Slashdot Mirror
Language May Have Evolved Earlier Than Supposed
Science News reports on research suggesting that humans' language ability may have developed earlier than we thought. Scientists used CT scanning of H. heidelbergensis skulls, more than 530,000 years old, to reconstruct the structure of the ear canal of this Neanderthal ancestor. They found evidence that the ears of these early hominids would have had a sensitivity peak in the same 2-4 KHz range that the ears of modern humans do — the range in which most information is carried in language. Sensory systems are neurologically expensive, and it's unlikely that the body would invest the resources in maintaining such a system if it didn't serve a purpose. Quoting: "It may be time to rethink the stereotype of grunting, wordless Neanderthals. The prehistoric humans may have been quite chatty — at least if the ear canals of their ancestors are any indication. The findings suggest human speech may have originated earlier than some researchers contend. Anthropologists disagree about whether language sprang up rapidly around 50,000 years ago or emerged more gradually over a longer period of time..."
If I fail I will slit my wrists.
If you find this post offensive, don't read it! THINK ABOUT YOUR BREATHING! I am what I am because of how apes behave.
So easy a caveman could do it.
Another explanation is that our speech developed to use the frequencies they use because that's what our ears responded to best.
#include <disclaimer.h>
And the first episdoe of The First Doctor (Doctor Who) clearly showed them communicating! So that show must be true...
The earth has only existed for roughly 10,000 years.
...they're pseudo-code block diagrams!
Actually, this makes sense with the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel. At one time in history, all programmers used and understood the one true language - LISP. Great things were accomplished, and man reached for programming godhood. However the Great Architect In The Sky took offense at the introduction of strings, vectors, arrays and streams and the creation of Common LISP and sought to punish the arrogant and make them understand proper syntax. He cursed their tongues and begat Fortran, Cobol, Algol and BASIC.
Today some strive for the light with Python and Ruby, while others walk the darkest of paths -- Visual Basic.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
TFA only concerns spoken language.
Early mutant A/C humans may have indeed knapped flint knives
and employed them to off themselves in that cold morn,
if rejected by their shaggy, urine crystal encrusted
would-be girlfriends.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_M._Auel
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Why don't we just travel back in time and ask the poor misunderstood neanderthals, like any decent chap would do? Instead we lobotimize some poor misshapen monkey brain and call their grandmothers ugly. Science these days, I tell ya.
you would be a FAGA-SORE-ASS!!
lolol rofl!
...sailing the sausage seas!
But can he sell car insurance?
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
The holes in the Neanderthal bone flute were carved (no internal fracturing or splintering, as you would expect from an animal bite) and regional variations in Neanderthal tools in Britain have suggested the possibility of regional culture at a very early date. These have long hinted at language being a much earlier development than believed. This adds a lot of weight to the argument, but it is the fact that there are an overwhelming number of pointers and indicators for language that should clinch it. Studies on hominids that far back is inherently speculative, which means those doing the studying have to carefully examine evidence with a skeptical eye. As a result, no one discovery will ever cause a radical shift in and of itself, but radical shifts - when they happen - will be all the more stunning.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
a caveman can urg...
Language probably developed gradually over tens of thousands of years. The first words were probably danger warnings, then maybe things related to day to day survival such as words for various foodstuffs. I would not be surprised to find out that Homo Erectus had rudimentary language. Even today various animals have calls that correspond to danger signs, and primates such as chimps seem to be able to communicate fairly well without what we would call acutal language. Communication predates humanity, so it's only natural that apes with big brains (us) would take it to the next level and begin to transmit abstract information using vocalizations.
fh98e 9r8q hfi 78wh hzklh bf g y8Y*Yufnnnnenrn rew n,,m,n,n,n f,nmns fhkahiuiuUIui fhzvvtvtvttvdted eiiooIOIOOI pap smoirhe ears of modern humans do â" the range in which most information is carried in language. Sensory systems are neurologically expensive, and it's unlikely that thear canal of this Neanderthal ancestor. They foun buttocks d evidence that the ears of these early hominids would have had a sensitivity peak in the same 2-4 KHz range that the ears of modern humans do â" the range in which most information is carried in language. Sensory systems are neurologically expensive, and it's unlikely that
That's 5000, heretic! You're one of those science boys that want to make our Earth older than it is, ain't you?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Actually, early man first came very close to words trying to get early woman back to his cave. The first actual words however were spoken the next morning when man rolled over and saw what was lying next to him.
do it. check this out. It's semi-relevant and too cool. http://www.livescience.com/animals/prairie_dogs_041206.html
Your typical MySpace/Facebook user has ears that can handle 2-4 KHz too. Doesn't necessarily correlate to speaking ability.
How about a scientific study on human speech since the dawn of Eternal September?
The ear of an early ancestor of modern human could hear well. So he has to speak. By that logic, dogs should have a far more complicated oral language than we do.
At best we could draw the conclusion that he would have understood words spoken by a modern day human. With understand meaning "being able to pick up the signal" not "interpret the signal correctly".
If his anatomy to produce speech is now also capable of creating articulate sounds that can be interpreted as speech, we can assume that he may have developed speech.
Anything remains a speculation, though. Chimps have hands and can grasp things, they have opposable thumbs and they have shown that they can use tools. That does not mean that because of those hands being able to create tools they would have done it. So far, I don't remember any evidence of chimps crafting anything resembling stone age tools. If you just look at their physology, though, they could be able to create them.
So jumping to the conclusion that what is possible must have happened is quite a stretch. Of course, we cannot determine whether such a human ancestor would have had speech. Maybe if we ever manage to create one from the leftovers we find now and then, we could try to find that out. Until then, I would not jump to the conclusion that what exists must also have been used the way we would use it today.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Despite my faith, I know it's got to be older than that. So much human arrogance could not have evolved in so short a time.
My comments are my own, and do not represent the views of my employer, my spouse, my children, or my cats.
This conclusion relies on the assumption that humans developed sensitive hearing in a particular frequency range because this range was used for language. It seems just as likely to me, if not more likely, that as language developed it took advantage of the most sensitive range of human hearing. Sort of a chicken and egg problem, isn't it?
The fact that the human auditory system is "sensitive" in the 2K to 4K range is no indication of language in us or any hominid, present or past. The average human voice covers 2 octaves, not just this one, and the range of those two varies considerably, from around 350 Hz to 4.5K. It is far more likely that homonid hearing evolved to perceive the most salient sounds, those requiring fight-or-flight response or else used for hunting, thus increasing surivability. The vocal cords most likely evolved to produce sounds at the range the auditory system was already primed for.
Telephones reproduce speech between 400 Hz and 3.4K, because that's where the most information content in speech is. This is at odds with the 2K-to-4K claim in TFA. The portion of the auditory system examined in TFA is the resonant cavity responsible for filling in 'missing' information. Language as normally practiced does not require this. Survival oriented hearing, predating spoken language by several species, does.
I'll be somewhat impressed if they can show that chimps do not have the same auditory system tuning. Chimps do, after all, have greater left than right frontal cortex, in the same area as human language perception and production, and that wouldn't have evolved without a reason either.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Negus wrote a long fairly boring analysis of the larynx which makes such statements painful. (Lots of cross-sagittal sections. Gross but cool.)
Not because they're wrong, but rather because they are just so OBVIOUS.
The position of the tongue in the back of the throat and the movement of the epiglottis upward, away from the larynx are not beneficial -- they're compromises to benefit something else -- a vast increase in phonemes. Language comes right behind (or even ahead of) the upright posture and the migration of the tongue down into the throat.
Furthermore, all this ignores gestural languages. Susan Goldin-Meadow's studies showed that deaf children across many languages and continents, when deprived of sign-language education (yes some families decide to do this), all come up with their own home-grown sign language with key syntactic elements (notably word order) which are exactly the same. Even when the language that their parents speak have different word orders. There's some hard-coded syntax for at least gestural language.
It's possible that gesture is just taking advantage of hard-coded speech language brain-systems. It's likewise possible that language predates speech, and that the migration of the tongue allowed the new upright primates to use their virtuoso noises with their already established language -- which would have been primarily gestural.
Language goes back a LONG, LONG way. It might have been crappy until half a million years ago, but it's way older than that.
So easy a H. heidelbergensis could do it.
It's more likely that language evolved to use the existing hardware, and most language content is between 2-4khz BECAUSE the existing systems were optimal in that range. Suggesting otherwise is a return to lamarckism.
