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Language is a universe in its own, evolved and evolving and open to be used for so many purposes. Thinking, expressing, logic, non logic, play, beauty, bringing into the open things of the mind not yet expressed, realism, surrealism. Communication ,yes, that too.
Last edited by BranShea; 06/22/2007 9:30 AM.
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Isn't this where Anna comes in to say, "Move along, folks; nothing to see here"?  Ik dacht U wegging, Branny? 
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Ja,ik ben weg! Ik ben weg. Aramis.
(Uw Nederlands is perfect, de correcte beleefdheids vorm. )
Some technical problems with the disappearence engines.
O.K.! I'll get beamed off now. NOW! IK BEN WEG.
But I will pass by at date 07/07/07
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stranger
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Now really boys, put down your books and think.
The advandage of language lies only in the accurate communication of progressive and sequential cause-and-effect events which postively effect the continuance of the breeding group.
Are you saying that you believe the greatest function of language is for group-protection ("continuance")  and/or sexual relations ("the breeding group")  ? You said the advantage of language is "only" in communication which promotes those two activities. Is that what you meant to say, or am I misunderstanding?  I hope there are other advantages to using language. Anyway, sea-slugs and coral continue and breed with what seems to my untrained eyes to be a total absence of good grammar and rich vocabulary. 
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Are you saying that you believe the greatest function of language is for group-protection ("continuance") and/or sexual relations ("the breeding group") ? No, Nanu Nanu, I'm saying that the ONLY function of language is in the abetment of procreation in the language group.You said the advantage of language is "only" in communication which promotes those two activities. Is that what you meant to say, or am I misunderstanding? I hope there are other advantages to using language. Nay, nay, Nanu Nanu. "Continuance" and "sexual activity" in humans are intimately related, but "lies" as such don't exist in the context of language except as instruments for projecting the language group through time. For example; the "lies" of religions and cultures succeed when they stimulate the collective will to live and obviously have negative effects when they don't.Anyway, sea-slugs and coral continue and breed with what seems to my untrained eyes to be a total absence of good grammar and rich vocabulary. No one I know, Nanu Nanu, has ever accused the corals and the sea slugs of having good manners. And if we humans can refrain from blowing up Earth it will be us who saves these poorly bred creatures from the Comet. 
Last edited by themilum; 06/22/2007 11:54 PM.
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Pooh-Bah
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I have had patients who, because of a stroke, have damage to the language areas of the brain. Note the plural - areas. The receptive and expressive language centers are separate although closely linked. I have had patients who are able to follow commands, thus showing comprehension of language but whose speech is disrupted at levels ranging from difficulty using the correct word to total gibberish or even complete silence.
I have also had patients who lose the ability not only to speak but to use any symbolism including pointing or pictures.
I am not sure how this fits in with any of the aforementioned theories of language but the human mind, as well as the brain interest me.
Oddly enough it is not unusual for a patient who speaks 2 languages to lose the second and rvert to the first language of childhood even if they have not spoken it for years. One elderly woman had to start learning English from scratch because neither her husband of 50 years nor her kids spoke any French.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Yes, Zed -- I had a friend whose father suffered aphasia after a stroke. This was in the 80s. He was a Jew who'd fled Poland for Brazil during the Nazi regime. He totally lost his Portuguese and most of his English, though he could understand English when it was spoken to him. He could still communicate in a mix of Yiddish and Polish.
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Isn't this where Anna comes in to say, "Move along, folks; nothing to see here"? No second-guessing allowed, Aramis.
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"Words That Work - it's not what you say it's what people hear" by Dr. Frank Luntz. Hyperion. ISBN 1-4013-0259-9
For an interesting take on language. New book; may not be in free libraries as yet.
And I just throw this into the mix : Ever had the situation where some esoteric thing was explained to you and you fully understood only later to be unable to explain it to someone else, even though you still understood it? Words fail. Sometimes. And then there is Ameican Sign Language (ASL)
But those are enough cats among the pigeons to be going on with.
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stranger
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Howdy Mr. Cur,
Not ot be contrary, but, I must write that I disagree with the assertion that language is the vehicle for acquiring thought. You might find these three examples persuasive:
First, what about prelinguistic children? They have no language yet much observation/experimentation tells us clearly that they do think.
