how was it possible for us to learn languages?

When you look at monkeys/chimps for example, you would think out of all
these years, they would've of picked up a language by now? Well
they do throw feces, thats common with us lols.

How is it possible that we learned all these languages without any alien
interference? I dont think it wouldnt be possible for us to invent our own
language when evolution started. Our world seems a bit to well planned
out by someone, dont know who, but someone special, i.e aliens/god/
other invisible force.

Chimps have picked up a language, many of them speak sign.

Imagine you not being able to think of a word or a sound to represent something.

It's pretty hard to do.

We've had the same brain for millennia and language is derived from our intelligence.

Why, if aliens or god gave us language, are there so many, and why is it an evolving thing? Why also, is it also so hard to sometimes get the meaning across? Some people can speak eloquently and what is in their minds comes across to others, by how they relay it. Others can ramble for hours and say nothing.

Language is just a tool, like picking up a stick and banging it on a fellow human to say "lets have sex, lets fight, where's my dinner, do you like my new all over body hair..."

If we were given the ability to speak a language from an unknown external influence, then it was by giving us intelligence, or our brain. The rest came from that.

Animals communicate seemingly adequately in their environments. We don't understand them, nor they us. I'd think an alien race from another planet, would be so vastly different to us that they'd communicate in a way absolutely incomprehensible to us.

Even if there is life on other planets capable of reaching us, there is absolutely zero chance that they would appear like humans, with eyes in the front of their face, or faces on their heads. Or heads at all. So language would be something completely unique to their environment also.

reply to post by aerial


OP are you Karl Pilkington?

reply to post by aerial


Nonhuman primates don't have grammatically structured language like humans. Highly sophisticated forms of communication are prevalent in primates, but they lack a rudimentary theory of mind, the ability to generate new words, and structured syntax. Despite this, language experiments done with Koko the gorilla demonstrate that some great apes are capable of sign language.

We are capable of conveying messages via complex symbol systems because of our evolutionary history. The mutation in the FOXP2 gene (helped humans acquire spoken language) in conjunction with the evolutionary development of our neo-cortex allowed us to symbolically transmit messages.

Linguist Noam Chomsky argues that language is inherent and environment contributes a minor role in the language acquisition process. The wide range of possible human language parameters are switched on by a hardwired overarching template in the brain known as universal grammar (research more about the "language-acquisition device"). Others contend that language acquisition is not entirely innate and predeterministic, but, instead, involves the developmental processes and learning mechanisms acquired in a socio-cultural context.

Yes, language is a uniquely human attribute, but you don't need to invoke "E.T.sdidit" as an explanation for something you don't fully understand.

reply to post by aerial


It is possible that the Wernicke's & Broca's areas are attributable to the cortextual structures associated with our alien DNA--maybe we should ask the whales & dolphins, as it appears we're not the only predominantly waterlogged habitable planet(?).

It could have started out as a means of survival - like to warn of predators, I found food, etc. Then branched off to recognize hierarchy. Etc. With our brain, it easily evolved into our current language.

No need for aliens to give us language...they just gave us huge brains.

Kidding aside, language isn't only used by humans. Many species have a language of some sort. Some are just more complex than others. Believe even elephants language is more developed than any primate, to include the ones taught to sign.

Humans are the only species to have a written language...which oddly enough, the basics could have came from aliens. Just like we teach certain 'primitive' people's how to write, they usually do their own thing with it over time.

Originally posted by boncho
Chimps have picked up a language, many of them speak sign.

Yeah. Plus, we know that prairie dogs have a language. Actually, without some form of communication animals couldn't live in packs and prides and herds.

What both amazes and baffles me is how a dog can just look at another dog (a Chihuahua looking at a St. Bernard) and recognize its own kind.

Who taught the aliens how to learn languages?

reply to post by aerial


Not having time right now to read the thread, just gona share a little experience of mine... i was teaching a primitive skills class with some teens (with learning difficulties and autism, a really bright couple of lads with true flair) and we decided to communicate for a morning using only "ug"s (it was a stealth lesson in body language and such)... it was surprisingly effective and we did all the stuff we needed like woodland skills, resource collecting, camp craft etc etc as well as crying with laughter at times

reply to post by aerial

A theory developed by William S. Burroughs (among others), that the word began as a biological virus that altered the throat structure of prehistoric protohumans. Those that survived passed the virus on to their descendents. An infected individual could form complex vocal sounds which, virus-like, would propagate through the tribe. New words spread until they are in common use. Thus the originally biological virus had mutated into the first information virus, the primogenitor of the computer virus. Burroughs believed this unique virus was of extraterrestrial origin.

books.google.gr...=onepage&q&f=false

reply to post by aerial


Its called evolution. You could ask why have monkeys learned to live in complex social groups that take care of each other while fish just swim in the sea. Its an extreme analogy i know but for a split second in time one species of an animal has a genetic screw up that allows it to develop one step further than others around it.

Originally posted by jiggerj

Originally posted by boncho
Chimps have picked up a language, many of them speak sign.

Yeah. Plus, we know that prairie dogs have a language. Actually, without some form of communication animals couldn't live in packs and prides and herds.

