Communication is the central, most pert

Joseph Cook

Jeff Glass

Bettina Linke

Chapter Eight--"Bridges to Human Language"

Summaries

The mystery of the development of human language constitutes how we our uniquely human from other animals. Verbal exchange is far more precise than any other form of language among other animals in human history. With the use of human language we can store templates (mental images) in our minds and, at high levels, encode and process information quickly and efficiently.

Between human language and the vocalizations of any animals lies an unbridgeable gulf. The evolutionary problem, as exclaimed by Darwin states, how was this unbridgeable gulf nevertheless bridged? If we accept that we evolved from animals lacking any form of speech, then our language must have evolved and become perfected with time. Unfortunately, the origins of human language prove harder to trace than any other origins of the human species. The underlying problem with human language is that there are not many historical traces. Until recently it may have been viewed as hopeless to do more than speculate when language commenced. There are two exploding bodies of knowledge that may build bridges across the seemingly unbridgeable gulf between animal and human sounds starting from each of its opposite shores.

Sophisticated new studies of wild-animal vocalizations, especially those of our primitive relatives, constitute the bridgehead of the animal shore of the gulf. Animal sounds are ancestral to human speech. Since human language has advanced so far over animal sounds it is unclear to locate the bridgehead on the human shore.

Scientists have been studying animal sounds for centuries. Recent technological advancement, such as modern tape recorders used to record animal sound; electronic analysis of the sounds allow for the observation of what may appear to be use of a form of language, as expressed through sound rather than the use of diction and syntax.

The most sophisticated “animal language” studied to date is that of a common cat-sized African monkey known as the vervet. As part of the monkey species, vervets are predominant in east Africa. Like other animals, vervets regularly face situations in which efficient communication and representation would help them to survive. Vervets have complex social relationships with each other. They live in groups and compete for territory with other groups, they know how to communicate for sources of food, they show discrimination among types of predators and among each other, they respond to dominate and subordinate members of their own groups as well as rival groups, and they show knowledge of who is related to whom.

The first clue of communication among vervets came from the observations that biologist Thomas Strusaker made on vervets in Kenya’s Amboseli National Park. Vervets utter grunt like calls when interacting with each other. Even to scientists who have spent years listening to vervets, all of the social grunts agreeably sound the same. When the grunts are recorded and displayed on a frequency spectrum, they look the same. Vervets are much more finely attuned to their calls than we are as humans.

Communication is the central, most pertinent factor in a sophisticated society. Human beings have evolved into expressive and capable members of society. The human language has been around for five thousand years and it is apparent that language has been complex long before that. The human language differs greatly from animal communication. The human language is quite complex in that grammar and syntax play a major role in defining language. Animals have an extremely primitive way of communicating compared to humans, however, the gap between human and animal communication skills is slowly being bridged.

Human beings have a daily working vocabulary of 1000 words. Our ability to understand grammatical rules is what sets us apart from animals. We have the ability to use grammatical rules to decipher the different meanings of these two sentences that comprise of the same words.

“Your hungry dog bit my old mother’s leg”.

“My hungry mother bit your old dog’s leg”

Human beings use their grammatical skills to understand the various meanings of these two sentences above. Linguists argue that animals cannot possibly have a language due to their lack of grammar and syntax ( Diamond 152). There has been much emphasis on the vervet monkey. The vervet is an African monkey that has up to 10 various calls. There has been no evidence of syntax or grammar with the vervets. They communicate by making single utterances that still leaves us baffled as to what they are communicating about. Another difference is if the vervet communicates at all, it is strictly something that we could point to or act out. The final difference between vervets and humans is the presence of a hierarchical structure in the human language. Our language uses many different syllables, consonant, and phrases. We put the syllables together to form words, and then we form phrases or sentences. Our language is quite complex in that there are many intricate details to the human language. However, Cro- Magnon archeology sites contained primitive tools, but not primitive words. The human language keeps getting more complex with all of our technological advances such as the Internet. We have little knowledge of the origin of human language. People continuously expand their minds, therefore it is difficult to find primitive languages. People are constantly learning, and

passing on their knowledge to others. This knowledge that is passed on is what makes it difficult to trace the origins of the human language.

There is no correlation between linguistics and social complexity (Diamond 155). Diamond did a great deal of research on primitive cultures, and their language. After traveling to New Guinea, Diamond studied the Fore people. The Fore people had a complex language structure. Their language consists of postpositions, verb tenses, and phrase construction like no other language. Another culture that Diamond researched were the Neo-Melanesians in Papua New Guinea. He found that there language structure is even more complex than our English language. The Neo-Melanesians appear in plantation, fort, and trading post situations (Diamond158).

We as humans use language on a daily basis, without taking notice to the fact that language is the most crucial aspect of our society. Without a well-advanced language system, we would not be able to function as a successful society that is constantly making advancements and technological breakthroughs.

Linguists have traditionally broken down new language into two stages, pidgins and creoles. The crude language is termed pidgins and the more complex language is referred to as creoles. Pidgins arose from the need of colonists or workers to communicate with one another. “Each group retains its native language for use within its own group; each group uses the pidgin to communicate with the other group, and in addition workers on a polyglot plantation may use pidgin to communicate with other groups of workers” (Diamond 159).

Words from the early-stage pidgins “consist largely of nouns, verbs, and adjectives, with few or no articles, auxiliary verbs, conjunctions, or prepositions” (Diamond 159). There are very few grammatical rules for pidgin discourse and there is great variability of speech within and between individuals who speak a pidgin discourse. In countries such as New Guinea pidgin gradually become more regular and complex over many generations and was their first language until after World War II.

