Semantics

[Flying Pig]

Liberty in liberalism means that you have the right to swing your arm only as long as you can do so without hitting anybody else (because that would infringe upon their liberty) - without that caveat, it's anarchism, which is a very different kettle of fish and totally incompatible with the death penalty, although that's mostly because they reason that anyone feeling sufficiently wronged for it to be a suitable punishment would simply do the job themselves.

 

[peter grimes]

I thought it was because squirrels are not people and don't have a language. Silly me.

Not quite a squirrel, but prairie dogs have something very close to a language, and science has started to be able to understand it. So it's not simply that squirrels don't have a language, but that if they do we haven't been able to understand it yet.

Streaming audio: http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2010/oct/18/wild-talk/
Researcher: http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~cns3/

 

[Borachio]

Certainly I think all mammals, at least, exhibit proto-language.

 

[Flying Pig]

May I be the first to call [citation needed]? Or, in keeping with the thread title, ask for a definition of 'proto-language'?

 

[Borachio]

Weeell, it's really too easy to catch me out!

There's this:
/Proto_language

But I'm guessing you already know this.

I'll have to get back to you on the animal references - as I can't remember for a moment where I heard it.

It could just be that I'm backwards extrapolating into a world of my own. This does happen far too often.

edit: http://perso.telecom-paristech.fr/~jld/papers/Dessalles_06052701.pdf

http://www.summer10.isc.uqam.ca/page/docs/readings/FITCH_Tecumseh/Fitch-presentation.pdf

And such stuff. It's an interesting topic. IIRC some research shows that music predates language in primates.

But there, what was ringing in my mind was some research into regional accents in cows!

 

[Flying Pig]

OK - a proto-language by that definition is just a (properly, as opposed to comatose like Latin) dead language from which modern languages have descended - that's very different from what you're suggesting. Bear in mind that the simple communication of emotion is not a language.

 

[Samson]

We have our definition, you have yours. It's as simple as that, so maybe you should just accept that when you hear an American say "liberal", they most likely just mean what you would call a "social liberal" and let it slide.

Do you deny that word meanings change over time? Gay used to simply mean happy, now it means homosexual. Rubbers used to refer to winter boots, now they refer to condoms.

I am quite happy with the meaning of words changing with time / country, that is the natural way of language. However, surely the point of using latin and greek roots to technical words is specificly so they do not change, and people can talk, publish and read on subjects such as political science and their meaning not get distorted by time or location?

 

[Winner]

Not quite a squirrel, but prairie dogs have something very close to a language, and science has started to be able to understand it. So it's not simply that squirrels don't have a language, but that if they do we haven't been able to understand it yet.

Streaming audio: http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2010/oct/18/wild-talk/
Researcher: http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~cns3/

No, they just don't have a language. I am well-aware of the research that's being done into animal communication, but so far there is no evidence that any known species of animals have developed anything close to even the simplest of human languages (which include communication of abstract information, complex procedures, information of events that happened at some point in the past, are occurring presently in some other place, will occur, or may occur under certain conditions, analogies, metaphors, etc. etc. etc.).

 

[Borachio]

(which include communication of abstract information, complex procedures, information of events that happened at some point in the past, are occurring presently in some other place, will occur, or may occur under certain conditions, analogies, metaphors, etc. etc. etc.).

That's quite a high bar though, isn't it? A lot of humans have trouble with these too.

 

[peter grimes]

We're now wading pretty deeply into the legitimate woods of Linguistics, where I dare not tread. Even circumscribing the word 'language' is enough to spark rivalries that last decades.

I merely posted the bits above to highlight the fact that just because we don't perceive communication of information between individuals does not mean there is no information being communicated.

I'm not going to slide down the slope of defining a 'true' language - I don't have time for a PhD.

 

[Antilogic]

I don't think it's right to characterize it as "Euro-English" and "American-English" liberalism. Instead, there's liberalism as a political philosophy which means the same in all parts of the world, and liberalism as a political label. And unsurprisingly, political labels are used in context of their political environment, and are generally deprived of their original meaning anyway. I think liberalism as a philosophy is too broad to be associated with any left/right camp, and in that regard the European association of the term with right-wing economic liberalism is just as "wrong" (or incomplete) as the American association with left-wing social liberalism.

I don't have a problem with the use of this term as a political label - if you know where the person you're talking to is from there's no misunderstanding. Especially in the context where GW used it here specifically; I think opposition to the death penalty is fairly liberal in any interpretation of the term.

Nice contextual example in the last sentence.

I have always discounted the "words change meaning over time" argument if it is used as a political smear or propaganda. So in the case of political terms, I stick with the poli-sci type definitions. Does it lead to misunderstandings? Sure does. Do I quit? Nope.

