20 ms·
My entirely layman and unsupported conspiracy theory about language is that early hominids likely developed complex sign language and some primitive forms of wr
by krapp 2mo ago
My entirely layman and unsupported conspiracy theory about language is that early hominids likely developed complex sign language and some primitive forms of writing now long lost to time, but vocal language only came with the necessary biology.
- QuercusMax 2mo agoDo we have an idea of when the physical capability for vocal language originated? Other great apes have all kinds of vocalizations they can produce, and you don't need THAT many different sounds to support language.
- OkayPhysicist 2mo agoTo answer that you'd need to know what even constitutes vocal language. There's a number of languages that make extensive use of clicks and whistles that would seem to me are pretty orthogonal to the ability to pronounce, say, English. We know from their remains that Neanderthals would have had a rather different range of vocalizations from Homo sapiens, but that doesn't mean they didn't have structured language.
- nkrisc 2mo agoMore recent hypotheses that I’ve read is that what we think of language evolved as a tool for internal thought and ordering of ideas and perceptions. Executive function, in a sense. The externalization of language, whether vocal or gestural, evolved later as a means of serializing the internal language in order to transmit those thoughts to others. Under this hypothesis, the serial nature of language is a limitation of the externalization methods (you can’t produce several words at once, or hear several at once), whereas internal language itself need not be a linear process.