"59:03 minutesPart I - Shadows of Doubt Jonathan Miller visits the absent Twin Towers to consider the religious implications of 9/11 and meets Arthur Miller and the philosopher Colin McGinn. He searches for evidence of the first 'unbelievers' in Ancient Greece and examines some of the modern theories around why people have always tended to believe in mythology and magic. --- Uploaded because this needs to be available as a shining light of the historicity of reason midst the depths and oceans of media absurdity and religious propaganda. So few representatives of atheism provide a compelling and earnest account for unbelief, let alone with the lucidity and intellectual vigor of Jonathan Miller. He is sincere and moving in this attempt to explain and understand the origins of the truth of disbelief of religious superstition and faith. --- Should the BBC or the producers find it inappropriate for me to have uploaded this video, I will gladly remove it upon their request."
Friday, December 18, 2009
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
A Brief History of Time
Total running time :1:19:42
The movie about Stephen Hawking's ideas from his book titled the same and about his life.A History of God
A History of God - running time : 1:33:30
Based on Karen Armstrong's book, this film examines the concept of God in the three major monotheistic religions from the days of Abraham to modern times. Through analysis of historic and holy texts and incorporation of ancient art and artifacts, the program explores the deity written about in the Bible and the Quran. The evolution and intertwining of various Christian, Jewish and Islamic interpretations of God are also addressed.
Based on Karen Armstrong's book, this film examines the concept of God in the three major monotheistic religions from the days of Abraham to modern times. Through analysis of historic and holy texts and incorporation of ancient art and artifacts, the program explores the deity written about in the Bible and the Quran. The evolution and intertwining of various Christian, Jewish and Islamic interpretations of God are also addressed.
The Story of God
The Story of God is an epic journey across continents, cultures and eras exploring religious beliefs from their earliest incarnations, through the development of today's major world faiths and the status of religious faith in a scientific age. The series examines the roots of religious beliefs in prehistoric societies and the different ways in which humanity's sense of the divine developed. It looks at the divergence between religions that worship a range of deities and those that represent strict monotheism.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Saturday, December 5, 2009
The Day We Learned to Think - BBC Horizon
Understanding of humans' earliest past often comes from studying fossils. They tell us much of what we know about the people who lived before us. There is one thing fossils cannot tell us; at what point did we stop living day-to-day and start to think symbolically, to represent ideas about our environment and how we could change it? At a dig in South Africa the discovery of a small piece of ochre pigment, 70,000 years old, has raised some very interesting questions.
"We see features that are almost identical to living humans"
Prof Jeffrey Laitman, Mount Sinai School of Medicine
Anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) emerged in Africa roughly 100,000 years ago. We know from fossil evidence that Homo sapiens replaced other hominids around them and moved out of Africa into Asia and the Middle East, reaching Europe 40,000 years ago.
Prof Richard Klein believes art is a landmark in human evolution. Unquestionable art that's widespread and common suggests you're dealing with people just like us. No other animals, after all, are able to define a painting as anything other than a collection of colours and shapes. This ability is unique to humans.
Other scientists agree. They believe art defines humans as behaviourally modern, and its beginning must coincide with the ability to speak and use language. If someone has the imagination to devise a shared way to describe their environment using art then it seems inconceivable that they could not possess language and speech. The search for the moment our ancestors became behaviourally just like us is also the hunt for the first evidence of art.
"We see features that are almost identical to living humans"
Prof Jeffrey Laitman, Mount Sinai School of Medicine
Anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) emerged in Africa roughly 100,000 years ago. We know from fossil evidence that Homo sapiens replaced other hominids around them and moved out of Africa into Asia and the Middle East, reaching Europe 40,000 years ago.
Prof Richard Klein believes art is a landmark in human evolution. Unquestionable art that's widespread and common suggests you're dealing with people just like us. No other animals, after all, are able to define a painting as anything other than a collection of colours and shapes. This ability is unique to humans.
Other scientists agree. They believe art defines humans as behaviourally modern, and its beginning must coincide with the ability to speak and use language. If someone has the imagination to devise a shared way to describe their environment using art then it seems inconceivable that they could not possess language and speech. The search for the moment our ancestors became behaviourally just like us is also the hunt for the first evidence of art.
The roots of the matrix
This video seperates The matrix trilogy and explains all the beliefs structures, religions beliefs, philosophies, etc. that are woven into the matrix movies. It uses the writers' and directors' own movie to show their alternate agenda. One example of how closely the movie is really based on religious beliefs is that the license plates on the cars during the highway chase sceen are actually Bible books and verses that parallel what is happening in the movie. And this video clearly shows it would take much longer to fully explain the depth of which the writers wove the stories, than it did for them to write it.
Very Interesting Documentary : We Are The Aliens [BBC 2006 - Horizon]
First broadcast on 14 November 2006 Clouds of alien life forms are sweeping through outer space and infecting planets with life – it may not be as far-fetched as it sounds. The idea that life on Earth came from another planet has been around as a modern scientific theory since the 1960s when it was proposed by Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe. At the time they were ridiculed for their idea – known as panspermia. But now, with growing evidence, it's back in vogue and even being studied by NASA. We meet the scientists on a mission to get to the bottom of the beginnings of life on Earth - from the team in Texas who are lovingly building a robotic submarine called DEPTHX to explore a moon of Jupiter, to Southern India where they are investigating a mysterious red rain which fell for two months in 2001. According to local scientist Godfrey Louis, the rain contains biological cells unlike any he had seen before – with no DNA and the ability to replicate at 300°C. Louis has come to the conclusion that the cells are extra-terrestrial in origin. Could all this really be proof that We are the aliens?