 

[Winner]

That's quite a high bar though, isn't it? A lot of humans have trouble with these too.

Not really, even very little children and severely mentally handicapped people can do that. Language is still a pretty unique human trait as far as I know (mind you, I am not a linguist, I've just had a few linguistics courses in college).

It's not that animals don't communicate, they do, and sometimes in very surprising ways, but it's still very very simple compared to what humans do. The distinguishing feature is that in humans, words and their meaning are arbitrary (as attested by the huge number of different languages in existence). Humans can use pretty much anything to generate new meaning and to express an infinite number of things. Our minds are capable of expressing so much more than any other animals that it's stunning to think this capability has evolved only in the past few hundred thousand years.

 

[Borachio]

Not really, even very little children and severely mentally handicapped people can do that. Language is still a pretty unique human trait [1] as far as I know (mind you, I am not a linguist, I've just had a few linguistics courses in college).

It's not that animals don't communicate, they do, and sometimes in very surprising ways, but it's still very very simple compared to what humans do [2]. The distinguishing feature is that in humans, words and their meaning are arbitrary (as attested by the huge number of different languages in existence). Humans can use pretty much anything to generate new meaning and to express an infinite number of things. Our minds are capable of expressing so much more than any other animals that it's stunning to think this capability has evolved only in the past few hundred thousand years. [3]

1. I don't agree. I think the roots of language are very firmly there in "animals". This may appear trivially true to you, but so often do I hear the phrase "What distinguishes us from animals is this or that or some other." that I always feel I must object to what amounts to rank anthropocentrism.* (I realize you haven't exactly said this.)

2. What animals do, in language terms, appears very simple to humans. I think it's probably very complex.

3. It is indeed stunning. How do you explain it?

*to be honest, I don't feel all that strongly about it.

 

[Samson]

Not really, even very little children and severely mentally handicapped people can do that. Language is still a pretty unique human trait as far as I know (mind you, I am not a linguist, I've just had a few linguistics courses in college).

It's not that animals don't communicate, they do, and sometimes in very surprising ways, but it's still very very simple compared to what humans do. The distinguishing feature is that in humans, words and their meaning are arbitrary (as attested by the huge number of different languages in existence). Humans can use pretty much anything to generate new meaning and to express an infinite number of things. Our minds are capable of expressing so much more than any other animals that it's stunning to think this capability has evolved only in the past few hundred thousand years.

I really think you are wrong. One article I was reading proposed a way to measure complexity of language by calculating how many sequential sounds could you use to add accuracy to a prediction of the next sound. This can be done with no knowledge of the language itself. Off the top of my head, primitive indigenous languages were around 5, English was 8, dolphin sounds were 9 and humpback whale song was 11.

 

[Winner]

1. I don't agree. I think the roots of language are very firmly there in "animals". This may appear trivially true to you, but so often do I hear the phrase "What distinguishes us from animals is this or that or some other." that I always feel I must object to what amounts to rank anthropocentrism.* (I realize you haven't exactly said this.)

In this case the difference is so marked, that it's perfectly justified. Sorry, animal friends, but that's the reality.

2. What animals do, in language terms, appears very simple to humans. I think it's probably very complex.

No, it is objectively entirely primitive to human communication (a.k.a. language), that's why we reserve the term language for the complex communication systems humans have developed.

If I were to use an analogy, what animals do in comparison to what humans do is as pushing a ball forward and backwards with your snout is to the game of football, times one hundred. Animal communication usually consists of sending pretty straightforward information - "look, a threat!" or "here is food" or "back off, I am angry!" or "follow me", things like that. We have some evidence that some species of animals may be capable of more - maybe communicating additional information concerning the nature and magnitude of the threat, quality of the food, more nuanced emotional states, perhaps even things like numbers, directions, etc. And by all means, that's probably how human language started, millions of years ago. The point is, we have since evolved something that absolutely outperforms the earlier forms of communication. The amount of information we can communicate is huge compared to what animals can communicate using their mental faculties and forms of communication.

3. It is indeed stunning. How do you explain it?

Specialization and natural selection. Humans started out with basic forms of communication, but gradually improved on it because it was their main 'competitive advantage' in comparison to other animal species. The increasing performance of human brain then allowed for more complex forms of communication, which in turn created further pressure on the brain to evolve. We're a result of nature's runaway evolutionary experiment, I guess.

BTW, we now have evidence that the Neanderthals, the closest species to Homo Sapiens (or a sub-species of it, depending on one's point of view) had language. So, it's not a uniquely Homo Sapiens trait and it has roots in earlier species of humans.

I really think you are wrong. One article I was reading proposed a way to measure complexity of language by calculating how many sequential sounds could you use to add accuracy to a prediction of the next sound. This can be done with no knowledge of the language itself. Off the top of my head, primitive indigenous languages were around 5, English was 8, dolphin sounds were 9 and humpback whale song was 11.