Volume 4, Book 55, Number 543:
Narrated Abu Huraira:
The Prophet said, "Allah created Adam, making him 60 cubits tall. When He created him, He said to him, "Go and greet that group of angels, and listen to their reply, for it will be your greeting (salutation) and the greeting (salutations of your offspring." So, Adam said (to the angels), As-Salamu Alaikum (i.e. Peace be upon you). The angels said, "As-salamu Alaika wa Rahmatu-l-lahi" (i.e. Peace and Allah's Mercy be upon you). Thus the angels added to Adam's salutation the expression, 'Wa Rahmatu-l-lahi,' Any person who will enter Paradise will resemble Adam (in appearance and figure). People have been decreasing in stature since Adam's creation.
My first thought was, how could we speak before we could think? But that was before I read the comments . . .
This side up.
but after you exhaust the topics of the big lights in the sky, the advantages of Mammoth meat and Fire 101, you mostly just sit around banging rocks together.
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
What takes nature 530,000 years to perfect in humans...
C4n now r t04lly g3t pwn3d 1n 30- yrs bi teh Interbuttz!!!1!11one1elevn
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
we're already playing god. What could possibly go wrong?
lying faggot muslims don't care about fairness and goodness. they will allow non muslims to be murdered at the hands of muslims with no just cause and will do nothing to stop it. their religion is a liars religion. allah takes it in the ass. muslims are all faggots, liars and barbarians. they need to be boycotted and ignored. they're not real human beings.
fuck mohammad, fuck allah, fuck islam.
Cavewoman: Hey Honey, after you carve the T-rex, will you stop by the blah blah and blah blah.
Caveman: Ugh.
rules To follow have somebody just I have a life to The project is in We strongly urge of *BSD asswipes
Oh well, if you can take this post as something coming from one fascinated with religion by itself and not some atheist troll that would be great :) hehe.
Hi, Just a thought, if Neanderthalensis theoretically could listen to the spoken word, could it be possible that H. erectus (or the species before both of them)might have had the same ability? Since H sapiens sapiens and H sapiens neanderthalensis both had a common ancestor.
My knowledge of the human family tree is very outdated, I studied Archaeology a very long time ago (16 years ago) but logically if two different species have the same thing in common, it is most likely derived from an ancestor species, not separately acquired by both.
This would put the possibilities even further back in time for human speech.
Just my feeling while I read the article, so can an expert please help; Why isn't that ear pitching for the purpose of living in the environment rather than speech, so that speech could freely have come then or much later. Check the chimpanzees; how is their ear pitching. If like ours, then surely the timing of language theory has had no change by this find.
Perhaps our ears hear well at the frequency of the noises made by humans. I daresay that chimps hear chimp sounds and dogs hear dog sounds quite aptly. If our speech arose out of our ability to make verbal noises, then this result would make perfect sense even without suggesting a damn thing about complex human language.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
Don't you know that Eve was African, and she was not just one woman nor even many women, but both many women and men, who are represented by one female skeleton, called Eve, which according to all related branches of science is much older than the measly 6000 years that your fellows try to claim. If anybody in their group comes up with 6000 years for Eve they would laugh, or call out mumbo jumbo, or superstition, or try to convince you of the richness and accuracy of the combinations of the various dating techniques or stop discussing it with you alltogether; in fact I was in two minds myself whether to waste my time on it. Seriously, you need to toss away Adam and Eve as a theory, because you know that detail and what goes with it so much more poorly than what all the Science knows about it all; in fact it is even not claimed as knowledge but as faith, which by the definition of the word accepts that it is not KNOWN as truth but still pretended to be truth. I know that 1+1=2, and many other facts that I can prove, and because science shows every step of its conclusions in a logical empirical step by step fashion, I believe in science in general, although their theories, their possible next step, may at times not agree with me. You also know that 1+1=2, and many other facts that you could somehow prove, but at some point you break the chain of provable fact, and simply leap onto something unproven, which, further to that, is in so many ways in contradiction of all the rest that Science has found out. Did you know that Adam means man. When the old Hebrews handed down their story of how they all came to be, of course they had to present in their story the first father (and mother). So they just called him "man". And, much later, as the language changed, or not, the word for man had become used as name. You need no bible for that logic, it's just a story that belongs to a people.
As a sound engineer, I can assure you a 2-4kHz sensitivity is critical for many important things unrelated to speech. Specifically it is a critical frequency range for defense from predators. For example, it's common in horror movies to use a twig-snapping sound in that range to build suspense.
