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WritersUA: Opening Session -- Searching for the Origins of Language
Monday, March 17, 2008 — posted by Sarah
Joe Welinske is doing introductions. Attendance this year is 500, up around 100 people from last year. There are a lot of people in this ballroom.The opening speaker is Christine Kenneally, her book is The First Word: The Search for the Origin of Language, which is nominated for an LA Times book prize.
"Humans have a miraculous ability to acquire language, but they must be spoken to in order to acquire language." If not spoken to, a human will not learn to speak.
The question she is trying to answer is "Where did language come from? How did it begin?"
Speech is ephemeral. No fossil record of speech, which makes research extremely difficult. "No verbs preserved in amber." We can look at the fossil record for the evolution of the brain, tongue, larynx, lungs, and other organs of speech.
Figuring out the origin of language is"the hardest problem in science today" Hmmm. I can think of a lot of scientific problems. And a lot of hard ones.
She goes on to describe language components and where animals have overlapped with them.
Words: Average is 60,000 words for humans. Words are a nexus of information; they provide sound, meaning, and structural possibilities. Kanzi the bonobo (chimp) understands spoken English (hundreds of words) and uses lexigrams (pictures). Rica the border collie -- knows the words for hundreds of objects
Dolphins make many sounds, including a "signature whistle," which other dolphins associate with that specific dolphin -- like a name.
Syntax: Kanzi has syntax at a human three-year-olds level. Some animals in the wild use syntax.
Ability to think/cognition: Several animals, including chimpanzees, dolphins, and elephants, have the ability to look at themselves in a mirror and understand that they are looking at themselves.
Crows make tools.
Alex the parrot speaks 50 words, 7 colors, 5 shapes, and understands the concepts of none and zero.
Gesture: Chimps gesture freely and flexibly and their gestures are instinctively familiar to humans.
Cooperation: Language requires a back-and-forth exchange.
That was all very fun, but oddly I read a National Geographic Magazine article yesterday that covered the very same animal examples. You can read it here.
This presenter needs some visuals. She is speaking and reading from her book. The book excerpts are too long. She's a good writer, and I definitely want to read the book. Myself. But the topic would seem to lend itself to visuals and there aren't any. No slides, no pictures, no nothing.
Labels: writersua2008
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