How Language Evolved from Climate and Terrain

[GrowingSmaller]

How Language Evolved from Climate and Terrain | Smart News | Smithsonian

"Based on this analysis, the researchers suggest that high frequencies like consonants are interrupted by foliage and higher temperatures. So tree-covered areas tend to foster languages with fewer consonants and more simple syllables. Similarly, consonants spoken in windy or mountainous regions are often lost in the noise. "

This makes sense, I am wondering about dolphins and whales tho, or those octopuses...

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Info sourced here...
EES Update (@EES_update) | Twitter

 

[faroukfarouk]

Language is a unique human characteristic.

Even agnostics like Noam Chomsky acknowledge it.

The power of naming, as C R Trench said, is something uniquely human. And God given.

 

[Mike Lane]

Like religions different languages were the result of isolation.

 

[Bungle_Bear]

The power of naming, as C R Trench said, is something uniquely human. And God given.

Depends what you mean by naming. Dolphins, primates, crows and parrots have all been shown to use specific calls when wanting to communicate with certain individuals in their group.

 

[Ophiolite]

Language is a unique human characteristic.

Certainly complex language appears to match that description. You would agree though, would you not, that many animals have effective communication systems.

And on a related topic, what is your view of those primates that have been taught to communicate by sign language?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Certainly complex language appears to match that description. You would agree though, would you not, that many animals have effective communication systems.

I think we suffer from an anthropocentric bias - even plants communicate a variety of signals to each other (although they don't have the facilities for abstraction). Many other creatures communicate in ways we don't yet fully understand (e.g. cephalopods) and so can't recognise as language. By making the defining properties of language those features that human languages exemplify, we automatically exclude other forms of communication.

And on a related topic, what is your view of those primates that have been taught to communicate by sign language?

There's a good argument to make that Alex the parrot learned the rudiments of human language, and was able to vocalise them...

 

[juvenissun]

How Language Evolved from Climate and Terrain | Smart News | Smithsonian

"Based on this analysis, the researchers suggest that high frequencies like consonants are interrupted by foliage and higher temperatures. So tree-covered areas tend to foster languages with fewer consonants and more simple syllables. Similarly, consonants spoken in windy or mountainous regions are often lost in the noise. "

This makes sense, I am wondering about dolphins and whales tho, or those octopuses...

Among two dozens of variables, one isolated one or two to see the correlation. Well, it is a good study. But how significant could that be?

 

[juvenissun]

Like religions different languages were the result of isolation.

There are dialects at many large plain areas.

 

[Mike Lane]

There are dialects at many large plain areas.

What does that mean? isolation from each other causes people to have dialects, children grow up repeating what they hear and any mispronounced words or inflections are added to and changed over the generations, generally every language has an "old" way of speaking just like old English in the Bible, in some if you take it back even further the language will have changed completely.

 

[juvenissun]

What does that mean? isolation from each other causes people to have dialects, children grow up repeating what they hear and any mispronounced words or inflections are added to and changed over the generations, generally every language has an "old" way of speaking just like old English in the Bible, in some if you take it back even further the language will have changed completely.

How would people be isolated in a large plain area? Should they all say the same language?

I don't believe I need to explain this question.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

How would people be isolated in a large plain area?

Distance? Here in the UK, villages may be only separated by a mile or two but residents can tell each other apart by accent and phrasing. Between major cities, there are major differences that even foreigners can clearly detect, and this is an era of rapid transport and ubiquitous communication devices...

Think of the increasing diversity of language as early groups migrated and became geographically isolated, and the incremental development of new languages from common ancestral sources, as analogous to diversification and speciation in the evolution of life

 

[juvenissun]

Distance? Here in the UK, villages may be only separated by a mile or two but residents can tell each other apart by accent and phrasing. Between major cities, there are major differences that even foreigners can clearly detect, and this is an era of rapid transport and ubiquitous communication devices...

Think of the increasing diversity of language as early groups migrated and became geographically isolated, and the incremental development of new languages from common ancestral sources, as analogous to diversification and speciation in the evolution of life

How do you know they were not originally different, but not a difference by evolving due to isolation by distance? May be they were originally very different and the differences became less and less due to easy communication.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

How do you know they were not originally different, but not a difference by evolving due to isolation by distance? May be they were originally very different and the differences became less and less due to easy communication.

Because there is a known history of the language and the various influences on it since before the time most of those towns & villages were established.

 

[juvenissun]

Because there is a known history of the language and the various influences on it since before the time most of those towns & villages were established.

Circular argument. The history of language is a consequence of losing the original language.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Circular argument. The history of language is a consequence of losing the original language.

What original language?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Circular argument. The history of language is a consequence of losing the original language.

Nothing circular about it - there is a history of progressive change and divergence.

 

[Speedwell]

What original language?

Depends on who you ask. Our colleague AV1611 believes that the original language of man was Elizabethan English.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Depends on who you ask. Our colleague AV1611 believes that the original language of man was Elizabethan English.

Yeah, that I know. But I want to know what juvenissun's 'original language' was.

 

[Mike Lane]

Depends on who you ask. Our colleague AV1611 believes that the original language of man was Elizabethan English.

Honestly? he's obviously pulling your leg.