Friday, December 4, 2009
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Another interesting Article - The Origin of Language (by Edward Vajda)
... Yesterday we discussed the gulf that separates the creative use of language by humans from the inborn signals of animals. Bees returning from their first flight out of the hive know perfectly how to perform their complex nectar dances. With humans, the precise form of language must be acquired through exposure to a speech community. Words are definitely not inborn, but the capacity to acquire and language and use it creatively seems to be inborn. Noam Chomsky calls this ability the LAD (Language Acquisition Device). Today we will ask two questions: how did this language instinct in humans originate? And how did the first language come into being?
Concerning the origin of the first language, there are two main hypotheses, or beliefs. Neither can be proven or disproved given present knowledge.
1) Belief in divine creation. Many societies throughout history believed that language is the gift of the gods to humans. The most familiar is found in Genesis 2:20, which tells us that Adam gave names to all living creatures. This belief predicates that humans were created from the start with an innate capacity to use language.
It can't be proven that language is as old as humans, but it is definitely true that language and human society are inseparable. Wherever humans exist language exists. Every stone age tribe ever encountered has a language equal to English, Latin, or Greek in terms of its expressive potential and grammatical complexity. Technologies may be complex or simple, but language is always complex. Charles Darwin noted this fact when he stated that as far as concerns language, "Shakespeare walks with the Macedonian swineherd, and Plato with the wild savage of Assam." In fact, it sometimes seems that languages spoken by preindustrial societies are much more complex grammatically than languages such as English (example: English has about seven tense forms and three noun genders; Kivunjo, a Bantu language spoken on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, has 14 tenses and about 20 noun classes.) There are no primitive languages, nor are any known to have existed in the past--even among the most remote tribes of stone age hunter-gatherers.
Nevertheless, it is impossible to prove that the first anatomically modern humans possessed creative language. It is also impossible to disprove the hypothesis that primitive languages might have existed at some point in the distant past of Homo sapiens development.
2) Natural evolution hypothesis. At some point in their evolutionary development humans acquired a more sophisticated brain which made language invention and learning possible. In other words, at some point in time humans evolved a language acquisition device, whatever this may be in real physical terms. The simple vocalizations and gestures inherited from our primate ancestors then quickly gave way to a creative system of language--perhaps within a single generation or two. /Mention the hypothesis about rewiring the visual cortex of the brain into a language area./ According to the natural evolution hypothesis, as soon as humans developed the biological, or neurological, capacity for creative language, the cultural development of some specific system of forms with meanings would have been an inevitable next step.
This hypothesis cannot be proven either. Archeological evidence unearthed thus far, seems to indicate that modern humans, Homo sapiens, emerged within the last 150,000 years. By 30,000, BC all other species of humanoids seem to have been supplanted by Homo sapiens. Could the success of our species vis-a-vis other hominids be explained by its possession of superior communicative skills? Speaking people could teach, plan, organize, and convey more sophisticated information. This would have given them unparalleled advantage over hominid groups without creative language. Of course, no one knows whether other species of humanoids--Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalis -- used creative language. Perhaps they also did. In any case, Homo sapiens, "the wise human," should perhaps really be called Homo loquens, "the speaking human" because language and humans are everywhere found together, whereas wisdom among humans is much more selectively distributed.
Invention hypotheses. Moving on to our second question, if humans acquired the capacity for language either by divine gift or by evolution, then exactly how might humans have devised the first language? There are several hypotheses as to how language might have been consciously invented by humans based on a more primitive system of hominid communication. Each hypothesis is predicated on the idea that the invention of language and its gradual refinement served as a continuous impetus to additional human mental development. None of the invention hypotheses I will mention is convincing and most sane linguists agree that the origin of language is still a mystery. But the inventive, sarcastic names given these hypotheses by their critics prove that even linguists can at times be creative.
First, there are four imitation hypotheses that hold that language began through some sort of human mimicry of naturally occurring sounds or movements:
1) The "ding-dong" hypothesis. Language began when humans started naming objects, actions and phenomena after a recognizable sound associated with it in real life. This hypothesis holds that the first human words were a type of verbal icon, a sign whose form is an exact image of its meaning: crash became the word for thunder, boom for explosion. Some words in language obviously did derive from imitation of natural sounds associated with some object: Chinook Indian word for heart--tun-tun, Basque word for knife: ai-ai (literally ouch-ouch). Each of these iconic words would derive from an index, a sign whose form is naturally associatied with its meaning in real space and time.
The problem with this hypothesis is that onomatopoeia (imitation of sound, auditory iconicity) is a very limited part of the vocabulary of any language; imitative sounds differ from language to language: Russian: ba-bakh=bang, bukh= thud. Even if onomotopoeia provided the first dozen or so words, then where did names for the thousands of naturally noiseless concepts such as rock, sun, sky or love come from?
2) The "pooh-pooh" hypothesis holds that the first words came from involuntary exclamations of dislike, hunger, pain, or pleasure, eventually leading to the expression of more developed ideas and emotions. In this case the first word would have been an involuntary ha-ha-ha, wa-wa-wa These began to be used to name the actions which caused these sounds.
The problem with this hypothesis is that, once again, emotional exclamations are a very small part of any language. They are also highly language specific. For instance, to express sudden pain or discomfort: Eng. ouch; Russ. oi.; Cherokee eee. Thus, exclamations are more like other words in that they reflect the phonology of each separate language. Unlike sneezes, tears, hiccoughs or laughter, which are innate human responses to stimuli, the form of exclamations depends on language rather than precedes language. Also, exclamations, like most other words are symbols, showing at least a partially arbitrary relationship between sound and meaning.