Pidgins evolve into creoles whenever the group using the pidgins adopts it as their native language. That group then begins to use pidgins for all social purposes, not just for discussing plantation tasks or bartering. The difference between creoles and pidgins is that creoles have a more extensive vocabulary, more complex grammar, and speak consistent across individuals. Saying things complex in pidgins is nearly impossible whereas in creoles complex speech is common. This process of creolization “is a natural experiment in language evolution that has unfolded independently dozens of times in the new world. The sites of experiment have ranged from mainland South America through Africa to Pacific islands, the laborers; from Africans through Portuguese and Chinese to New Guineans; the dominant colonists, from English to Spaniards to other Africans and Portuguese; and the century, from at least the seventeenth to the twentieth” (Diamond 160).

There are both positive and negative sides to the development of creoles. On the negative side, creoles are simpler than normal languages in mostly lacking conjugations of verbs for tense and person, lack most prepositions, and lack agreement of words for gender. On the positive side, creoles are advanced over pidgins in consistent word order, singular and plural pronouns for the first, second, and third persons; relative causes; and the indications of the anterior tense.

The factors responsible for this sort of convergence are still unknown. An analogy can be drawn though. “It’s as if you drew a dozen cards fifty times from well-shuffled decks and almost always ended up with no hearts or diamonds, but with one queen, a jack, and two aces. Derek Bickerton believes that many of the similarities among creoles as resulting from our possessing a genetic blueprint for language.

Bickerton takes his view from his studies of creolization in Hawaii. In the 1800s many immigrants from China, the Philippines, Japan, Korea, Portugal, and Puerto Rico were brought to Hawaii as sugar planters. Even though they all had their native language they soon developed a pidgin so that they could communicate with each other. But this soon posed a problem because the children of these immigrants were not able to efficiently learn the pidgin or their native languages. The Hawaiian laborer’s children spontaneously expanded pidgin into a consistent and complex creole. within a generation. Bickerton was able to trace this history by interviewing various Hawaiians in the 1970s. By this time many of the children of the 1900s were old adults but were able to provide Bickerton with a timeline for the development of the creole.

The similarities among the different creoles are amazing. Even though many of the creoles all originated in different parts of the world, creoles use prepositions and happen to resemble English in placing subject, verb, and object in that order. These similarities among creoles seem to likely stem from a genetic blueprint that a human brain possesses for learning language during childhood. Chomsky felt that the structure of human language is is far too complex for a child to learn within just a few years. Chomsky felt that children learning their first language would face an impossible task unless much of language’s structure was already preprogrammed into them. Chomsky concluded that “we are born with a universal grammar already wired into our brains to give us a spectrum of grammatical models encompassing the range of grammars in actual languages” (Diamond 163). Bickerton goes further and says “we are preprogrammed not just to a universal grammar with adjustable switches but to a particular set of switch settings: the settings that surface again and again in creole grammars (Diamond 163).”

Tracing how we went from grunts to Shakespeare sonnets can be thought of as this. Vervet monkeys have at least ten different calls that are under voluntary control, are used for communication, and have external referents. Pygmy chimps most likely have eclipsed vervet monkeys. In the laboratory, chimps can master hundreds of symbols that we teach them, suggesting that they have the necessary intellectual equipment to master symbols of their own. Modular organization allows us to recognize far more distinctions that can vervets. “For example, they name only six types of animals, whereas we name nearly two million” (Diamond 165). Going from word strings of two years olds to the complete sentences of four-year-olds, is another giant step. Going to complete sentences we add elements of grammar such as word order, prefixes and suffixes, and word root variation; and more levels of hierarchical organization to produce phrases and sentences.

Here is an example of a creole translated in English Spelling

Neo-Melanesian advertisement

Kam insait long stua bilong mipela---stua bilong salim olgeta samting---mipela I-ken helpim yu long kisim wanem samting yu laaikim bikpela na likllik long gutpela prais. I-gat gutpela kain kago long baiim na I gat stap long helpim yu na lukautim yu long taim yu kam insait long kispela stua.

Come inside long store belong me-fellow---store belong sellim altogether something—me-fellow can helpim you long catchim what-name something you likim, big-fellow na liklik, long good-fellow kind cargo long buyim, na he-got staff long helpem you na lookoutim you long time you come inside long this-fellow store.

Outlines

I. Human beings ability to use language

A. usage of grammar and syntax

1. humans have working vocabulary of 1000 words

2. grammatical rules decipher meanings

3. linguistics help society become more advanced

II. Animal Communicative Skills

A. lack of grammar and syntax keep communication simple

1. vervets have 10 calls to communicate

2. give one or two utterances to communication

III. Linguists Skepticism

A. Animals do not have languages due to lack of grammatical skills

1. animals express themselves in a much simpler manner

B. Human beings are capable of communicating to each through grammatical skills

IV. Diamond’s Research of Various Cultures

A. He researched the Fore people located in New Guinea

1. complex language system

2. primitive people do not speak primitive languages

B. Neo-Melanesians

1. located in Papua new Guinea

2. through evolution their language has become more complex and intricate in detail.

V. Bridge to the Language Gap

A . Humans are definitely more advanced than animals, however animals are making progress.

B. Researchers spend years studying the various monkeys such as the vervets

C. animals do have the ability to communicate

1. humans are baffled as to whether or not animals communication skills are more elaborate than we think