Which only proves that it doesn't prove anything. Human languages can produce an infinite amount of utterances (the things you say) using a limited set of building blocks.

 

[Samson]

Which only proves that it doesn't prove anything. Human languages can produce an infinite amount of utterances (the things you say) using a limited set of building blocks.

It is not about how many different utterences, it is about how complex the sequence of utterances are. I am not saying it is proof (in a scientific sense), but it is very good evidence.

 

[Borachio]

Specialization and natural selection. Humans started out with basic forms of communication, but gradually improved on it because it was their main 'competitive advantage' in comparison to other animal species. The increasing performance of human brain then allowed for more complex forms of communication, which in turn created further pressure on the brain to evolve. We're a result of nature's runaway evolutionary experiment, I guess.

Also significant is some theory of mind. That human development got caught in this feed back loop:

If you can lie convincingly, (and some primates and birds do show this kind of misleading behaviour), then the more brain power is needed in order to see through this lie. Which in turn means you need to develop more brain power to lie even more convincingly.

It is though, very difficult, at least for me, to see what is actually going on in another's mind. How much more difficult is this when it involves figuring out what is happening in another (member of a) species?

 

[Leoreth]

But figuring out what goes on in an animal's mind is an entirely different beast (haha) than determining whether it uses language. Thoughts are not observable (yet), but communication is, and language is a subform of communication.

Just because we don't know what an animal intends to say doesn't mean we cannot find out what it does say. We can easily observe the reaction of the animals it communicates with to get a decent guess at the message. And so far the only things we have observed are simple, intuitively used messages like Winner described. It may be the case that the scope of such messages can become quite large for several species, but they're still limited, and therefore not language.

Interestingly, several domesticated species show an aptitude to learn human language to a certain degree. Dogs can learn human commands or their name after all, and I've seen examples of dogs learning the names of a set of objects and fetching them on command (which includes the ability to figure out that if you add a new, unknown object and you use an unknown name, that the new name specifies the unknown object). Parrots that can mimic human words are able to learn the context of these words and use them appropriately, to a certain extend. But that means they're capable of making simple word-object or word-situation mappings, nothing more.

 

[Samson]

And so far the only things we have observed are simple, intuitively used messages like Winner described. It may be the case that the scope of such messages can become quite large for several species, but they're still limited, and therefore not language.

I do not think that is really true. It has been observed that individual dolphins use unique sounds, and other dolphins use these sounds without the final "syllable". This is interpreted as names. I would say that is an advanced enough communication to count as language.

They have very complex social structures and group hunting strategies that require significant communication. I cannot believe this level of communication is so much lower than our own, especially if you include the more basic human communication as language, as to not count.

 

[Winner]

It is not about how many different utterences, it is about how complex the sequence of utterances are. I am not saying it is proof (in a scientific sense), but it is very good evidence.

Of what?

Interestingly, several domesticated species show an aptitude to learn human language to a certain degree. Dogs can learn human commands or their name after all, and I've seen examples of dogs learning the names of a set of objects and fetching them on command (which includes the ability to figure out that if you add a new, unknown object and you use an unknown name, that the new name specifies the unknown object). Parrots that can mimic human words are able to learn the context of these words and use them appropriately, to a certain extend. But that means they're capable of making simple word-object or word-situation mappings, nothing more.

Yes, it is quite interesting how different dogs are from wolves when it comes to understanding human communication. Wolves, even when raised by humans from little pups, have a lot of trouble understanding human commands. Dogs seem to understand us much more readily, almost on an instinctive level. Well, I guess several tens of thousands of years of co-evolution will do that to a species

As for parrots, there was a quite interesting project with one grey parrot, which managed to actually use simple sentences in a manner that indicated he was aware of what he was saying. However, it also seems he possessed above-average intelligence for his species.

I do not think that is really true. It has been observed that individual dolphins use unique sounds, and other dolphins use these sounds without the final "syllable". This is interpreted as names. I would say that is an advanced enough communication to count as language.

Using names is hardly an evidence of 'language'.

They have very complex social structures and group hunting strategies that require significant communication. I cannot believe this level of communication is so much lower than our own, especially if you include the more basic human communication as language, as to not count.

Nobody is denying that there are species of animals with pretty advanced intelligence. What we're talking about here is whether their systems of communication are complex enough to be considered a language. Until we have evidence that dolphins "talk" to each other about other things than hunting and mating, and that their communication system is capable of generating new "words" and "sentences" as they go (i.e. a sign that their communication system is a product of a sentient, highly developed mind instead of limited instinctive behaviour), we can't use the word "language" for it.