Did language begin 2.5 million years ago?

The science or study of primitive societies and the nature of man.

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PaulMarcW
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Did language begin 2.5 million years ago?

Post by PaulMarcW »

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http://www.beforebc.de/all_america/900_ ... 00-21.html

The above text appears below as its presentation on the page might be too small a font-size for comfortable reading. The size below is larger and maybe easier for some to read.

LEGEND: In Click Languages, an Echo of the Tongues of the Ancients, Nicholas Wade of the New York Times said that that ancient African language over 90 tyo may contain the seeds found in all future languages. (NYT, March 18, 2003). Continuing in the same vein, in Current Biology (also 18 March 2003) Stanford scientists Alec Knight, Peter Underhill, and Merritt Ruhlen, wrote that key African Click Languages were spoken by Bushmen who separated over 100 tya.

If one considers that Australia and China both have monosyllabic tribal names in common found in Africa such as Kung, Mau, and Jang among many others (and agglutinated languages arose [?] from their monosyllabic language), and that both places were populated over 60 tya from Africa, then this makes the claim that Click Language is the Mother of all Tongues all the more interesting. This is because both the ithyphallic black stick-figure man in Europe [II:C] from 25 tya (an African art type found in the hieroglyphics and rock art worldwide) and steatophygous woman from Siberia 22 tya [II:D], both are assuredly African Bushmen.

Significant corroborative evidence from the same 100 tya period is the following African-North European connection written up in Nature. David Reich reports his team …studied 96 Yorubans (from Nigeria), believed to share common ancestry with northern Europeans about 100,000 years ago [because they show] … the same allelic combinations.” (See: Nature, 10 May 2001). For the preceding, compare Russian [IA] and East African [IB] pics. Next. Consider that the meat-scraping tool in the yellow box has an identical form from 2.5 mya in Africa through 25 tya in Siberia and 15 tya in Japan.

Why is the preceding significant? Linguists studying neurology believe that language developed in and simultaneous with the brain stimulated by tool-making and tool-using Homo habilis. (see papers of Alinei,Tobias, Gibbons, etc in EUROPAEA, Journal of Europaenists, 1997, III/1); Nariokotome [II:A] was H. habilis. If a form remains constant, I believe its idea does; and if animal species can form common “words /sounds” for specific things (which they do) early man must have had a permanent word for the “idea” of “scraper” [I:A, B] and all other things of his environment (e.g. the flat reindeer-calf shoulder blade incised upon long, long ago by shaman and called “lap” or “page.”

Page is still called “lap” in Hungary today. Early man must have had language: a language containing daily objects and the things of his environment. If the evidence is interpreted, scientists say Nariokotome [II:A] of Kenya from 2.0 mya was ancestral to Dmanisi of the USSR [II:B] of 1.8 mya and both are Homo habilis with Dmanisi making Oldowan tools that “Nariokotome people” did.

And scientists say they (H. habilis) could speak; Nariokotome would have been a “Bushman” as it was only “Bushmen” in Africa during his time. If so, it was Click Language that Nariokotome’s descendents took to Eurasia (clicks lost over deca-millenniums since). As Africans are, like those on this page, individuals (color aside) with a combination of being more long than round-headed and having full noses and mouths and wiry hair, it was they who formed this Mother Tongue ancestral to those spoken today; and Uralic, Finn-Ugrik, Basque, and Eurasian languages may one day be shown to be derivative from Click Language.
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Post by Minimalist »

Fortuitous, this was on Michelle's list of News Items, yesterday.

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic ... _and_clear

It may be time to rethink the stereotype of grunting, wordless Neandertals. The prehistoric humans may have been quite chatty — at least if the ear canals of their ancestors are any indication.

The findings suggest human speech may have originated earlier than some researchers contend. Anthropologists disagree about whether language sprang up rapidly around 50,000 years ago or emerged more gradually over a longer period of time, says Rolf Quam, a paleoanthropologist at the American Natural History Museum in New York and coauthor of the new study.