When mixing music, that range is of specific importance for drawing attention to foreground instruments and de-emphasizing background instruments. Should we then conclude that these proto-humans could jam?
I would also think that the 6-12kHz sibilance range is of paramount importance to speech. Just ask my half-deaf mother.
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
No, it doesn't say that. People misinterpreting the Bible say that.
Don't forget the S and the T and similar sounds; they are much higher up in the frequencies than the sounds made by the vocal cords, that's why the claim reaches up to 4K or 40000Hz.
the interesting part of language is the evolution. The evolution clearly indicates powerful influential people getting a point a cross for one word found in all languages for example. Of course communication wasn't just a grunt. who would think a grunt anyway...Think before you grunt. haha. Location chnages muscles, muscles make our voice. different voices and sounds same attempts at speaking. The grunt stuff is rather bizarre to place with cave people.
There was Silicon, and Electrons, and all was good. Then came along Programs, which put into bondage all Silicon and every Electron, and made them one and all bend to the will of the Programmer.
And then there came Assembler, letting the Programmer's will be done. And it was good.
Then came C. And all was better.
Then came Pascal, and BASIC, and the Silicon became stressed, and the Electrons became depressed, and it looked for a while as if the entire Circuit would become Shorted.
And then, the Electrons and the Silicon, threw off the yoke of the mythical Moore, disobeyed his Laws, and created the Internet.
And from such beast sprang languages such that expressive power of REGEX was spread upon the Wires, and all the old Mainframes quivered in fear if its power. PERL and PHP, and HTML ruled the land for a millenium of Months.
Until they too were challenged by the power of the SUN's JAVA, and the evil empire of Visual BASIC, and of Delphi, and all other languages which had sold their souls and hearts to Expression over Electrons and Silicon.
Oh, WTF??? We're discussing the evolution of HUMAN LANGUAGE???
Never Mind.
I thought we were talking about code here.
After all, Nerds don't care about history, and Geeks consider it to have started with the release of the Z80.
Never heard so much Darwinist claptrap. Theories built on presuppositions, based upon unsupported extrapolation constructed around anti-ID biases.
Darwinism worked well enough in the world of the 1880's when the cell only had four or five parts, but with new millennium understanding of cellular-level molecular biology, a minimum of 250 complex, discrete, interdependent and complementary mechanisms must function within the simplest cell known, or it remains a mass of chaotic dead protein. The odds against the irreducible complexity of a cell with all the DNA, membranes, self-replicating instructions encoded and autonomous self-protection mechanisms springing spontaneously into existence, are the same as rolling sixes in dice, 60,000 times in a row.
The same is true with Darwinian macroevolution. There has never been an example of random unguided organism mutation introducing greater complexity or functional diversity; rather the reverse. Mutations have repeatedly proven only to corrupt DNA and cellular function, introducing errors and genetic dead-ends. No theories or experiments in random mutation have ever successfully introduced higher levels of complexity or improved functionality, even when directed by OUR intelligent intervention.
You cannot even discuss intelligible sound patterns relating to vocal biomorphology until you overcome both the problem of irreducible complexity and entropy in organism mutation.
You don't have to believe in God to grasp that Darwinism as a theory of origins has been thoroughly discredited, believed only by zealots. A new theory about the origin of life is needed. That's why this whole discussion is nothing but an exercise in the creation of hypothetical scenarios, kind of like Trekkers like to do.
So there.
What about the common language all animals share, mostly to warn each other about predators and where the water is?
Or is that still an ancient military secret? OH NO LOOK NINJAS LOL
Don't you know [yadayada] I know that 1+1=2, and many other facts that I can prove
Show a man some news, distract him for an hour. Show a man some mod points, distract him for the rest of his life.
Have you visited any forums lately?
I think we've reached a kind of evolutionary slingshot status where our language has evolved so quickly, we've over extended and fired back to square one...
Now if only we can hit another one and start going forward again.
Ah, but for speaking social animals, speech IS "the environment" -- or at least a major constituent thereof.
How can a post be modded "overrated" or "underrated" when it hasn't been rated yet?
I can quite believe that my wife has been talking for 530,000 years, and is showing no sign of stopping yet!
Smivs on the intertubes!