3) The "bow-wow" hypothesis (the most famous and therefore the most ridiculed hypothesis) holds that vocabulary developed from imitations of animal noises, such as: Moo, bark, hiss, meow, quack-quack. In other words, the first human words were a type of index, a sign whose form is naturally connected with its meaning in time and space.
But, once again, onomotopoeia is a limited part of the vocabulary of any language. The linguistic renditions of animal sounds differ considerably from language to language, although each species of animal everywhere makes essentially the same sound:
4) A somewhat different hypothesis is the "ta-ta" hypothesis. Charles Darwin hypothesized (though he himself was sceptical about his own hypothesis) that speech may have developed as a sort of mouth pantomime: the organs of speech were used to imitate the gestures of the hand. In other words, language developed from gestures that began to be imitated by the organs of speech--the first words were lip icons of hand gestures.
It is very possible that human language, which today is mostly verbal, had its origin in some system of gestures; other primates rely on gesture as an integral part of communication, so it is plausible that human communication began in the same way. Human gestures, however, just like onomotopoeic words, differ from culture to culture. Cf. English crossing the finger for good luck vs. Russian "fig" gesture; nodding for yes vs. for no in Turkish and Bulgarian; knocking on wood vs. spitting over the left shoulder three times.
A second set of hypotheses on language origin holds that language began as a response to some acute necessity in the community. Here are several necessity hypotheses of the invention of language:
Each of the imitation hypotheses might explain how certain isolated words of language developed. Very few words in human language are verbal icons. Most are symbols, displaying an arbitrary relationship of sound and meaning. (Example: the word tree in several languages: Spanish árbol; French arbre; Slovak strom; Georgian he; Ket oks; Estonian puu; German Baum; Russian derevo; Latvian koks; Hawaiian lä'au)
And each of the necessity hypotheses might explain how involuntary sounds made out of need in certain contexts might have come to be manipulated as words for an object even out of context. However, the extended use of natural indexes still leaves unexplained the development of grammar--the patterns in language which have definite structural functions but no specific meaning. The creative, generative aspect of human language that we call grammar is language's most unique feature. Where did grammar come from? There is nothing like grammar (patterns with definite functions yet no set meaning) in animal systems of communication.
In isolated instances it can be shown that a grammatical pattern developed from chance lexical combinations:
There are two age-old beliefs regarding the origin or the world's present linguistic diversity.
1) The oldest belief is that there was a single, original language. The idea of a single ancestor tongue is known today as monogenesis. In Judeo-Christian tradition, the original language was confused by divine intervention, as described in the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis. There is a similar story from the Toltecs of pre-Columbian Mexico, who tell of the building of the great pyramid at Cholula, and the dispersal of the builders by an angry god. And similar stories are found in other parts of the world.
It may be interesting to note here that people who believe in a single origin for language have different hypotheses as to what that first language may have been.
a) A Basque scholar claimed that the first language was Basque.
b) A German philologist of the last century maintained that German was the first language and that all other languages are inferior corruptions of it. Other European linguists conferred the same exalted status on Greek or Sanskrit.
c) One Swedish philologist claimed that in the Garden of Eden God spoke Swedish, Adam spoke Danish and the serpent spoke French.
2) There is a second hypothesis of human origin and, consequently, of the origin of human language: the hypothesis of parallel evolution. This hypothesis holds that, as humans evolved parallel in more than one location; each group developed its own unique language. The hypothesis of the multiple origin of humankind is sometimes called the Candelabra theory. The candelabra hypothesis tends to be favored in East Asia and by a smaller number of scientists in the West. The hypothesis of multiple linguistic origins that often goes along with this hypothesis is known as polygenesis. Each of the original languages then would then have diverged into numerous forms. The major language families of today would be descended from these separate mother tongues.
3) Scientific monogenesis: The Mother Tongue theory.
Theories of monogenesis do not necessarily derive from religious belief. Many modern scholars believe in a theory of monogenesis that has come to be called the Mother Tongue Theory. This theory holds that one original language spoken by a single group of Homo sapiens perhaps as early as 150 thousand years ago gave rise to all human languages spoken on the Earth today. As humans colonized various continents, this original mother tongue diverged through time to form the numerous languages spoken today. Since many scientists believe that the first fully modern humans appeared in Africa, the mother tongue theory is connected with a more general theory of human origin known as the Out of Africa theory. Currently, the theory of evolutionary monogenesis tends to be favored by a group of linguists working in the United States.
Regardless of the origin of language, the fact remains that there are over 5,000 mutually unintelligible forms of human speech used on Earth today. And, although many are radically different from one another in structure--the differences are superficial since each and every one of these languages can be used creatively.
Languages do not differ in terms of their creative potential but rather in terms of the level upon which particular distinctions are realized in each particular language. What is expressed concisely in one language requires a phrase in another language. (Examples of aspect and evidentiality; also words like Swahili mumagamagama "a person who habitually loses things" and Russian zajchik "the rainbow reflection from glass." Linguists study how each particular language structures the expression of concepts. Such cross-language comparisons fall under a branch of linguistics called language typology.
If the structural diversity of human languages is superficial, then why in language typology important? Why do so many linguists spend so much time studying language diversity?
1) First, to try to trace the original mother tongue (or mother tongues). Linguists who compare modern languages try to reconstruct ancient languages are called comparative linguists.
