Date: Sat, 19 Jun 1999 22:10:01 +0200
From: Mario Vaneechoutte <Mario.Vaneechoutte@rug.ac.be>
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Paper on chimp culture
Mark M. Mills wrote:
> Mario,
>
> At 09:02 AM 6/18/99 +0200, you wrote:
>
> >But far less efficient than human infants, especially for spoken language.
> Because
> >they lack our anatomical speaking capacities and probably are far less
> efficient
> >in picking up syntactical meanings of all the different intonations we use.
>
> Based on primate language research, there is little difference in human/ape
> hearing. The big difference is vocal expression. A couple of researchers
> claim their chimps develop a 2 or 3 year old's understanding of English
> (the research team's language).
Reference? You are right about hearing: chimps can recognize a lot of different
intonations.
>
>
> >No problem, but the system language existed and was being used. So it was not
> >invented from scratch by the chimps.
>
> As I mentioned before, the 'invention' of creole language by human children
> suggests a highly creative component within the language acquisition
> process.
Creole starts from pidgin. So there is a basis to work with. So, it is possible
that a society of chimps might develop some sign language of their own, provided
that we give them a start. In the end: we have once started language, chimps did
not. That is what remains to be explained.
> No human 'invents' their language from scratch, but all children
> invent words. It seems this 'instinct to acquire and invent language'
> exists in chimps as well as humans. Chimp language research documents a
> wide variety of creative innovation in language symbols. An example of
> this is 'joking' or word play. Several chimp language researchers report a
> great deal of chimp word play. (something this human author has lost.)
OK. But again: we first gave them some words to play with.
>
>
> >I don't say chimps are unable to learn
> >language, the claim is that language was not developed by chimps (despite
> their
> >possibility to learn it when it exists). So, humans had some capacities
> which made
> >it possible that language emerged 'spontaneously' from their interactions.
> That is
> >one of the claims of our article: not that we are specially gifted with
> language
> >genes, but that several preadaptations (adaptations for other reasons than
> >language) came together, from which language arose as a cultural phenomenon.
>
> I guess I'm suggesting we consider reversing your chain of causation. Your
> hypothesis suggest language emerged from pre-existing vocal adaptations.
> Why not consider the option that vocal adaptation emerged from pre-existing
> 'self-talk' adaptations? In other words, perhaps human vocalization
> represents a breakthrough in expression of pre-existing mental processes.
But that is what we claim in some way: we say that animals have general mental
capacities shared with us. Some mental grammar exists in animals. Different brain
modules in an animal brain must be 'talking' to each other before a decision is
made. But self-talk somehow becomes only truly possible when you have symbols.(I
have to be careful, since I recall some people some time ago on this list
reporting that they were thinking in images and had to translate that to words.
This thinking in images might be what animals do, while we have made this much
more efficient because we could develop words. Could those people comment again,
I'd like to know more about this interesting phenomenon).
>
>
> >I should disagree, but have no evidence to support my view. Do you have
> evidence
> >that they [chimps] talk to theirselves? On the other hand, I would like to
> agree.
>
> I'll post some references this weekend.
Thanks
>
>
> Mark
>
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
> Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
> For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
> see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit