> On Dec 14, 2015, at 3:08 AM, Matt Faunce <[email protected]> wrote: > > On 12/13/15 6:24 PM, Franklin Ransom wrote: >> Human languages differ with respect to the rules of construction and the >> things that can be said, and they also develop and evolve over time; the >> development of a language to the point where it can articulate scientific >> terminology is not a development shared by every human language. >> > Can you give your source for this? I remember reading the opposite from two > different linguists. Michael Shapiro is one. (I'd have to search for the > exact statements, but the keyword I'd use is 'passkey'.) Edward Vajda writes > > " Human language is unlimited in its expressive capacity." > > "Today, it is quite obvious that people living with Stone Age technology > speak languages as complex and versatile as those spoken in the most highly > industrialized society. There are no primitive languages. Virtually no > linguist today would disagree with this statement."
I don’t know about that quote in particular. However a decade or so back Michael Tomasello had a fascinating book on the evolution of language in The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition. While he doesn’t speak of it in Peircean terms he creates a model where it appears a certain kind of thirdness in terms of interpretation of signs develops. Once that evolves then he sees language’s capabilities as being largely there and develops fast. It’s been a while since I read it but I think he keeps the traditional dating of the evolution of language to around 80,000 - 100,000 years. The evolution after that is really developing the language and culture once you have the capability. I know he has a newer text based upon some lectures he gave called The Origins of Human Communication although I’ve not read that one.
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