2) Second, because languages change more slowly than the environment in which they are spoken, languages contain all sorts of indications of bygone culture. For historians and anthropologists, language provides a special window into the past: ursus/bear/ medved; time/tide/vremya. Study a language--any language--and you will learn much about the history of the people who speak that language. You will also be taking a crucial step toward understanding the contemporary culture of the speakers. Linguists who study language from this cultural standpoint are called anthropological linguists.
Remember that--contrary to the hypothesis of linguistic determinism--studying a language will not help you predict the future for the people who speak that language. The future will happen with little regard for language structure, and language will be shaped by that future, not the other way around.
And this is why will we spend the next four weeks studying the morphology, syntax and phonology of diverse languages. And during the second half of the course we will return to questions of language in society and the connection between language and the brain.
Edward Vajda is a professor in Western Washington University's Department of Modern and Classical Languages. He received his degrees from Indiana University and the University of Washington, and has also studied at Moscow State University. He has been on Western's faculty since 1987. He teaches Russian language, culture and history, as well as general linguistics and Inner Asian and Siberian peoples. He is currently serving as director of the Center for East Asian Studies and also as the Associate Director of the Center for International Studies. He also serves as an editor of the New York-based linguistics journal "Word" . Fluent in several languages, he has authored six books, dozens of articles and hundreds of reviews (see his CV for more information). Dr. Vajda is interested in documenting endangered languages of Siberia and has conducted original fieldwork with Ket, a language spoken by fewer than 100 people in the remote Yenisei River basin. In August 2008 he became the first North American to live and work with the Ket in their Sub-Arctic homeland. He is affiliated with the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig, Germany), where in August 2006 he presented evidence supporting a genetic connection between Ket and the Athabaskan, Eyak, and Tlingit (Na-Dene) language family of North America. In February 2008 he presented more evidence at a symposium in Fairbanks, Alaska. The "Dene-Yeniseian Hypothesis" is gaining acceptance as the first demonstrated link between an Old World and a New World language family. Vajda received Western's Excellence in Teaching Award in 1992.
http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/about.htm
Concerning the origin of the first language, there are two main hypotheses, or beliefs. Neither can be proven or disproved given present knowledge.
1) Belief in divine creation. Many societies throughout history believed that language is the gift of the gods to humans. The most familiar is found in Genesis 2:20, which tells us that Adam gave names to all living creatures. This belief predicates that humans were created from the start with an innate capacity to use language.
It can't be proven that language is as old as humans, but it is definitely true that language and human society are inseparable. Wherever humans exist language exists. Every stone age tribe ever encountered has a language equal to English, Latin, or Greek in terms of its expressive potential and grammatical complexity. Technologies may be complex or simple, but language is always complex. Charles Darwin noted this fact when he stated that as far as concerns language, "Shakespeare walks with the Macedonian swineherd, and Plato with the wild savage of Assam." In fact, it sometimes seems that languages spoken by preindustrial societies are much more complex grammatically than languages such as English (example: English has about seven tense forms and three noun genders; Kivunjo, a Bantu language spoken on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, has 14 tenses and about 20 noun classes.) There are no primitive languages, nor are any known to have existed in the past--even among the most remote tribes of stone age hunter-gatherers.
Nevertheless, it is impossible to prove that the first anatomically modern humans possessed creative language. It is also impossible to disprove the hypothesis that primitive languages might have existed at some point in the distant past of Homo sapiens development.
2) Natural evolution hypothesis. At some point in their evolutionary development humans acquired a more sophisticated brain which made language invention and learning possible. In other words, at some point in time humans evolved a language acquisition device, whatever this may be in real physical terms. The simple vocalizations and gestures inherited from our primate ancestors then quickly gave way to a creative system of language--perhaps within a single generation or two. /Mention the hypothesis about rewiring the visual cortex of the brain into a language area./ According to the natural evolution hypothesis, as soon as humans developed the biological, or neurological, capacity for creative language, the cultural development of some specific system of forms with meanings would have been an inevitable next step.
This hypothesis cannot be proven either. Archeological evidence unearthed thus far, seems to indicate that modern humans, Homo sapiens, emerged within the last 150,000 years. By 30,000, BC all other species of humanoids seem to have been supplanted by Homo sapiens. Could the success of our species vis-a-vis other hominids be explained by its possession of superior communicative skills? Speaking people could teach, plan, organize, and convey more sophisticated information. This would have given them unparalleled advantage over hominid groups without creative language. Of course, no one knows whether other species of humanoids--Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalis -- used creative language. Perhaps they also did. In any case, Homo sapiens, "the wise human," should perhaps really be called Homo loquens, "the speaking human" because language and humans are everywhere found together, whereas wisdom among humans is much more selectively distributed.
Invention hypotheses. Moving on to our second question, if humans acquired the capacity for language either by divine gift or by evolution, then exactly how might humans have devised the first language? There are several hypotheses as to how language might have been consciously invented by humans based on a more primitive system of hominid communication. Each hypothesis is predicated on the idea that the invention of language and its gradual refinement served as a continuous impetus to additional human mental development. None of the invention hypotheses I will mention is convincing and most sane linguists agree that the origin of language is still a mystery. But the inventive, sarcastic names given these hypotheses by their critics prove that even linguists can at times be creative.
First, there are four imitation hypotheses that hold that language began through some sort of human mimicry of naturally occurring sounds or movements:
1) The "ding-dong" hypothesis. Language began when humans started naming objects, actions and phenomena after a recognizable sound associated with it in real life. This hypothesis holds that the first human words were a type of verbal icon, a sign whose form is an exact image of its meaning: crash became the word for thunder, boom for explosion. Some words in language obviously did derive from imitation of natural sounds associated with some object: Chinook Indian word for heart--tun-tun, Basque word for knife: ai-ai (literally ouch-ouch). Each of these iconic words would derive from an index, a sign whose form is naturally associatied with its meaning in real space and time.
