Once a translation machine took the English phrase "out of sight, out of your head" and translated it into another language as "invisible idiot." Does that mean the car broke a gear? No, it was a forgivable mistake. He also highlighted one of the many factors that make human language unique among known methods of communication: its complexity.
For the machine was "invisible" invisible. To be "out of the mind" means to be mad or stupid, but "out of your sight, out of your head" does not mean "invisible fool." This is a headache for the inventors of translation machines.
Of course, it is not just complexity that makes human language unique. Many other factors play a role, so much so that some scholars argue that it would be more appropriate to refer to him as Homo Loquens than to refer to him as Homo Sapiens ("Man of Wisdom"). the man who speaks ").
But some may protest: "Have you forgotten all the new research on animal communication systems?" The man says yes. But also animals in their own way. Dolphins whistle, bees dance, birds have distinct tones, and some may even mimic human speech. How about the monkeys who recently learned "sign language"? Although their form of communication may not work exactly like humans', the purpose and results are certainly the same, right? ""
Yes and no. Yes, they communicate; and no, normally the goal and the results are not the same. Much research has been done on this topic. The various conversations made by creatures such as gibbons, geese and dolphins have been cataloged, in some cases even included in some form of vocabulary. Gibbon apparently has about nine calls and more dolphins. Dolphins seem to have different "dialects" depending on where they live.
However, there are some fundamental differences between human and animal languages, even beyond the obvious fact that human language is infinitely more complex. A difference is. . .
Communication intention
Do animals or birds consciously try to communicate with each other as humans when using their own ringtones? Or is the sound just a knee-jerk reaction to your current situation? Konrad Z. Lorenz, a world-renowned animal behavior agency, says they do not consciously communicate, although it often seems as if they do.
For example, if a tower is alerted while operating, it will fly through the air with a warning call, "Kia, kia" and all other towers that hear that call will automatically fly. The perfect coordination between the alarm clock and the reaction of other birds creates the impression that they speak and understand their own language. But no, Lorenz explains in his book King Solomon's Ring:
In all these sounds and movements that express their emotions, the animal does not have the conscious intention to influence such a colleague. This is evidenced by the fact that even individually bred and bred geese or cabbages emit all these signals as soon as suitable weather passes through them. "- p. 77.
When a man uses the spoken tracks he has learned, he tries to convey something to his listeners (unless he sings in the bathroom, of course!) And stops when he realizes that no one is listening. However, the tower does not care if someone else listens. It just sounds like an instinctive act, like a tired yawning man. This highlights another difference in men's language.
Signal mobility
Most of the zodiac signs are not what linguists (language learners) call 'mobile' or can be distinguished by the situation in which the sign is required. Gibbon, for example, only uses his 911 call in real danger.
Animal signals are also fixed in the sense that the animal generally does not hear the sound it is making and tries to convert it to another sound. It is true that some birds can imitate sounds that are not in their innate "vocabulary". You can learn to copy the sounds of other birds or even people, like the parrot, the "Pretty Polly!" Said.
However, Lorenz insists that birds are rarely able to consciously associate any of the sounds of the words they have learned with a particular action, and never for a practical purpose. An old gray parrot named Vulture who had a very large “human” vocabulary (including “Goodbye!” In a deep, caring voice when someone got up to leave) never learned to say “Eat” when He was hungry and "drinks" when you are thirsty.
This lack of "mobility" becomes even more evident in the dance of the bees. It is a type of sign language similar to traffic lights, and humans have even managed to use it to communicate with insects. The flying bee indicates the distance of the flowers with its dance speed (which indicates the effort required) and the direction with its axis in relation to the sun.
However, this is all that can be transferred. Any character whose "meaning" is defined cannot be invited separately and in a different way for a quick discussion on "How's the weather over there?" To be used. or "Have you seen any beautiful flowers lately?" So we come to another difference in human language. . .
Language composition
The great lack of animal codes is that they lack the creative skills that allow people to produce and understand phrases they have never heard before and which may not have been said before. It depends on what human language looks like.
The language has what is called a double structure. By this we mean that human expressions can be broken down into smaller units: on the one hand, units of meaning or individual words, and on the other hand, sound units, called phonemes. Phonemes can be used to construct other words that have nothing to do with the original.
Suppose an animal has a cold signal for meat. Well, that conversation, whatever it was, would mean meat and nothing else. However, the English word meat can not only be used to refer to animal meat, but can also be divided into three different sound units or phonemes: m, e and t. These three phonemes can be used to form all kinds of words: crush and me, as well as food, tea, meat, etc.