Second, what of deaf persons, who through unfortunate circumstance, do not have the opportunity to acquire any language. There are a few such folks around who have grown to adulthood with no language at all (neither sign language nor spoken langauge). Yet, they can clearly think' e.g., they can repair locks - a task which involves plenty of if-then logic. (For an absolutely fascinating description of this see a book titled "A man without words." The author's last name is "Schaller" and I can't recommend this book enough. It's an extrordinary story.)
Third, what of polysemy? If words and their referents don't correspond on a one-to-one basis, we must acknowledge the ability of a sentence's context to guide us in determining the meaning of ambiguous words. So, the next logical question is how would a person cognitively represent this ability?
Thus, I think that the conclusions from modern cognitive science tells us that while it is likely that only the possesion of language allows one to acquire formal/abstract thought, the function of language in this dynamic is strictly an intrapersonal one.
Clearly, language can assist thougth, but it is not thought's equal, nor is it even a necessary condition for the acquisition of thought.
As you can imagine, most of my background has persuaded me of the above, but frankly, I have heard little of the other side of the debate. Can you fill me in on it, and describe how it could refute the three above propositions?
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Chris,
Hello. I unfortunately cannot offer any well-founded arguments. I have been studying language for only one year, and all the studying has been inside my own room. By reading some of Locke, many grammar books and books concerning language (the book 1984 adds to this a unique perspective of the delimiting of thought by the delimiting of language), and with much observation of speakers, I have concluded that language must be thought and thought must be language.
If that conclusion is naive, that is fine. Many years are left before my death; I have much time to learn and change my thoughts. As I search through the posts in this site, I notice the large amount of information that are still unknown to me. It is compelling. My one year has taken me to a great conclusion, though, I believe. Many kids my age do not think of language, and I believe that makes them less defined.
My arguments now are not very refined, too. Many books and writers disagree, and I do not know which side is more sensible. Just as now, I sometimes feel wrong for thinking that I am right. Others have more intricate theories, and present them better. Language still confuses me, but I am learning as quick as I can.
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Pooh-Bah
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Thinking out loud - or rather on line.
Language consists mainly of words and the rules on how to use them and words are the symbolic representations of concepts or objects. Concepts and objects obviously exist whether or not there are symbols for them; in fact we don't need symbols for something unless we are going to think about or try to communicate about it. But we like to name things and so we create words for those concepts which are important to us. For example ask a skier and a non-skier how many kinds of snow they can name. Because it is easier to mentally juggle concepts, or think about things, when we have symbols for them we tend to think mainly about concepts we have words for.
Thus it becomes circular. Thinking creates language and yet language can limit thinking.
This is why learning a language can teach you so much about the culture that created it.
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"Many years are left before my death" Knock twice on wood with you say that! That's okay though, I already knocked for you. And mahogany. Back on topic. As someone who can think fluently in two languages, as someone who can see so many points of view in life I'd call what you're presenting a gross oversimplification of the human mind. Do you really think so little of the mind, what created skyscapers, airplanes, trains, cyberworlds, that you believe that language determines so much? Many people can excel and think beyond language. Do you think Einstein thought in terms other Germans could understand? That's why people coin new words. That's why the English we spoke 1000 years ago didn't sound anything at all like the language we speak now. Growth, expansion, thinking beyond language to create language. Life is so much more than that, that it's sad to think that people can even subscribe to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
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Pooh-Bah
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Language is the representation of thinking not it's source.
That is the thought that I couldn't put into language yesterday.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Amen,[]Logwood
Sorry,
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Couldst not utilize an ASCII stand-in [e.g., Alt-255]?
"Improvise, adapt, overcome."
-USMC concept
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old hand
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...or, copy a string of text and adust the words, eh, eh, eh!
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Linux box doesn't use ALT sequences. I worked around by copying and pasting a space. Now I've got a new keyboard.
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stranger
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The evolution of our language now seems to be a decay. Why should "gonna" remain in our language? It is lazy! Damn, I am not afraid of being called a stickler, gonna is utterly stupid. It changes a sentence too much:
Is he leaving tomorrow?
Is he gonna leave tomorrow?
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Oh, honey, there is so much you don't know, and I admire you for trying to understand. Better scholars than I can direct you to the Victorian inkhorns et al who tried to put forth the same arguments.