What both amazes and baffles me is how a dog can just look at another dog (a Chihuahua looking at a St. Bernard) and recognize its own kind.

edit on 4/20/2013 by jiggerj because: (no reason given)

That is very interesting. But yes, it is true. A dog sees a dog, regardless of size, etc. Matter of fact, size makes no difference. If it is two dogs, a chihuahua will assert itself over a St. Bernard, and a St. Bernard may or may not accept this domination without confrontation. I use size as a discussion point because it would seem that size should matter in the way the interactions go. But it doesn't, not until confrontation takes place and the obvious advantages of size come into play.

Another interesting thing about dogs is that they communicate so well without noise. My two dogs will just stop and look at each other for a moment, then all of a sudden they are both running full speed chasing each other. Their path that they run is fluid and smooth, reminding me of fish or birds en masse and how they move so well as a group.

Dogs interact with humans in a completely different manner than with each other and with other animals. They are very, very interesting creatures.

reply to post by aerial

When Mercury flu by the tower of babel people were jolted into making new languages.
The Confusion of Languages
see under
PART III: MERCURY AND MEMORY
includes
Mercury
Well thats my theory.
No aliens just shocks from lightning bolts from swift Mercury the messenger.
There is also the story that people started writing things down and the scribes
would tell them in a control group. Thus one language became many in the
language of the scribe. The scribes never going to a common language.
People had one language before the scribes developed note taking.
So writing things down and lack of communication is how we stand today.

So I suppose that is why Mercury is connected with message taking and being
swift that it is. And so we still listen to the scribes. Don't let them fool you
about aliens cause that is a cult uncovered by Lyne in "Pentagon Aliens"
ED;
Actually we learn by being taught.
The power group after the fall of Rome knew Latin and they eventually ruled
the peoples of France and England who perhaps had no scribes or language
at all but had to pay taxes to the smart ones ruling over them.

Originally posted by aerial
When you look at monkeys/chimps for example, you would think out of all
these years, they would've of picked up a language by now? Well
they do throw feces, thats common with us lols.

How is it possible that we learned all these languages without any alien
interference? I dont think it wouldnt be possible for us to invent our own
language when evolution started. Our world seems a bit to well planned
out by someone, dont know who, but someone special, i.e aliens/god/
other invisible force.

My cats have their own language from what ive observed as do dogs, apes of many kinds have learned to communicate with humans through sign language, where slowly working out how to communicate with dolphins (well understand them, not necessarily talk to them)...

Its pure naivety and oddball logic to say we are the only animals to speak so we must have learned to do it from some one else...

Why do they have to develop a 'language' as humans think of it any way?.. what about animals that communicate through smells and chemicals or purely through body language (hell humans can talk about a hell of a lot with out even opening their mouths)? its still all 'language'.

Even trees and plants communicate to each other, even other plants of other species. Humanity isnt the pinnacle nor the norm in these things, not by a long shot... to think as you do is very old fashion when you think of what we've learned about communication between and within species the couple of decades. Like life, language is every where.

As an aside, ive always believed animals have language, what I really find interesting is not so much how they talk, but what they talk about, and how it relates with us or how they perceive things compared to us. Not sure if it was Koco(?) the signing gorilla, but reading some of the conversation about things shes had its an amazing window into the mind of non-human. Personally I think once we break that barrier of communication humanity might grow up a little, after all we might not be such bastards when we realize everything around us might or does have an opinion.

But for the OP question, no, no outside force needed to develop language... the answer isnt always 'aliens' .

Originally posted by PhoenixOD
reply to post by aerial

 

Its called evolution. You could ask why have monkeys learned to live in complex social groups that take care of each other while fish just swim in the sea. Its an extreme analogy i know but for a split second in time one species of an animal has a genetic screw up that allows it to develop one step further than others around it.

I think school fish have a far more complex social structure than you might think (not just school fish either). Again its more our lack of seeing than their lack of having.

I read a book once that, from a thought experiment standpoint, was interesting. Basically, it was predicated on a humanoid dinosaur race that coexisted by paleolithic humans. Since their "language" involved a series of clicks and physical movements, their communication was ingrained in their thinking. They could not lie, as they could not hide their body language.

The ability to lie was of great advantage to humans, in this story, as they were able to do something that was beyond comprehension to the dinohumanoids.

I read an an article here on ATS, pretty much stating ?shakespear? Was ironing out the english language that was created by a group of people. They might have even said shakespear didnt exist, and was only a group of people. I highly recommend you search it if this topic interests you.
Sorry I cant link you I'm on mobile.


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

reply to post by aerial


Interesting. So who taught the aliens language? Is it it just one long chain of beings teaching other beings how to communicate? So maybe we have to find our own beings on another world to teach them. But would that mean the aliens have to teach us how to do that? Along the same lines, I think that aliens invented the Internet and not Al Gore.

reply to post by boncho


Would chimps go beyond simple vocalizations, face expressions or body postures without our intervention ?

Have you attempted to analyze your own thought processes and how interdependent it is with language, that anything of a above immediate action requires a chain of thought that depends in a structured language that would be extremely difficult to do by simple visualization.