<body> <p><font size="3">I have this little theory about language, about words. I'll toss it out here. </font></p> <p><font size="3">What is really evolving is language. Words themselves are much more numerous now than even 20 years ago. Language is a meme and passes from generation to generation in its expanding form. Now with computers and the www the forms of expression also expand dramatically as it did when writing began, and then printing, the radio and T.V. As language grows, more and more aspects of reality are exposed. We pin words, new words sometmes on all the data, and these realizations can not get away.</font></p> <p><font size="3">Words are the key. Chances are if you live in a third world country then you don't know what the hell a meme is even. Without words... if you had no words at all, no sign language ( those are words), then there are no chairs, no stars, no you, and no world. The world comes into being as babies begin to name. And when you can no longer name, like in a severe case of Alzheimer's disease, ones world crumbles to what you can name.</font></p> <p><font size="3">Feral children are a good argument for me here, since they grow up without words, they see themselves as an animal, and labor to even hear words if brought into society. And Helen Keller, when she got words, then here universe began to open.</font></p> <p><font size="3">Human beings I think are hard wired for language. There is an interesting case in El Salvador where after the revolution the authorities gathered several hundred deaf school aged children to teach them sign language. None of them had any training but humble signs that ones families come up with. Anyway, the teachers took several months to arrive and by then the children had created their own sign language unlike any in the world. This was in the NYTIMES Sunday Magazine in October of '99, I think. Of course new languages have never happened, and this one is growing and popular.</font></p> <p><font size="3">If as they say, "There is no difference between who you are, and what you have done," then, what you did was determined by your words. By your vocabulary... what you talked about.</font></p> <p> </p> </body> </html>
You are right all over the place. Humans are indeed hardwired for language; Minsky demonstrated that decades ago. And languages are indeed memes, just like any other cultural artifact that has to survive across generations.
You bet. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned. (Matthew 12:37, KJV).
2+"a Few" thrown in..... <p><font size ="2">Responding to you reminds me of the story of the Cat who was too curious, nonetheless you intrigue me 2+2 ! ! ! Your writing is a bit too blatant & BOLD, it seems me though, that you would be someone worth knowing as a friend, if you cared to be a friend, that is ! ! ! ! <u> JUST CURIOUS ! ! !
Hmm, I agree with you 2+2, we can explore more of our perceptions through language and share and develop more. We can now even offer animals a different point of view of their own worlds.... But I have to say I did not like your comments on the "feral child". I think with your sort of intellegence and perspective you should have realised that there is no heirachy in life, we just all play our roles for it to all work out. or maybe that is my stupidity. Language is great that is why we should listen no nonsense and irrational thought, it has its "supreme" purpose. To see ones self without pictures.
