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  • In 2010, orator Hans Teeuwen gave a lecture in London on the topic of speech dysfluencies

  • in the English language.

  • "...if I was in a peculickar- peculiar circumstance- what a -f-caw caw-it language you guys got.

  • "...if I was in a peculickar- peculiar circumstance- what a -f-caw caw-it language you guys got..."

  • Hans, a native Dutch speaker, appeared to be slightly frustrated by this peculiar English

  • word, but perhaps he'd be even more frustrated trying to learn other languages like this

  • Khoisan language of Kalahari, … or the language of the Pirahã of the Amazon

  • Paoxai wants to see.

  • A whole lot (of people).

  • Thus a whole lot he wants to see.”

  • You askwhat's the word for head?” and they, the first thing they say is ʔapapaí

  • and you repeat it, and they saythat's right, kakakaí.”

  • ...so we told you that the word formilkis ʔíbogi.

  • But you can also say ʔí

  • or you can say

  • So, some languages may seem very exotic to English speakers, but is there some sort of

  • developmental reason for that?

  • For example, an analysis by Ian Maddieson and Christophe Coupé found that depending

  • on where you live, your language will have fewer or more consonants.

  • Koa hōʻea hou aku i Hawaii. Kūkā kou umi lua o lēʻī wae no a nā wahi u'i loa apuni...

  • შენთან თამაში სურს და თუ დრო გაქვს მოდი ჩემთან არისო

  • But, how did the first human languages develop?

  • And, Is language built into our brains, or do we have to learn it from scratch - Is it

  • a human invention?

  • Babies all over the world somehow go from not even knowing what language is, to fluidly

  • conversing about the advent of languages.

  • But, it takes a long while, and a lot of effort on both the parents' and babies' part

  • to get there.

  • despite babies being bathed in language from birth, it still takes the average baby 12

  • months for their first words to appear and 2 years to start making simple sentences.

  • If it takes that much effort to learn an already existing language, how could humans have collaborated

  • in such a way to create a language entirely from scratch?

  • Language is complex, and difficult to learn.

  • So complex that, one relatively popular theory, which comes from famous linguist Noam Chomsky,

  • is that language is prewired into the human brain, and language would have suddenly appeared

  • in the brain perhaps via a mutation in one individual within the past 100,000 years.

  • All language speaking humans would have then descended from that one individual.

  • However, Richard Dawkins argues something as bafflingly complex arising in nature must

  • have had always had a very simple starting point . For example, how could the human eye

  • have had a starting point like this.

  • He explains that all you need to get started on the path to the human eye, is a sheet of

  • cells sensitive to light.

  • Develop a cup, and a small hole, and you can actually make out a low quality image of what

  • is in front of you.

  • From here, arriving at the human eye becomes plausible.

  • A somewhat similar story of how language evolved, starting from the most basic type of communication,

  • is presented in Dr. Daniel Everett's bookHow Language Began.”

  • So, what is the simplest form of communication - the first step?

  • According to the sign progression theory of language, the first step would have been indexes.

  • Intentionally or not, most things in the natural world communicate.

  • Indexes represent things that they are physically connected to, for example - hoofprints or

  • pawprints communicate that an animal was there.

  • A smoldering, isolated fire would be an index for humans being nearby.

  • Animal droppings would communicate what kind of animal was there and even how long ago.

  • The next step after indexes is icons - icons resemble things that may not have been physically

  • present, for example a portrait representing the real person, or the stick person on a

  • bathroom door communicating man or woman.

  • In fact, we use plenty of icons nowadays.

  • Onomatopeias would be an example of audible icons.

  • Another language from the Amazon, Wari', has several onomatopeias and partially onamatopoeic

  • words, for everything fromeatandcooktopunctureortear.”

  • The Japanese language is filled with several onamotopoeic-like words to describe all kinds

  • of things like the weather, the motion of objects and the way people move, laugh, eat

  • and drink and so on.

  • Maybe one of the first human words was just somebody imitating the vocalization of a commonly

  • hunted animal.

  • The third step after indexes and icons is the symbol.

  • "So in my perspective, the crucial difference between human communication and animal communication

  • is the use of symbols."

  • So, what is a symbol?

  • Everything you are seeing and hearing me say right now are symbols.

  • All these spoken and written words have been mostly arbitrarily chosen with their

  • meaning tacitly agreed upon by English speakers.”

  • Without prior knowledge or some extra context, there is no way to intuit that the English

  • wordcatrefers to a feline or that the Dutch wordklinkersrefers to vowels.

  • Certain animals do have the capacity to interpret symbols, though.

  • "can you tell me if you'd like some surprises?"

  • "Surprise."

  • "You would?"

  • "Kanzi, would you like a juice or some eminems or some sugar cane..."

  • "Eminem."

  • However, humans are the only ones who actively invent and use them to the point that they

  • can read a book containing 90,000 symbols with no visual cues and know exactly what's

  • going on.

