Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id QAA18607 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 28 Nov 2001 16:27:29 GMT Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 11:21:59 -0500 Subject: heard but not seen Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed From: Wade Smith <wade_smith@harvard.edu> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <20011128134026.A2031@ii01.org> Message-Id: <0C26B242-E41C-11D5-86B0-003065A0F24C@harvard.edu> X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.475) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> You really think people talk the way they do not because they
> copied the
> people around them, but due to wider environmental factors?
> Perhaps vowel
> sounds in the north of England are flatter than in the south to make up
> for the more mountainous topography?
The sounds that creatures make are absolutely varying because of
their environments. So are a lot of other behaviors. The fact
that society is one of and part of and inextricable from our
environments simply makes various dialects precisely
adaptations- yes, because that is what is _heard_ and the way it
is heard during the development of speech/language in the
non-deaf infant- part of the aural environment required and
necessary for speech development.
As for topography, as far as I know, no studies have been made
of that, but I'd bet it matters, yup.
It certainly matters in the type of musical and alarm
instruments that the culture fashions- drums, bagpipes, horns,
etc.
Whether it matters in actual speech practices as an analog of
this, yeah, why not?
- Wade
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