The problem with this hypothesis is that onomatopoeia (imitation of sound, auditory iconicity) is a very limited part of the vocabulary of any language; imitative sounds differ from language to language: Russian: ba-bakh=bang, bukh= thud. Even if onomotopoeia provided the first dozen or so words, then where did names for the thousands of naturally noiseless concepts such as rock, sun, sky or love come from?
2) The "pooh-pooh" hypothesis holds that the first words came from involuntary exclamations of dislike, hunger, pain, or pleasure, eventually leading to the expression of more developed ideas and emotions. In this case the first word would have been an involuntary ha-ha-ha, wa-wa-wa These began to be used to name the actions which caused these sounds.
The problem with this hypothesis is that, once again, emotional exclamations are a very small part of any language. They are also highly language specific. For instance, to express sudden pain or discomfort: Eng. ouch; Russ. oi.; Cherokee eee. Thus, exclamations are more like other words in that they reflect the phonology of each separate language. Unlike sneezes, tears, hiccoughs or laughter, which are innate human responses to stimuli, the form of exclamations depends on language rather than precedes language. Also, exclamations, like most other words are symbols, showing at least a partially arbitrary relationship between sound and meaning.
3) The "bow-wow" hypothesis (the most famous and therefore the most ridiculed hypothesis) holds that vocabulary developed from imitations of animal noises, such as: Moo, bark, hiss, meow, quack-quack. In other words, the first human words were a type of index, a sign whose form is naturally connected with its meaning in time and space.
But, once again, onomotopoeia is a limited part of the vocabulary of any language. The linguistic renditions of animal sounds differ considerably from language to language, although each species of animal everywhere makes essentially the same sound:
a) Dog:bow-wow; Chinese:wu-wu; Jap.wan-wan Russ gaf-gaf, tyaff-tyaff;Thus, the human interpretation of animal sounds is dependent upon the individual language, and it seems unlikely than entire vocabularies derived from them.
b) Cat-meow, Russ.myaoo, Chin--mao, Jap.nya-nya purr in French is ron ron.
c) Pig: oink-oink; Russ. hryu-hryu; Chin.--oh-ee-oh-ee; Jap. bu-bu.
d) Russian rooster: kukareiku. Japanese kokekoko
e) Russian owl:ukh; Cherokee goo-ku Spanish, Japanese-- no special word
4) A somewhat different hypothesis is the "ta-ta" hypothesis. Charles Darwin hypothesized (though he himself was sceptical about his own hypothesis) that speech may have developed as a sort of mouth pantomime: the organs of speech were used to imitate the gestures of the hand. In other words, language developed from gestures that began to be imitated by the organs of speech--the first words were lip icons of hand gestures.
It is very possible that human language, which today is mostly verbal, had its origin in some system of gestures; other primates rely on gesture as an integral part of communication, so it is plausible that human communication began in the same way. Human gestures, however, just like onomotopoeic words, differ from culture to culture. Cf. English crossing the finger for good luck vs. Russian "fig" gesture; nodding for yes vs. for no in Turkish and Bulgarian; knocking on wood vs. spitting over the left shoulder three times.
A second set of hypotheses on language origin holds that language began as a response to some acute necessity in the community. Here are several necessity hypotheses of the invention of language:
1) Warning hypothesis. Language may have evolved from warning signals such as those used by animals. Perhaps language started with a warning to others, such as Look out, Run, or Help to alert members of the tribe when some lumbering beast was approaching. Other first words could have been hunting instructions or instructions connected with other work. In other words, the first words were indexes used during everyday activities and situations.There are no scientific tests to evaluate between these competing hypotheses. All of them seem equally far-fetched. This is why in the late 19th century the Royal Linguistic Society in London actually banned discussion and debate on the origin of language out of fear that none of the arguments had any scientific basis at all and that time would be needlessly wasted on this fruitless enquiry. Attempts to explain the origin of language are usually taken no more seriously today either. Recently, commedian Lily Tomlin came up with her own language invention hypothesis: she claimed that men invented language so that they could complain.
2) The "yo-he-ho" hypothesis. Language developed on the basis of human cooperative efforts.
The earliest language was chanting to simulate collective effort, whether moving great stones to block off cave entrances from roving carnivores or repeating warlike phrases to inflame the fighting spirit.
It is fairly certain that the first poetry and song came from this aspect of beginning speech. Songs of this type are still with us: Volga boatmen, military marching chants, seven dwarfs working song.
Plato also believed that language developed out of sheer practical necessity. And Modern English has the saying: Necessity is the mother of invention. Speech and right hand coordination are both controlled in the left hemisphere of the brain. Could this be a possible clue that manual dexterity and the need to communicate developed in unison?
3) A more colorful idea is the lying hypothesis. E. H. Sturtevant argued that, since all real intentions or emotions get involuntarily expressed by gesture, look or sound, voluntary communication must have been invented for the purpose of lying or deceiving. He proposed that the need to deceive and lie--to use language in contrast to reality for selfish ends-- was the social prompting that got language started.