  • Even young children can rapidly decipher and make use of symbols with no explicit instruction.

  • Several months ago, when my niece was about 3 years old, I used the wordbuffelhaus

  • two or three times in place of the wordjokeas inNo you didn't, you're buffelhausing

  • me.”

  • Several days later, when her friend became upset with something she did, she saidIt's

  • OK, I was just buffelhausing you...”

  • You can see the evolution from icons to symbols in some Chinese characters.

  • The character for light used to look like a torch, the one for mountain looked like

  • ...a mountain, as did river, bow, dog, horse and deer.

  • But now they are completely symbolic.

  • In fact, in English, Words related to the nose may have had some iconic onomatopoeia-like

  • root, considering many of them start with a nasally sn- or sm- like snout, sniff, snot,

  • smell, snort, sneeze, snore or snarl.

  • "Many of you may be familiar with the form of humor or alleged humor called the 'LOL-cat.'

  • The humor in which resides in the fact that this cat is incompetent at English grammar."

  • So, what about grammar?

  • Dan Everett argues that all you need to do, is put your symbols, your words in the right

  • order.

  • "So you say 'I'm going to put the subject first and the verb second and the object third'

  • - however you wanna do it, but as soon as you agree on it, you've got a way of interpreting

  • the symbols, you've got a grammar, you can say actually anything you want to say."

  • But still how exactly do you arrive at a language from just ordered symbols?

  • A key point is that speech doesn't happen in a void.

  • We all make utterances knowing that people share similar knowledge of the world.

  • Without the ability to speak and interpret speech based on context - we wouldn't have

  • language.

  • Things, like intonation and cadence, are also very important, to communicate effectively-

  • Gestures, intonation and culture would all be key in making the noises coming out of

  • our mouths intelligible.

  • All languages rely on context, but some languages rely less on it, while some rely on context

  • much more.

  • In English, even if it's obvious you're inquiring about the person you're speaking

  • to, you would still sayDid you eat?”

  • yet in Chinese you would drop theyouand just say「吃饭了没?」which means

  • ate or not?”

  • And, there are languages that rely on context to a fantastic degree.

  • According to David Gil, in the Riau language of Indonesia, ayam makan, “chicken eat,”

  • could mean any of the following based on the context:

  • -The chicken is eating, will eat, or ate something -Something is eating the chicken

  • -The chicken that was eating -The chicken that was being eaten

  • -Someone is eating with the chicken

  • or,

  • -When the chicken is eating

  • It might sound like it would be hard to get anything properly communicated in Riau, but

  • on the other hand, we of course don't take this sign to meanThere is no litter available

  • for purchase here,” nor do we interpretNo Shirt, No Shoes, No Serviceto mean

  • We are unable to provide shirt or shoe repair services.”

  • Using existing languages like Riau or Pidgin languages as examples, Ray Jackendoff argues

  • in this lecture that you can say alot without syntax or grammar and that connecting speech

  • sounds with meaning would have had to have to come before grammar.

  • Grammar can refine an existing communication system, but would be useless on its own.

  • For a while now, linguists have posited that grammar is the essence of language and is

  • innate to the human brain, but Jackendoff argues that would be like evolving the system

  • of muscles necessary for moving the eye ...before actually being able to actually see.

  • ʔáooí ʔaóo hi ʔahoái sahaʔáí ʔapaitíiso hi ʔahoaáti ʔabaʔáígio

  • The Piraha language made a big stir in the linguistic community when it was found that

  • the language lacked something calledrecursion.”

  • In 2002 Noam Chomsky, sometimes called thefather of modern linguistics,” proposed

  • that recursion is the basis for all human language - that all human languages have recursion

  • built into the grammar.

  • Simply put, recursion is combining an endless number of ideas in a single sentence

  • . Thanks to recursion, we can have the nursery

  • rhymeThe House that Jack built.”

  • It starts out withThis is the house that Jack builtand by the third verse says

  • This is the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack builtand goes

  • on to pack more and more information into each verse.

  • "If in a language you can show there is a largest sentence and you can't make it any

  • larger, that language doesn't have recursion and Piraha is such a language."

  • So, because the Piraha language lacks recursion, you would have to translate this line as:

  • Jack built a house.

  • The malt is in the house.

  • This is a rat.

  • The rat ate the malt.”

  • Similarly, the earlier mentioned Riau language of Indonesia and the Iatmul language of New

  • Guinea both lack recursion.

  • However, it's estimated that Piraha has been an independent language for around 2500

  • years.

  • 100 generations seems like enough time to develop something as useful as recursive grammar

  • in the language - so why would it still lack recursion?

  • Biological evolution is filled with tradeoffs - you can find examples all over your body.

  • People have been tripping forward, putting their arms out to break their fall and probably

  • fracturing these bones right here, ever since we could stand on two feet.

  • So why not just make these bones thicker?

  • Well, if they're too thick, you can't rotate your arm as easily.