To be a true pedant, you need decades of knowledge to fall back on. And then you're still gonna be obnoxious.
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To be a true pedant, you need decades of knowledge to fall back on. And then you're still gonna be obnoxious.
An erudite former member of this board, one NicholasW, described himself in his profile as "a precisian". When I asked him why, he said that it was because "pedant" carried an implicit suggestion of one who was a stickler for details but who was often incorrect. Such a definition certainly did not fit NicholasW.
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That's why the English we spoke 1000 years ago didn't sound anything at all like the language we speak now. Who's the "we", kemosabe? And how in Knut's name have you managed to hang around speaking English for the last 1000 years? 
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Pooh-Bah
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To be a true pedant, you need decades of knowledge to fall back on. And then you're still gonna be obnoxious. [thread jack] Anna your above comment reminds me of a behind-the-scenes thing I saw once about the show "Seinfeld." There was a line that Jerry had to speak that was "Are you gonna do it?" He kept saying it and it wasn't funny. He tried stressing different words. " Are you gonna do it? Are you gonna do it? Are you gonna do it? Are you gonna do it?" But it still wasn't funny. But when he said "Are you gonna do it?" it was funny. Not sure what hell that has to do with anything, but... [/thread jack]
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enthusiast
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To the smartass up above with the unpronounceable nickname, the answer is "humans".
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stranger
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I have had patients who, because of a stroke, have damage to the language areas of the brain. Note the plural - areas. The receptive and expressive language centers are separate although closely linked. Not only that, but single features of language ability are distributed over two or more areas, are they not? Part of relearning language for some people, requires (or results in) using parts of the brain not previously used for language. Alas, I have no longer my fine books on speech pathology, but you can tell us, Zed?
First, what about prelinguistic children?
...
Second, what of deaf persons, . . . . There are a few such folks around who have grown to adulthood with no language at all (neither sign language nor spoken langauge). . . .
Third, what of polysemy? . . .
Clearly, language can assist thougth, but it is not thought's equal, nor is it even a necessary condition for the acquisition of thought.
Excellent points, ChrisMcA. Isn't Helen Keller the example par excellence of a Languageless Thinker? What came first. What came really, really first? First feelings (emotions), then thoughts, then language. "Heart, mind and body."
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Pooh-Bah
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You guys should read The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks.
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or any book by Oliver Sacks! (he's one of my favorite authors.. i've even met him (ok it was a reading/book signing.. but.. it was a small close group (Mus of Nat. History))
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The evolution of our language now seems to be a decay. Why should "gonna" remain in our language? It is lazy! Damn, I am not afraid of being called a stickler, gonna is utterly stupid. It changes a sentence too much:
Is he leaving tomorrow?
Is he gonna leave tomorrow? you're not gonna wanna know this, but here it is, as a matter of donkamentation, if nothing else. 'gonna' (as well as 'wanna') can be found in several mainstream dictionaries such as AHD4, Compact OED, Cambridge, Encarta, etc. (per onelook.com) - joe (I'm jus sayin) friday
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no doubt curmudgeons in the past railed against "god be with you" being shortened into good bye
and where convinced that english was going to hell in a hand basket it that sort of stuff was going to be allowed.
do think there was a time when chitterlings were call chitterlings, and not chit'lins?
was there once a name Saint John, (before it became Syngen?)
i remember in my lifetime, telephone--who says telephone any more? its phone( both noun and verb!) and cel phone.
i still speak of dialing, but its been 20 years since i owned a phone with a dial. (my cel has touch screen, not even a (numeric) pad)(no its not an i-phone)
language is imprecise.. it carry relics, and it sprouts new words for new idea, new situations. i'm gunna, (like gonna but more gutteral,--closer i think to how most say the word) sign off now!
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no doubt curmudgeons in the past railed against
was there once a name Saint John, (before it became Syngen?)
What do you mean "was there once"? There still is. Not only is the surname still spelled "Saint John", there are still people with that name who pronounce it "Saint John". I have yet to see the surname spelled as "Syngen".
Last edited by sjmaxq; 06/30/2007 11:01 PM.
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>I have yet to see the surname spelled as "Syngen". no, but see Sinjin.
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