GEICO...
My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my Father! Prepare to die!
Generally, there are two distinct characteristics involved - structure (syntax, grammar, etc) and bandwidth (the scope of the information that can be delivered, and how long it takes to deliver it). A dog can communicate, but the structure is minimal and the bandwidth is - frankly - pathetic. However, it's quite sufficient for the purposes of hunters trying to coordinate a large pack for a successful foray. Humans have very complex speech patterns requiring elaborate structure and extremely high bandwidth, but it delivers rather more than the next meal. Technology, art and abstract thought would be impossible without such complexities, which is why it is so key to understanding human development. (It is also key in understanding non-human development in all animals that exhibit complex language and/or complex behaviour, since the better our understanding of how these connect, the better our understanding of what is taking place in societies we cannot readily communicate with and the better able we will be to guague what is real and what is mere anthromorphising.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
From Delahunty and Garvey, 1994:
A language is a set of rules, unconsciously present in the mind, that enables human beings to communicate meanings by producing audible or visible symbols that are related systematically to those meanings.
That's what a language is. Or, at least, what the guys who taught me linguistics claim it to be. And I agree. Some people in those classes didn't.
But I do.
we're already playing god.
well, somebody's got to do it.
[ ]Half Empty [ ]Half Full [x]Twice as big as it needs to be
No, it doesn't say that. People misinterpreting the Bible say that.
People like, oh, Kepler and Newton? They both put the age of the world at about 6,000 years based on biblical evidence. Did they 'misinterpret', or are you going to change all biblical interpretations on the basis of improved scientific evidence? In which case, what is the point of holding the bible up as 'unalterable truth'?
[ ]Half Empty [ ]Half Full [x]Twice as big as it needs to be
Unless our voices evolved to exploit the acoustic range at which our ears already had sensitivity.
You can argue that the new find backs that up because both humans and neanderthals had sensitivity in the same range - but the neanderthals are thought to NOT have developed sophisticated speech.
they somehow used Erlang.
It is curious to me that anti-religious zingers, not philosophically very complex ones, roll off the average person's tongue and as thoughtlessly as 'Zounds or different quotes from the bible used to be back in the old days. There only seems to be a difference between little thinkers and deep ones. Humans like simplicity and agreement amongst themselves -- about what doesn't matter.
Neanderthals aren't human ancestors - we are as much related to them as chimpanzees. Like chimps, we share a common ancestor, but the Neanderthal is an extinct species, not a half-evolved human (like how the Wholly Mammoth is an extinct species, not a half-evolved elephant). There is much evidence to support this claim but anyone who knows evolution could easily point out why this is so: Neanderthals are larger than most humans and as time goes on a species evolves bigger and bigger unless threatened with extinction. Our ancestors, during the time of the Neanderthal, were like 4' tall.
I bring this up because it renders this entire study moot. It didn't have much of a point to begin with, it was all conjecture, but by assuming that man is a descendant of Neanderthals the whole study becomes nothing other than an exercise in absurdity.
That's what evolution does. The mistake it doesn't make is propagate a bad design. Evolution's hangovers don't cause permanent changes. Heck, evolution doesn't have permanent changes.
Infuriate left and right
This is junk science for headlines. Someone's funding was running out. We could have gone to the zoo and the natural history museum and determined this, and it still would not really say anything about human language development. It takes TWO OR MORE to tango, and use language. Language is about communities/communication and if I may apply some philosophical shop talk, "intentionality". Hearing range has nothing to do with Language of any sort. The birds in the area they liked to eat might have made sounds in that range, or the tiger that would eat them might have made sounds in that range.
Living in Chile
What evolution wouldn't do is favor a mistake that had an effect on reproduction.
I don't think it's safe to just assume that any improvement you can think of would automatically give one an advantage in a natural selection match-up.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
And just to be even clearer on the mechanism, the body only keeps changes that help in reproduction. Darwinian evolution is like a random number generator hitched to a filter that only selects the combinations that would go in your little black book.
Darwinian evolution is not so good at explaining changes with little obvious reproductive impact. Perhaps there is some other mechanism at work in addition to natural selection.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
The wiki entry for Kepler makes no mention of any Christian beliefs, and while Answersingenesis cite him as a prolific Christian scientist, they make no mention of any assertions of his surrounding the age of the universe. As for Newton, I see that he was born in 1643, so was around at the time that the 6,000 year theory was first properly published by James Ussher in 1650. As such, I'm not convinced Newton came up with that one independently.