As a result, less than fifty sound units in English have been combined to form over half a million word units, and new words are continually being formed. Words can in turn be combined to form an infinite number of sentences. This brings us to another aspect of the composition of language: the idea of grammar.
Grammar creates language in another sense: the network of relationships between individual words and the rules of those relationships. If we know or know the rules, we can form these different combinations and produce intelligible sentences, even though we have never heard anything like it before. And think about the complexity!
For example, even a simple sentence consists of at least one subject-predicate relationship. In the line of the children's story "This little pig went to the market", the boy or man talks about "This little pig". What is said of him that "he went to the market" is the predicate. Animal codes do not connect thoughts in this way.
Unlike animals, humans can not only understand this and all the other grammatical relationships between groups of words, but we can also modify them to express different points of view. For example, we can confirm that the pork went to the market, but we can also deny it by simply doing what is called a negative “processing”: “This pork did not go to the market”. We can go from the past to the present: "This pig is on the market". Or we can ask you a question: "Did this little pig go to the market?" Therefore, a single sentence is the basis for many others that we do not have to learn individually. However, performing these transformations also requires another skill.
objectivity
In order to implement the changes that everyday life requires, the speaker must be able to move away from the message, so to speak, without merely referring to each element to himself. This is called "objectivity". Instead of saying "I'm adding the blue box to the red box", the target communicator may say "The blue box is on the red box."
Therefore, when something goes wrong with the human brain, the ability to perform objective transformations often fails. For this reason, for example, some schizophrenics find it difficult to undergo the negative transformation. Given the phrase "He will eat apples" and asked to do so negatively by adding "No", they usually produce "He will eat pears", oranges or other fruits instead of "He will not eat pears". Apples ".
Although some chimpanzees have been trained in the use of simplified (silent) sign systems that humans invented for them after hundreds of hours of training, they still have a very limited ability to perform such objective transformations. . You can not avoid the objectivity of a two-year-old. But think of how human infants at this age have little control without special education to thrive! And its ability to use all the increasingly complex linguistic procedures in just a few years leaves chimpanzees.
Language source
Noam Chomsky, a well-known linguist, suggested that this unique linguistic ability must be innate or "built-in" to some degree from birth. How else could the speed and complexity of language development in young children with underdeveloped powers be explained? Adults who want to learn a new language can appreciate the fantastic result.
Encyclopœdia Britannica says:
“So it is clear that all ordinary people have an innate ability to acquire, use and develop grammar. . . . The human child can form new grammatically acceptable sentences very quickly from material already heard; Unlike the parrot in human society, it does not just repeat complete statements. "- ed. 1976, Macropædia, Vol. 10, p. 650
Animals do not have this "built-in" sense of language acquisition. Even the most skilled chimpanzees in recent times have used only simple human-signaling systems, while their natural communication is generally simple reflex signals, conversations, and largely unique gestures. And although evolutionists claim to be "members of the animal kingdom that are genetically closest to humans," these primates have actually been shown to be "very resistant to language acquisition [song]" - Ibidem, p. 649.
If the language of human speech did not have its roots in the animal kingdom, how did it begin? Was it because of a certain early evolutionary human being cruel, moaning and hissing to communicate with others of his kind? "Therefore, we can expect the language to be used by primitive and backward groups with a low level of civilization," wrote Mario Pei, professor of language at Columbia University. But “that's not the case at all. The opposite is true. The languages of primitive groups tend to be structured in a complex way, while the languages of the more civilized groups seem more complex and attractive when we go back in their history. "- The Voices of Man, p. 21.
A more complex language when we travel in time? It really does not seem scalable, right? This point has been made by honest linguists. For example, John Lyons, who published the article "The Biology of Communication in Humans and Animals" by J. C. Marshall in the book New Horizons in Linguistics, wrote:
"Marshall summarizes the available evidence and concludes that the evolutionary hypothesis of language, which new research has not confirmed, has no empirical [observational] basis."
Indeed, Lyon continues: "Language is radically different from all known forms of animal communication, and" despite extensive knowledge, researchers are still unable to develop a theory of biological language "(p. 241) Prof. Pei explains : “It is not surprising that both linguists and philosophers have abandoned the question of the origin of language to such an extent that the Société de Linguistique de Paris prohibits on this subject from being the subject of articles.
Why is the question of the origin of language so frustrating for linguists? Isn't that all the hard evidence pointing in a direction you don't want, away from the theory of evolution? So Pei said, “It seems that part of the problem is unsolvable. . . . If [the language] comes from "nature", what do we mean by "nature"? Blind opportunity? A supreme intelligent being?
I love leaning new words of different languages