The human facility for language is arguably the most bewildering behavior possessed by any species in the known history of the planet. It is the ability to cognize a thought, by generating small mouth noises that travel through the air as acoustical reverbations. Following which (in a dance of mirrored reflection) the same reverbations fall upon the eardrums of a receiver, mapping sound waves into perceivable thought. The singular requirement for the completion of the loop, is that there must be a mutually agreed upon dictionary as reference between the cognizer and a perceiver.
Even by the most flattened definition of the much debated phenomenon of telepathy....
Telepathy
tɪˈlɛpəθi/
noun:
the supposed communication of thoughts or ideas by means other than the known senses.
synonyms: mind reading, thought transference
....the phenomenon of human language is clinically the same enterprise - transference of thought from your mind to mine.
There is also our miraculous ability to reside within language, to essentially construct reality with it. Everything and all things that we claim makes us human, the enterprise of human existence and culture - art, science, poetry, song, history, mythology, religion, herophony, and on and on and all.......... has at the core this curious linguistic behavior pattern among the double thinking monkey.
"I mean, if you were looking for the thumbprint of God on creation" said Terence, "human language would be a good candidate." He had been eyeing the redheaded bombshell at the bar, who was sitting alone sipping a drink. "Because, look, we’re supposed to be some kind of animal who just went a little further than the next guy. But to get out of that Shakespeare and Milton is a pretty amazing accomplishment, hardly to speak of the mathematical languages that we generate."
"Yeah? Are you sure?" I challenged, "I got two words for you Terence - Dolphins!"
As his head quickly turned to look at me, I could see the mixture of amusement and disbelief in his expression. "You have got to be kidding?" he exclaimed.
I was kidding of course. I had no disagreement with his analogy - dolphins, bees, birds, monkeys might sing, buzz, tweet or grunt as a form of communication; but in my mind there is surely no comparing that with the linguistic veracity of even Joe the Plumber, let alone Shakespeare, Tagore or Lalon.
I broke into a smile, of a boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar. It put him at ease. Looking back bar-way again, he opined "And it seems to me that in the 60,000 year process during which the monkey learned to speak, a significant majority of the language generation came from women."
"Heh!? I know they are the chattier sex Terence" I said laughing, "but that mere observation is no basis for such a hypothesis for sure!?" Terence looked straight at me ignoring my comment.
In prehistoric societies, if the differentiated roles for the sexes were designated as hunter and gatherer, it most likely had profound impact on differentiated development paths over a prolonged period of time. For men, the act of hunting demanded the cultivation of stealth, the ability to creep up on a prey, quiet and soundless. Hunting bands would most likely communicate with each other only by gestures during excursions, lest not to scare away the hunted.
On the other hand, for women as gatherers, a primary skill would not only have to be the ability to find food, but to also come back to the village and tell others where they found it. This way they could go get more. Therefore, the cognition and articulation of descriptors would have most likely developed in women first. After she would find the food, she would have to come back to the village and describe to the rest, 'I found this food on the river bank, towards the south side of the meadow, next to the tree with the five leaved stem and yellow flowers.'
"You do that for 60,000 years" he asserted, "and you end up with what we have today - one sex more talkative than the other, which arguably stands as a fundamental difference between the sexes."
He was now looking back at the redhead at the bar. She was still sitting alone. Terence gulped down his drink and stood up. As he walked towards the bar, he looked at me and said, "I'm going to go listen to her talk for a bit."
Even by the most flattened definition of the much debated phenomenon of telepathy....
Telepathy
tɪˈlɛpəθi/
noun:
the supposed communication of thoughts or ideas by means other than the known senses.
synonyms: mind reading, thought transference
....the phenomenon of human language is clinically the same enterprise - transference of thought from your mind to mine.
There is also our miraculous ability to reside within language, to essentially construct reality with it. Everything and all things that we claim makes us human, the enterprise of human existence and culture - art, science, poetry, song, history, mythology, religion, herophony, and on and on and all.......... has at the core this curious linguistic behavior pattern among the double thinking monkey.
"I mean, if you were looking for the thumbprint of God on creation" said Terence, "human language would be a good candidate." He had been eyeing the redheaded bombshell at the bar, who was sitting alone sipping a drink. "Because, look, we’re supposed to be some kind of animal who just went a little further than the next guy. But to get out of that Shakespeare and Milton is a pretty amazing accomplishment, hardly to speak of the mathematical languages that we generate."
"Yeah? Are you sure?" I challenged, "I got two words for you Terence - Dolphins!"
As his head quickly turned to look at me, I could see the mixture of amusement and disbelief in his expression. "You have got to be kidding?" he exclaimed.
I was kidding of course. I had no disagreement with his analogy - dolphins, bees, birds, monkeys might sing, buzz, tweet or grunt as a form of communication; but in my mind there is surely no comparing that with the linguistic veracity of even Joe the Plumber, let alone Shakespeare, Tagore or Lalon.
I broke into a smile, of a boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar. It put him at ease. Looking back bar-way again, he opined "And it seems to me that in the 60,000 year process during which the monkey learned to speak, a significant majority of the language generation came from women."
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"Heh!? I know they are the chattier sex Terence" I said laughing, "but that mere observation is no basis for such a hypothesis for sure!?" Terence looked straight at me ignoring my comment.
In prehistoric societies, if the differentiated roles for the sexes were designated as hunter and gatherer, it most likely had profound impact on differentiated development paths over a prolonged period of time. For men, the act of hunting demanded the cultivation of stealth, the ability to creep up on a prey, quiet and soundless. Hunting bands would most likely communicate with each other only by gestures during excursions, lest not to scare away the hunted.
On the other hand, for women as gatherers, a primary skill would not only have to be the ability to find food, but to also come back to the village and tell others where they found it. This way they could go get more. Therefore, the cognition and articulation of descriptors would have most likely developed in women first. After she would find the food, she would have to come back to the village and describe to the rest, 'I found this food on the river bank, towards the south side of the meadow, next to the tree with the five leaved stem and yellow flowers.'
"You do that for 60,000 years" he asserted, "and you end up with what we have today - one sex more talkative than the other, which arguably stands as a fundamental difference between the sexes."
He was now looking back at the redhead at the bar. She was still sitting alone. Terence gulped down his drink and stood up. As he walked towards the bar, he looked at me and said, "I'm going to go listen to her talk for a bit."
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