thinking organism could go long without means of expressing itself (what's the point of thought if you can't communicate it with others of your species?) so I think they evolved together. Do you disagree? Now that I'm aware of the exact definition of language (according to wiki anyway) it seems silly to say either thought or language "came first". I can't imagine an advanced tribe of humans capable of thought going for three or four generations before they develop language. Of course their language will evolve over time but so will their capacity for thought (and expressing it via language). They're linked.

 

[Fifty]

As I've said, I don't think a thinking organism could go long without means of expressing itself (what's the point of thought if you can't communicate it with others of your species?) so I think they evolved together. Do you disagree?

No, I agree. I think its blazingly obvious that language in the sense of communication came before thought, because even the most primitive life-forms communicate with each other.

 

[amadeus]

From my purely non-scientific background, I say thought comes first.

We need to separate language from the ability to communicate; an ape might have the ability to communicate, but it is most certainly not a language in any meaningful way.