Each of the imitation hypotheses might explain how certain isolated words of language developed. Very few words in human language are verbal icons. Most are symbols, displaying an arbitrary relationship of sound and meaning. (Example: the word tree in several languages: Spanish árbol; French arbre; Slovak strom; Georgian he; Ket oks; Estonian puu; German Baum; Russian derevo; Latvian koks; Hawaiian lä'au)
And each of the necessity hypotheses might explain how involuntary sounds made out of need in certain contexts might have come to be manipulated as words for an object even out of context. However, the extended use of natural indexes still leaves unexplained the development of grammar--the patterns in language which have definite structural functions but no specific meaning. The creative, generative aspect of human language that we call grammar is language's most unique feature. Where did grammar come from? There is nothing like grammar (patterns with definite functions yet no set meaning) in animal systems of communication.
In isolated instances it can be shown that a grammatical pattern developed from chance lexical combinations:
a) suffix -hood from OE word haeda= state. childhood, boyhood, puppyhood.But these are isolated instances. How language developed a complex grammar remains a complete mystery. This means that how language developed is equally a mystery. We simply don't know how language may have actually evolved from simple animal systems of sounds and gestures.
b) Continuous action: form of verb to be + main verb comes from a locative phrase I am working > I am at working-- cf. the song I'm a working on the railroad.
Hypotheses regarding Language Diversity
Regardless of whether language was a special gift from the gods, a natural evolutionary acquisition, or an ingenious, conscious human invention made at some specific moment in our species' distant past, the fact remains that language does exist. And since so many languages exist today, a second question arises: Was there one or more than one original language? Was there one or more than one invention of language? There are about 5,000 languages spoken on Earth today. We know that there were even more spoken in the past, when most people lived in small bands or tribes rather than in large states.There are two age-old beliefs regarding the origin or the world's present linguistic diversity.
1) The oldest belief is that there was a single, original language. The idea of a single ancestor tongue is known today as monogenesis. In Judeo-Christian tradition, the original language was confused by divine intervention, as described in the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis. There is a similar story from the Toltecs of pre-Columbian Mexico, who tell of the building of the great pyramid at Cholula, and the dispersal of the builders by an angry god. And similar stories are found in other parts of the world.
It may be interesting to note here that people who believe in a single origin for language have different hypotheses as to what that first language may have been.
a) A Basque scholar claimed that the first language was Basque.
b) A German philologist of the last century maintained that German was the first language and that all other languages are inferior corruptions of it. Other European linguists conferred the same exalted status on Greek or Sanskrit.
c) One Swedish philologist claimed that in the Garden of Eden God spoke Swedish, Adam spoke Danish and the serpent spoke French.
2) There is a second hypothesis of human origin and, consequently, of the origin of human language: the hypothesis of parallel evolution. This hypothesis holds that, as humans evolved parallel in more than one location; each group developed its own unique language. The hypothesis of the multiple origin of humankind is sometimes called the Candelabra theory. The candelabra hypothesis tends to be favored in East Asia and by a smaller number of scientists in the West. The hypothesis of multiple linguistic origins that often goes along with this hypothesis is known as polygenesis. Each of the original languages then would then have diverged into numerous forms. The major language families of today would be descended from these separate mother tongues.
3) Scientific monogenesis: The Mother Tongue theory.
Theories of monogenesis do not necessarily derive from religious belief. Many modern scholars believe in a theory of monogenesis that has come to be called the Mother Tongue Theory. This theory holds that one original language spoken by a single group of Homo sapiens perhaps as early as 150 thousand years ago gave rise to all human languages spoken on the Earth today. As humans colonized various continents, this original mother tongue diverged through time to form the numerous languages spoken today. Since many scientists believe that the first fully modern humans appeared in Africa, the mother tongue theory is connected with a more general theory of human origin known as the Out of Africa theory. Currently, the theory of evolutionary monogenesis tends to be favored by a group of linguists working in the United States.
Regardless of the origin of language, the fact remains that there are over 5,000 mutually unintelligible forms of human speech used on Earth today. And, although many are radically different from one another in structure--the differences are superficial since each and every one of these languages can be used creatively.
Languages do not differ in terms of their creative potential but rather in terms of the level upon which particular distinctions are realized in each particular language. What is expressed concisely in one language requires a phrase in another language. (Examples of aspect and evidentiality; also words like Swahili mumagamagama "a person who habitually loses things" and Russian zajchik "the rainbow reflection from glass." Linguists study how each particular language structures the expression of concepts. Such cross-language comparisons fall under a branch of linguistics called language typology.
If the structural diversity of human languages is superficial, then why in language typology important? Why do so many linguists spend so much time studying language diversity?
1) First, to try to trace the original mother tongue (or mother tongues). Linguists who compare modern languages try to reconstruct ancient languages are called comparative linguists.
2) Second, because languages change more slowly than the environment in which they are spoken, languages contain all sorts of indications of bygone culture. For historians and anthropologists, language provides a special window into the past: ursus/bear/ medved; time/tide/vremya. Study a language--any language--and you will learn much about the history of the people who speak that language. You will also be taking a crucial step toward understanding the contemporary culture of the speakers. Linguists who study language from this cultural standpoint are called anthropological linguists.
Remember that--contrary to the hypothesis of linguistic determinism--studying a language will not help you predict the future for the people who speak that language. The future will happen with little regard for language structure, and language will be shaped by that future, not the other way around.
And this is why will we spend the next four weeks studying the morphology, syntax and phonology of diverse languages. And during the second half of the course we will return to questions of language in society and the connection between language and the brain.