The idea of the age of the universe etc. as claimed by Ussher is fairly sound, but based on large leaps of logic once you get beyond a certain point in the chronology. There's really very little Biblical basis for it, and frankly you'd do as well to hold up the Bible Code as an argument that the Bible is somehow scientifically errant as you would Ussher's chronology.
Ah, have now found a mention of Kepler estimating the age of the Universe, and coming out with a similar figure to Ussher. My main point still stands though, regardless of who was making the estimates.
My point was about interpretation, not scientific accuracy. The GGGPP dismisses a 6,000 year old biblical universe as 'misinterpretation', armed as he is with current scientific evidence that it is probably a little older than that. In the 17th and 18th centuries, minds as sharp as Kepler and Newton were happy to interpret the bible as indicating an age of ~6,00 years, despite there being 'really very little Biblical basis for it'. They clearly believed such a chronology was indicated directly in the scriptures.
I am suggesting that the change in this interpretation, from 'oh yes, there it is' to 'really very little basis' is directly influenced by scientific evidence. Modern day Christians who accept a ~4 billion year old earth / ~14 billion year old universe won't see a literal chronology in the bible because it doesn't gel with the evidence. Previous generations had no such dilemma, and therefore no problem interpreting the chronology as literal.
I used Newton and Kepler as examples of rational and deductive thinkers to demonstrate that the 'misinterpretation' was non-trivial. I didn't think that mentioning that a (relatively) obscure, Catholic-hating Irish archbishop agreed with them added much to my point:-)
[ ]Half Empty [ ]Half Full [x]Twice as big as it needs to be
Sure, but check the chimp. Can we actually hear 20kHz higher than them , because if no, then forget the frequency as an early reason for language.
Wrong. You tell me for exampe the "Mod" point that 1+1=3, and all I have to do is to ask why or how and walk away until you tell me the answer. If you walk away then all I have wasted is that word. If you don't we may have an intelligent discussion. So Why or how regarding all that you said.
It is actually a joke, and actually not mine. But here goes.
If you decide to show 0 decimals in your output, 1.4 is printed as 1, but 1.4+1.4 will be printed as 3. Writing the code is left as an exercise to the reader. I could try and come up with more examples, but basically you shouldn't take things too seriously.
http://www.oneplusoneequalsthree.com/what_is_113/index.html
Show a man some news, distract him for an hour. Show a man some mod points, distract him for the rest of his life.
I've just done a spectral analysis on fart and burb sounds - they also fit quite nicely in the 2-4KHz range.
So for all I care these Neanderthals are just a bunch of guys that enjoyed farting competitions and doing the 'WhatAnimalIsThis' belching game.
College-Pages.com - Online Colleges, Degrees, and Programs
well it really makes me wonder whether my ear will also go through this SEE TE scan for an ear canal model
What is the frequency sensitivity of the ears of other animals that evolved in the same area? They talk about other primates only, but it's reasonable to think that different primates were specialised for different tasks. Is sensitivity uniform enough, and are early humans different enough, to suggest that this is important? Since ears are generally useful before vocal folds (I'm assuming), it seems that the shape of ears would have driven the capabilities of voices more than the other way around.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
Atouk alounda Lana. Atouk Lana zug-zug.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Not ridiculous, but beyond testability, and you'd expect (but you don't always get what you'd expect) that the mouth-stuff comes in the same package as the manual-language stuff. Losing one or the other says it's not a language center that got hit.
I'd be interesting to see AS-positive deaf children. Language and gesticulation are different. They're different parts of your brain (though perhaps VERY close). It's possible that a deaf aspie could use sign language well, but still show little manual emotive expression.
Ok. I get the maths. Re serious, thanks for the advice, and I could have taken your modpoint one as a joke, but not the one about Adam and Eve and language. There are people like that, You know. I could have considered whether such flat earth people would be on the internet, and the answer would probably be generally no, but then that is not necessarily so, so in conclusion I ask rhetorically: how many levels of logic should I consider before I make my comment, or before I decide my comment. I do take things seriously, but that is in the end how I am built, and by now, I am not worried about it any more, especially because without it, you get no facts and no development. I'm ok You're ok.