  • “...so it's a tradeoff isn't it?-” The trade off of our oral cavity being suitable

  • for language is that we are susceptible to choking.

  • A descended larynx made it so we could produce a wider variety of speech sounds, but the

  • tradeoff was losing the ability to not choke on food.

  • So, could recursive grammar be an example of a linguistic evolutionary tradeoff that

  • wasn't worth it for the Piraha?

  • I spoke about this topic with Dan Everett over Skype.

  • "Clearly they are capable of recursive thinking, but then,"

  • "Yes" "Why wouldn't they see the utility in building

  • recursion into the language at some point."

  • "OK, so recursion packs more information into a single sentence.

  • You can communicate the same information without recursion in the sentence, but the interpretation

  • requires recursion, which I have always claimed.

  • However, if there's a lot of noise in the environment, among other things.

  • There's a number of reasons why you might not have recursion, but if there's a lot of

  • noise in the environment, having short sentences that don't have other sentences built into

  • them makes it a lot easier to recover the information if there's a lot of noise.

  • You lose less information if a sentence is not heard.

  • And there's a lot of noise in the Piraha environment."

  • This idea of wanting to avoid information loss is also evident in the fact that the

  • Piraha repeat themselves alot while talking.

  • In his other book about life in the Amazon Jungle, titledDon't Sleep, There are

  • Snakes,” Everett transcribes a story told by one of the Piraha.

  • The first 6 lines all essentially say the same thing: A black Jaguar pounced on his

  • dog, killing it.

  • This all ties into the data I brought up at the start of the video - how language develops

  • depends on ecology.

  • Song birds have regional accents - compared to birds in the countryside, birds in the

  • city will tweet at a higher pitch to reduce echo bouncing off the walls.

  • It's surprising that some human languages can be communicated through whistling, but

  • perhaps not all that surprising is the fact that whistle speech has been mostly found

  • in mountainous regions where people need to attempt to communicate across vast distances.

  • Whistle speech is also found in dense forests like the Amazon where the acoustic environment

  • isn't very good and there is plenty of background noise to overcome.

  • The Piraha language in fact, has whistle speech - yet another way for them to maintain clear

  • communication.

  • Everett explains that another reason for the absence of recursion in Piraha is something

  • he calls theimmediacy of experience principle.”

  • That is, the Piraha are far less concerned about the past or future.

  • "... not that they can't think about the past or they can't think about the future, but

  • they prefer not to talk about things in the distant future and the distant past for which

  • there is no evidence.”

  • "So every verb has to have on it the source of the evidence.

  • Did you hear about it?

  • Did you see it with your own eyes?

  • Or did you deduce it from the local evidence?

  • So, as a Christian missionary, which I no longer am...

  • I remember telling them about Jesus one time and they said uhm, so Dan, Jesus - is he brown

  • like us or is he white like you?

  • "Uh, I don't know, I haven't seen him."

  • "Well, what did your friends say who saw him?"

  • "Why are you telling us about him then!?"

  • Getting along in life never being able to say something as simple asBy the way,

  • Jack said he sold the boat that you bought from Bill two days agomight be inconceivable,

  • but what about 1,2,3,4,5,6?

  • You couldn't talk about times, money, your height or weight, how many days you'll be

  • gone for...

  • The Piraha language lacks numbers.

  • and just have words for “a little,” “some,” andalot.”

  • They do understand relative quantities, so they prefer to trade with traders who give

  • them bigger piles of stuff, but experiments have established that without outside influence,

  • they truly lack the ability to accurately keep track of quantities greater than 3.

  • But the thing is, they don't need recursion or numbers to be great hunters and fishermen,

  • have encyclopedic knowledge of the flora and fauna of the jungle, or maintain a social

  • community.

  • That is, their culture values first and foremost what is necessary and useful to thriving in

  • the jungle and this value appears in the structure of the language.

  • So the point is: Humans would have developed a set of speech sounds based on ecology.

  • "...peculiar circumstance!"

  • And, they would start to come up with icons and symbols to use for communication, which

  • would be supported by gestures and intonation.

  • And, culture would provide much needed context to the communication efforts, and influence

  • the way the language and its structure develops while at the same time acting as the vehicle

  • that preserves and transmits the language to the next generation.

  • Since cultures and cultural values can differ so much, it's not a shock that

  • Evans and Levinson wrote in a 2009 paper that ….languages differ so fundamentally from

  • one another at every level of description (sound, grammar, lexicon, meaning) that it

  • is very hard to find any single structural property that they share.

  • In this paper, Evans and Levinson give counterexamples to virtually all features proposed to be universals

  • across languages suggesting that the only thing innate to the human brain is a bag of

  • cognitive tools that allow you to realize that people are making noises with purpose

  • that follow a specific pattern, and then those cognitive tools allow you to learn that pattern

  • yourself.

  • "...and he's gonna

  • do all the things that he needs to do..."

In 2010, orator Hans Teeuwen gave a lecture in London on the topic of speech dysfluencies

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