About Professor Vajda
Edward Vajda is a professor in Western Washington University's Department of Modern and Classical Languages. He received his degrees from Indiana University and the University of Washington, and has also studied at Moscow State University. He has been on Western's faculty since 1987. He teaches Russian language, culture and history, as well as general linguistics and Inner Asian and Siberian peoples. He is currently serving as director of the Center for East Asian Studies and also as the Associate Director of the Center for International Studies. He also serves as an editor of the New York-based linguistics journal "Word" . Fluent in several languages, he has authored six books, dozens of articles and hundreds of reviews (see his CV for more information). Dr. Vajda is interested in documenting endangered languages of Siberia and has conducted original fieldwork with Ket, a language spoken by fewer than 100 people in the remote Yenisei River basin. In August 2008 he became the first North American to live and work with the Ket in their Sub-Arctic homeland. He is affiliated with the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig, Germany), where in August 2006 he presented evidence supporting a genetic connection between Ket and the Athabaskan, Eyak, and Tlingit (Na-Dene) language family of North America. In February 2008 he presented more evidence at a symposium in Fairbanks, Alaska. The "Dene-Yeniseian Hypothesis" is gaining acceptance as the first demonstrated link between an Old World and a New World language family. Vajda received Western's Excellence in Teaching Award in 1992. Sunday, November 22, 2009
Amazing - Leonard Shlain | The Alphabet Vs The Goddess | Lecture
Leonard Shlain contrasts the feminine right-brained oral teachings of Socrates, Buddha, and Jesus with the masculine creeds that evolved when their spoken words were committed to writing. The first book written in an alphabet was the Old Testament and its most important passage was the Ten Commandments. The first two reject of any goddess influence and ban any form of representative art. Presented at The Distinguished Lecture Series Pepperdine University Malibu, California November, 2006
Friday, November 20, 2009
Make me a genius - How Genuis can be created !
At 38 years old, Susan Polgar has reached heights that few women have ever equalled in the chess world. Despite the common assumption that men’s brains are better at understanding spatial relationships, giving them an advantage in games such as chess, Susan went on to become the world’s first grandmaster. Susan’s remarkable abilities have earned her the label of ‘genius’, but her psychologist father, László Polgar, believed that genius was “not born, but made”. Noting that even Mozart received tutelage from his father at a very early age, Polgar set about teaching chess to the five-year-old Susan after she happened upon a chess set in their home. “My father believed that the potential of children was not used optimally,” says Susan.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Saturday, October 24, 2009
We're Already Dead (But That's Okay)
In this video blog Rob talks about how we've already chosen certain paths in other parallel universes that have led to our deaths in those realities.
Friday, October 16, 2009
How to Win Friends and Influence People - Book Summary
This is Dale Carnegie's summary of his book, from 1936
Fundamental Techniques in Handling People
1. Don't criticize, condemn or complain.
2. Give honest and sincere appreciation.
3. Arouse in the other person an eager want.
Six ways to make people like you
1. Become genuinely interested in other people.
2. Smile.
3. Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
5. Talk in terms of the other person's interests.
6. Make the other person feel important - and do it sincerely.
Win people to your way of thinking
1. The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
2. Show respect for the other person's opinions. Never say, "You're wrong."
3. If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
4. Begin in a friendly way.
5. Get the other person saying "yes, yes" immediately.
6. Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
7. Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.
8. Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view.
9. Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires.
10. Appeal to the nobler motives.
11. Dramatize your ideas.
12. Throw down a challenge.
Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment
A leader's job often includes changing your people's attitudes and behavior. Some suggestions to accomplish this:
1. Begin with praise and honest appreciation.
2. Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly.
3. Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.
4. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
5. Let the other person save face.
6. Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be "hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise."
7. Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
8. Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.
9. Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.
Dale Carnegie Page
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
12 Rules for a Hero's Destiny
by Arupa Tesolin, Intuita
1. Any concept imperfectly created will be limited by the magnitude of its imperfection.
2. A vision born in the heart and beheld with clarity in the mind must, in obedience to the law of creation, be created in the world of form.
3. If you can create without doubt, you are no doubt a creator.
4. If you see the glass is half-empty, you are seeing the circumstance not the dream. To transcend the circumstance you must see what's not there.
5. True commitment begins when we can reach the point of not knowing how we can possibly go on and decide to do it anyway.
6. To set a goal is to limit infinity.
7. When you are tested ask why. What purpose does it serve? What am I learning here? Sometimes an apparent setback or disappointment serves the greater purpose of galvanizing desire or birthing a greater success.
8. Act as though you already are who you want to be, are already doing what you want to do, and already have what you want to have.
9. Money isn't everything. It's a resource, one of many. All resources to support you come from but one source - your infinity.
10. Decide what you need and ask for it. Imagine your every request being fulfilled.
11. Give your best to every client, whether small or large. You never know to whom you are offering your gifts. If you did, you'd be humbled.
12. Perfection is REAL. Be perfect in the quality of your beingness. Offer yourself as it's devoted servant. Become the hero of your life.
______________________________________________________________
Arupa Tesolin is a Speaker, Seminar Leader and widely published international writer on Management, Training and Innovation topics. Her company Intuita provides live learning events, products and e-learning courses for management, workforce and career development. Visit http://www.intuita.com for details.
1. Any concept imperfectly created will be limited by the magnitude of its imperfection.
2. A vision born in the heart and beheld with clarity in the mind must, in obedience to the law of creation, be created in the world of form.
3. If you can create without doubt, you are no doubt a creator.
4. If you see the glass is half-empty, you are seeing the circumstance not the dream. To transcend the circumstance you must see what's not there.
5. True commitment begins when we can reach the point of not knowing how we can possibly go on and decide to do it anyway.
6. To set a goal is to limit infinity.
7. When you are tested ask why. What purpose does it serve? What am I learning here? Sometimes an apparent setback or disappointment serves the greater purpose of galvanizing desire or birthing a greater success.
