Friday, May 9, 2025

Evolution of Language, Still Not a Thing?


Is Language Unique to Humans? New Discovery Offers Challenge...
Gutsick Gibbon | 1 May 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgjD1e3Csl0


As you have been learning bonobo, you might agree that the language is somewhat limited to certain functions of human language.

"Pay attention to me, I'm excited" is basically why a population starting out with a chimp like language would NOT have had to invent ways of saying "apples" ....

I discussed the origin of specifically human language with an Evolutionist (not necessarily Atheist, but definitely not an orthodox Christian) and suggested a word like "apple" (or any other type of fruit) could be invented in a situation like:

a) some individual finds such a fruit
b) when satiated gets back to the main roaming ground of the others
c) and tries to tell them, in which a word like "apple" would be useful.

I countered that the individual would arguably act "pay attention to me, I'm excited" and when getting attention would lead them to the apple grove.

Would you agree that monkey talk is pretty short on nouns and adjectives that can be used for concepts without emotional or pragmatic context?

11:05 Does the call "predator" mean "predator" as a noun, useable in any context, like a purely theoretic discussion?

Or does it mean "predator alert" ... in other words is it synonym with an imperative "guys, get ready to react to a predator!" rather?

I highly suspect that with only six calls, it's the latter.

12:42 "krakoo" seems very phonetically human, is this how they hear this or are their ears incapable of making out consonants?

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