We now turn to the issue of language as one of the most distinctive human behaviours, and one which we might think of as completely natural, arising quite easily from our increased intelligence. However, it is to be noted that among primates, as intelligence increases so do Machiavellian strategies in which only expensive and expressive signals are trusted. By contrast, language production is cheap and easy, and thus the question of how language could have evolved becomes a genuinely challenging one. A wide range of magical theories are often invoked to explain our faculty for speech, but more subtlety is needed to understand how unprecedented levels of inter-individual trust could have come about to permit such an inexpensive communication system to prevail.
This chapter mainly outlines 'the problem of language' and only offers some solutions, more of which will come later. It should be noted that those who are particularly attached to some of Chomsky's ideas, or McKenna's 'mushrooms of language' hypothesis may not entirely enjoy what follows!
This chapter mainly outlines 'the problem of language' and only offers some solutions, more of which will come later. It should be noted that those who are particularly attached to some of Chomsky's ideas, or McKenna's 'mushrooms of language' hypothesis may not entirely enjoy what follows!
We are accustomed to thinking of language as the representationally human trait, a behaviour whose origin is the focus of probably the largest number of magical theories. While the form and structure of human language is most certainly unique among the animals, there are observations emerging that some primates, as well as elephants and dolphins, may possibly utilise systems of linguistic communication of one form or another, and this alone can lay to rest some of the crazier theses, since if the magic (whatever form it is supposed to take) was acting upon humans, it must also have been acting upon these other mammalian species too, a situation which looks more unlikely the more species we discover may be using verbal signals.
A simpler and more elegant explanation is that these behaviours have evolved, and in this light we gain our first insight, that in the world of signal communications, all possible systems of language are not the same, for there are signs and there are symbols.
A simpler and more elegant explanation is that these behaviours have evolved, and in this light we gain our first insight, that in the world of signal communications, all possible systems of language are not the same, for there are signs and there are symbols.
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