Re: Origin and function of language

Richard Foy (rfoy@netcom.com)
Thu, 27 Jun 1996 14:37:11 GMT

In article <Pine.SOL.3.91.960624111756.24484B-100000@ursa.cus.cam.ac.uk>,
Mark Leney <mdl1002@cus.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>On Sun, 23 Jun 1996, Cheradenine Zakalwe wrote:
>
>> They had brains as large (or large) than ours. A large brain uses up a
>> lot of energy (For H.s.s: 20% in adults, 50% in babies), so they must
>> have done something with it. IMO Neanderthals did have language, as did
>> H. erectus. It probably wasn't as complicated as human language; in
>> erectus it certainly wasn't.
>>
>
>I agree, I think it was probably amiable chatter about handaxes etc..
>nothing really special. Robin Dunbar suggets that even today we mostly use
>language for a type of social grooming rather than communication per se.
>This comes back to the idea that the large brain is used to cope with
>increasing social complexity, possibly to cope with social interactions
>in large groups. I guess some AAHer will jump in here and say that
>language replaced 'actual' social grooming due to the need to be
>groomed physically as aresult of loss of hair/parasites from all that
>paddling about in the water...well it's a thought.

Well I will jump in but I won't say that. What I will say is that I
read an article some time ago that reported a hypothesis that sign
language developed before a spoken language. It seemedd to make a lot
of sense.

-- 
"Do you know why Moses wandered in the wilderness for fourty years."(pause)
He was a man and men don't ask directions." --Nun in the play Nunsense

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