The auditory bones of 530,000-year-old skulls indicate that an early human species called Homo heidelbergensis may have heard sounds much the way people do today. H. heidelbergensis are thought to be an ancestor of Neandertals. The findings could reignite debate about whether Neandertals could speak, Quam and colleagues report. The study is the first to use a fossil to reconstruct sensory perception in any Homo species, they add.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.

-- George Carlin
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Post by Rokcet Scientist »

If the balance in the current (semi-) scientific debate is any indication the communis opinio seems to be that the Neandertals spoke. Where/what is the evidence for the contrary? Whatever it is, it is fading fast, it seems.
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Digit
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Post by Digit »

Communication between people doesn't actually need grammatical language, I suspect therefore that verbal communication very possibly preceeded the spoken word.
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Post by War Arrow »

Digit wrote:Communication between people doesn't actually need grammatical language, I suspect therefore that verbal communication very possibly preceeded the spoken word.
Nice point.
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Post by Forum Monk »

Ugghh
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Post by rich »

Huh?
i'm not lookin' for who or what made the earth - just who got me dizzy by makin it spin
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Post by Forum Monk »

It's neaderthal for "I wholeheartedly concur my dear fellows".
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Post by rich »

Well my good fellow ( :shock: ) I see you understood mine too.
i'm not lookin' for who or what made the earth - just who got me dizzy by makin it spin
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Post by Ishtar »

Rokcet Scientist wrote:If the balance in the current (semi-) scientific debate is any indication the communis opinio seems to be that the Neandertals spoke. Where/what is the evidence for the contrary? Whatever it is, it is fading fast, it seems.
Sure, they could paint like this but only communicate in grunts and ughs? I don't think so.

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Post by Forum Monk »

Ishtar wrote: Sure, they could paint like this but only communicate in grunts and ughs? I don't think so.
Nice pic. You sure its neanderthal?
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Post by rich »

Uh - did you just ask her if she was there back then??? ouch - ok - I'll be nice. Sorry. Devil made me do it - again.
i'm not lookin' for who or what made the earth - just who got me dizzy by makin it spin
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Post by Ishtar »

It's thought to be Gravettian, from the Chauvet caves in France.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chauvet_Cave
The cave contains the oldest known cave paintings, based on radiocarbon dating of "black from drawings, from torch marks and from the floors." Clottes concludes that the "dates fall into two groups, one centred around 27,000-26,000 BP and the other around 32,000-30,000 BP."[2] As of 1999, the dates of 31 samples from the cave had been reported, with the earliest being 32,900±490 BP.[3]

However, some archaeologists have questioned these dates. Züchner, based on his archaeological dating, is of the opinion that the red paintings are from the Gravettian period (c. 28,000–23,000 BP) and the black paintings are from the Early Magdalenian period (early part of c. 18,000–10,000 BP).[4] Pettitt and Bahn believe the dating is inconsistent with the traditional stylistic sequence and that there is uncertainty about the source of the charcoal used in the drawings and the extent of surface contamination on the exposed rock surfaces.[5].New stylistic studies show that some gravettian engravings are superimposed on black paintings proving the paintings older origins (see E.Guy).
Usual problems about dating cave paintings.
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Digit
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Post by Digit »

Whilst accepting that whoever produced those works of art Ish may well have had a wide and varied vocablary I think it would be bad science to suggest that that ability was needed to produce such works.
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Post by Ishtar »

Digit wrote: I think it would be bad science to suggest that that ability was needed to produce such works.
And you think I'm going to lose sleep about that? Thought you knew me better by now, Dig! :lol:

The only reason there's an inbuilt assumption that early man communicated with grunts is because of scientists who insist that man is descended from apes, and yet they are a million miles away from proving it.

That's what I call 'bad science'.

Speech, imagination and dexterity all come under cognitive abilities. By these paintings, we know they had advanced cognitive abilities around 28,000 BC - more than apes anyway! :lol:
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