how did our language derive from nothing?

I'm just having a hard time grasping the idea that our complex written language of today derived from grunts or no sounds at all. I know that our brain is 2 times bigger than an apes brain for example, and 3 times bigger than a chimps but how did our language come from nothing if it wasnt given to us by a higher power? Is it all because our brain capacity is bigger, or because we have complex sweat glands so we dont have to pant like a majority of mammal species, i just cant seem to grasp that our language came from nothing in the 3.5 million years we have been said to be around, while other species which have been around way longer havent sprouted anything more than the bees dancing "language," so i just need some help or facts elaborating on how our complex communication sprouted. thank you

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

Well, it didn't. Our complex written language evolved from stylized pictures (pictograms). Our complex spoken language developed as a result of the vastly versatle vocal apparatus and the large portions of our brains given over to social interaction.But why do we have language at all? I would presume that the survival benefit of language is obvious to you, right?At any rate, your thread makes a great arena to look at the often-scary parallels between evolution of language and evolution of species. They're almost exactly alike.

To the extent that there is a mystery, it should be with spoken language, rather than written language. Written language is, after all, just a technology that encodes the spoken language in marks. Spoken language is far older than written language.Humans certainly have a natural ability for language. It is known that a group of deaf children, if not raised with a sign language, will spontaneously invent their own sign language. And if a group of normal children is raised without spoken language -- perhaps they are children of deaf parents who only use sign language -- then these children will spontaneously invent their own spoken language.There is a debate within the field of linguistics, on the nature of language. The majority view is based on that of linguist Noam Chomsky, who believes that language requires a special innate mental organ, which Chomsky refers to as "universal grammar". The classic reference for this is Chomsky's 1972 book "Language and Mind". Steven Pinker is a proponent of the Chomsky view, and believes that language is a result of evolution. Pinker discusses this in his 1994 book "The Language Instinct."The minority view, which I share, is that language is a social adaptation that evolved to support communication between members of a society. While there are certainly brain regions specialized for language, particularly Broca's area, the minority view is that language ability mainly depends on general purpose learning abilities. Philosopher Hilary Putnam is one of the advocates of this position.Note: I don't want to take this thread off-topic into a debate about Chomsky's linguistic theories. I'm just providing a little background.

Why do you think other species lack in communication?As you mentioned a bee does a dance, that’s all they have to communicate with. However they are able to give very precise directions to the other hive members. Did it just magically happen?Dolphins and whales might have very complex communication, research is still be done. What scientist are finding is very surprising in how they can communicate and the distance they are able to to communicate over. A whale (forgot species) was heard repeating a thirty (30) minute long song. They just don't know what he is saying (scientist).I want to say gibbons might be wrong so lets go with a monkey species instead. A lot of study was performed on this species and it was found they have different words for, eagle, snake, jaguar, other monkeys not from their group and a few others I can't recall from memory. In all they had at least 6 sounds that ment something specific. Possibly up to 15 or so actually sounds that meant something.For you to think we are the only ones that have language and are able to communicate could be in error. Other species use what is available to them. Like Crash said we a have vastly versatile vocal apparatus along with a large brain and it allows us to communicate on a grander scale. Imagine what out language would be like if we did not have our vocal apparatus that allows us to form words. Also take note how language (written and spoken) differ from civilization to civilization. Papua New Guinea had about 1000 different languages, between the tribes. Most tribes only knew their nearest neighbor and not any other tribes.
Something to think about.*Edit* Source: The Third Chimpanzee, by Jared DiamondAlso like nwr said, spoken language came about before written.This message has been edited by Wolf, 08-12-2005 08:09 AM

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"A Dwarf on a Giants Shoulder sees the Furthest of the Two!"

Written language is easy. The documentation for its development can be found here.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

so these children with deaf parents didnt have any sign of language? i find that hard to believe, none of there neighbors or relatives or anything spoke around them? where did you get this information

how do you know that the large portion of the brain devoted to social interactments didnt develope in later years?

I'm not sure where I found that. I will retract that assertion for the moment, but I will try to find a source and post that later.For the case of children inventing a sign language, this can be found in the book "Seeing Voices" by Oliver Sacks. See, also Page Not Found: 404 Not Found - Incidently, identical twins will often invent their own language extensions. This one I know from a former colleague whose children were identical twins. She observed this in her own children, and after some inquiring she found that it often happened.

Because we share social interactions, but largely not language, with our closest evolutionary relatives, apes such as chimpanzees, gorillas, and gibbons.

We know that other species communicate. We know this because we can observe that information has been transmitted, as in the example of the dancing beesWe may not know how their communication works, but that is likely due to our limitations in understanding the process: only recently has it been discovered that elephants make sounds too low for humans to hear, and they apparently use this for communication over large distances (low frequency sound travels further than high frequency and is less disrupted by things like forests and jungles).Chimpanzees and some other apes in the wild communicate by sign language as well as vocalizations. This has lead to experiments where apes are taught American Sign Language (ASL) and where they have shown a distinct ability to not only learn and communicate in this new language, but add new "words" to the vocabulary. They have also been observed teaching it to new members.We also have examples of Dolphins teaching others to do things, and the Japanese Snow Macaques
Blue Planet Biomes - Japanese Macaque In fact it appears that many species have rudimentary language systems.To get from any one of these to a complex language such as humans use is only a matter of degree development, and not a matter of a whole new concept.To add to what nwr said, there are cases of neglected children in soviet type orphanages where the kids {are\were} virtually ignored by the {overworked\underpaid\uninterested} providers where they have developed their own {language\words\syntax}.Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

you may be thinking of the soviet orphans?also see Feral child - Wikipedia
for some points on limitations of language learning in humansthe Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL) is also discussed at
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Children create new sign language

I read it somewhere, but I'm not sure where. Right. Language acquisition has to start relatively early, or there will be problems.

What this means to me is that the language areas are used by the feral kids, and so are not available for learning a new language, and that part of it may be used for {verbal\non-verbal} communication the child used with his adoptive (feral) parents. Sign language does take up the same parts of the brain as verbal language IIRC.I also don't know if they have compared this to the ability to learn a second language substantially different from your "birth" language at a later age.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

The problems of feral children is generally described as evidence that there is a critical period during which language must be acquired. If language acquisition is delayed beyond that critical period, then it will never work out. What you say about language areas is one possible explanation of that critical period.The Chomskyan view is that language depends on an innate grammar facility (universal grammar), and that this mental organ fits itself to the community language as a maturation process during the child's development. The difficulty for feral children, according to this account, is that by the time they are exposed to language they have passed the maturation phase.My own non-standard view is rather different. I see the grammatical problems as secondary. People can manage to communicate when they flub the grammar. As I see it, the problem is in developing a system of concepts that the child will use to understand its world. For a normal child, many of the important concepts are tied up with social interactions. The feral child has a very different experience, and is not exposed to the same social concepts. When, later, the feral child is introduced to ordinary society, the child's hierarchy of concepts has already been built and it is difficult for that hierarchy to adapt to the conceptual needs of normal society. The child cannot learn to talk about what he cannot properly conceptualize. Yes, that's correct. This seems to be a different phenomenon. There are many natural experiments where people are placed in a culture and language community different from their first language. They generally aquire a pidgin -- a modified form of the second language with somewhat broken grammar. But they don't have the problems that feral children have in adapting to the new culture and language. Derek Bickerton has investigated this, and a web search should turn up a lot of information.