8. Act as though you already are who you want to be, are already doing what you want to do, and already have what you want to have.
9. Money isn't everything. It's a resource, one of many. All resources to support you come from but one source - your infinity.
10. Decide what you need and ask for it. Imagine your every request being fulfilled.
11. Give your best to every client, whether small or large. You never know to whom you are offering your gifts. If you did, you'd be humbled.
12. Perfection is REAL. Be perfect in the quality of your beingness. Offer yourself as it's devoted servant. Become the hero of your life.
______________________________________________________________
Arupa Tesolin is a Speaker, Seminar Leader and widely published international writer on Management, Training and Innovation topics. Her company Intuita provides live learning events, products and e-learning courses for management, workforce and career development. Visit http://www.intuita.com for details.
Monday, September 14, 2009
من روائع جبران خليل جبران
البعض نحبهم
لكن لا نقترب منهم ........ فهم في البعد أحلى
وهم في البعد أرقى .... وهم في البعد أغلى
والبعض نحبهم
ونسعى كي نقترب منهم
ونتقاسم تفاصيل الحياة معهم
ويؤلمنا الابتعاد عنهم
ويصعب علينا تصور الحياة حين تخلو منهم.
والبعض نحبهم
ونتمنى أن نعيش حكاية جميله معهم
ونفتعل الصدف لكي نلتقي بهم
ونختلق الأسباب كي نراهم
ونعيش في الخيال أكثر من الواقع معهم
والبعض نحبهم
لكن بيننا وبين أنفسنا فقط
فنصمت برغم الم الصمت
فلا نجاهر بحبهم حتى لهم لان العوائق كثيرة
والعواقب مخيفه ومن الأفضل لنا ولهم أن تبقى
الأبواب بيننا وبينهم مغلقه...
والبعض نحبهم
فنملأ الأرض بحبهم ونحدث الدنيا عنهم
ونثرثر بهم في كل الأوقات
ونحتاج إلى وجودهم .....كالماء ..والهواء
ونختنق في غيابهم أو الابتعاد عنهم
والبعض نحبهم
لأننا لا نجد سواهم
وحاجتنا إلى الحب تدفعنا نحوهم
فالأيام تمضي
والعمر ينقضي
والزمن لا يقف
ويرعبنا بأن نبقى بلا رفيق
والبعض نحبهم
لان مثلهم لا يستحق سوى الحب
ولا نملك أمامهم سوى أن نحب
فنتعلم منهم أشياء جميله
ونرمم معهم أشياء كثيرة
ونعيد طلاء الحياة من جديد
ونسعى صادقين كي نمنحهم بعض السعادة
والبعض نحبهم
لكننا لا نجد صدى لهذا الحب في
قلوبهــم
فننهار و ننكسر
و نتخبط في حكايات فاشلة
فلا نكرههم
ولا ننساهم
ولا نحب سواهم
ونعود نبكيهم بعد كل محاوله فاشلة
.. والبعض نحبهم ..
.. ويبقى فقط أن يحبوننا..
.. مثلما نحبهم
جبران خليل جبران
لكن لا نقترب منهم ........ فهم في البعد أحلى
وهم في البعد أرقى .... وهم في البعد أغلى
والبعض نحبهم
ونسعى كي نقترب منهم
ونتقاسم تفاصيل الحياة معهم
ويؤلمنا الابتعاد عنهم
ويصعب علينا تصور الحياة حين تخلو منهم.
والبعض نحبهم
ونتمنى أن نعيش حكاية جميله معهم
ونفتعل الصدف لكي نلتقي بهم
ونختلق الأسباب كي نراهم
ونعيش في الخيال أكثر من الواقع معهم
والبعض نحبهم
لكن بيننا وبين أنفسنا فقط
فنصمت برغم الم الصمت
فلا نجاهر بحبهم حتى لهم لان العوائق كثيرة
والعواقب مخيفه ومن الأفضل لنا ولهم أن تبقى
الأبواب بيننا وبينهم مغلقه...
والبعض نحبهم
فنملأ الأرض بحبهم ونحدث الدنيا عنهم
ونثرثر بهم في كل الأوقات
ونحتاج إلى وجودهم .....كالماء ..والهواء
ونختنق في غيابهم أو الابتعاد عنهم
والبعض نحبهم
لأننا لا نجد سواهم
وحاجتنا إلى الحب تدفعنا نحوهم
فالأيام تمضي
والعمر ينقضي
والزمن لا يقف
ويرعبنا بأن نبقى بلا رفيق
والبعض نحبهم
لان مثلهم لا يستحق سوى الحب
ولا نملك أمامهم سوى أن نحب
فنتعلم منهم أشياء جميله
ونرمم معهم أشياء كثيرة
ونعيد طلاء الحياة من جديد
ونسعى صادقين كي نمنحهم بعض السعادة
والبعض نحبهم
لكننا لا نجد صدى لهذا الحب في
قلوبهــم
فننهار و ننكسر
و نتخبط في حكايات فاشلة
فلا نكرههم
ولا ننساهم
ولا نحب سواهم
ونعود نبكيهم بعد كل محاوله فاشلة
.. والبعض نحبهم ..
.. ويبقى فقط أن يحبوننا..
.. مثلما نحبهم
جبران خليل جبران
Sunday, September 13, 2009
The Trap : An Amazing documentary !!
This is another brilliant Adam Curtis documentary originally produced for the BBC. It talks about the modern political realities, where the policies came from and the massive failures of those ideals and how they have ended up exactly where they did not want to be. This episode starts in the Cold War and shows the seeds that were sown to produce the modern political reality.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
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