Language, Sounds and Intelligent Design

Two typos in the last installment.

"Ancient languages like Akkadian sound very "choppy" and repetitive, because most clauses are simply juxtaposed, one after the other, linked only by words like "and" or “then”, and organizes mainly according to the order in which events take place in time."

It should be "organized" or maybe "organize".

"I leave your with an example which, I think, will make all these points clearer."

you

My 2 cents
 
Thanks, Chu, for the latest installment - fascinating stuff!

Once again I was comparing Swiss-German to High German. SG is a lot simpler in terms of Grammar (so I would say in complexity). For instance all the ‘past tenses’ are always and only formed by the perfect, whereas HG has perfect and past tense (and plusquamperfect). In many other ways, too, SG is a simpler language, but we have an oddity that I believe is missing (at least to the same degree) in HG - an almost tonal ‘sub-language’.

Take for instance the ‘hmmm’ - it can mean:
- ahemmmh - yes
- hehmmh - no
- hmmh? - what?
- hmmm_ - “that’s odd”, or “you don’t say”, an acknowledgement of what has been said

Which leads to all sorts of funny situations when I do the same here in Oz - when I use the acknowledging “hmmm_”, the Ozzies repeat what they said, as they thought I was asking ‘what’?

Now I am not totally sure that HG or English don’t have similar structures, but I may not be proficient (as in native language proficient enough to make that call.

I also have worked with many Aborigines over the years and have noticed quite a few differences about how they express themselves - of course only from the way they ‘translate’ their own language into English.

Like when an Aborigine answers your question with “little bit” he means “a lot”! Took me a long while to figure that one out.

Anyway, just some random thoughts - thanks again for posting, and looking forward to the next installment.
 
Thank you very much, @Goemon_ ! Corrections made.

And thank you, @nicklebleu, for your interest comments. Swiss German is mostly spoken, right? That would explain the "simplicity" you noticed, and the use of prosody (music) to change meaning.

The same is true, it seems, for other "dialects", especially when they are just spoken.

And for the "little bit", I heard that before. In some cases, it seems to stem from politeness (in Chinese, for example, sometimes you say "no" to mean "yes" and be modest:whistle:). In other cases, they use repetitions. So, "little" is one word, and "littlelittle" is big, but sometimes also very little. Go figure!
 
Goemon_ said:
Two typos in the last installment.

"Ancient languages like Akkadian sound very "choppy" and repetitive, because most clauses are simply juxtaposed, one after the other, linked only by words like "and" or “then”, and organizes mainly according to the order in which events take place in time."

It should be "organized" or maybe "organize".

Either organized ..., or organizes them ... would be correct.
Click to expand...
 
@Ollie
Are you sure about that?
My understanding is that "most clauses" (plural) is the subject of "organize". So it's like "they organize" and not "it organizes".
Am I wrong?
 
Goemon_ said:
@Ollie
Are you sure about that?
My understanding is that "most clauses" (plural) is the subject of "organize". So it's like "they organize" and not "it organizes".
Am I wrong?
Click to expand...
I'm agreeing with you! '(organized') And, plural, 'organizes them' (as 'them' (most clauses, which is the subject of organize) is plural).
 
That´s fascinating again that in your fourth installment you focus on the language of primitive societies and conclude that

So there you have it: in general, simpler societies use less words, less sounds, and less subordination. But they make very complex words, containing bits of information that in complex societies’ languages would necessitate entire clauses. Strange, isn’t it?
Click to expand...

I find that an intriguing observation and question. Frrom my non linguistic lay perspective I wondered, how come the lesser words/sounds/subordination in these societies developed into complex words. I find that pretty efficient :)
One example comes to my mind: when I traveled in the North African desert, I noticed that the native Nomads (speaking a local Arab dialect) would be able to describe a "rock" in a myriad of ways. It was the time before GPS and they would use rocks as signposts to give directions for their travel routes. Its not complex words, I am able to quote but I remember their very detailed and complex ability to describe "a rock".

There is a post by Gaby in the thread "The New History of Mankind: Who Are we? What are we? How did we get here?" where the C´s are quoted that certain races, eg. the Orientals, were

designed to best fit the earth climate and cosmic ray environment then existent on earth.
Click to expand...

Then Gaby writes about a specific polar psychology research on "a cross-psychology comparison between modern East Asian and Inuit populations, using the latter as a model for paleolithic Arctic populations."

Gaby said:
The author claims that East Asian people, specifically descendants from Ancient Northern East Asian Populations, inherited certain "recalcitrant" psychological traits that were best adapted for an Ice Age. The same traits have been identified by polar psychologists (psychology researchers on expeditioners and workers living in polar environments). Among those "recalcitrant" traits there is high emotional control, ingroup harmony/cohesion, unassertiveness, indirectness, self and social consciousness, introversion, cautiousness, pragmatism and perseverance/endurance.
Click to expand...

So I wonder, as the simpler societies, like the Aborigines, that you have been researching now, which had and might still have a stronger connection to nature and climatic influences, if these factors contributed to the development of languages with less but complex words/sounds/subordinations too? Maybe similar to the development of these specific "recalcitrant" traits, could there be a connection?
 
I posted this one just now:
open.substack.com

What AI may be telling us about Language

Many people are amazed at what Artificial Intelligence is capable of doing so far, from analyzing massive amounts of texts, to creating pretty good videos, or helping children cheat by doing their homework and thinking on their behalf.
open.substack.com open.substack.com

Nothing well developed or anything, just some thoughts, FWIW.
 
Possible typos:

"The problem resides, I think, in that fact that nobody dares speak of language as something outside our brains. What if language isn’t learned and transmitted between humans, but tuned into?"

In the fact that (?)

"Perhaps a theory that would get us much closer to the truth could be that Languages are pre-existing codes, engineered by higher levels of consciousness than ours"

by levels of consciousness higher than ours (?)

"What is dangerous is that AI seems able to mimic humans so well, that soon, it will become difficult to know who is telling the truth"

What is dangerous is as AI (?)


My 2 cents
 
Fwiiw , two issues that makes the statement for ai not developing counsciouness ( for me moot ), noon-widthstanding what is said in the transcripts , are , indeed the likely " multidimensional " nature of language , and the fact that 1st and 2nd density are still within the bounds of others ( 3rd ,4th, 5th ...) thus rendering the sophistication of the technology somewhat redundant and at best imprecise for determining any threshold ( for a general example , as is documented of humans doing psychometric readings of so called inanimate objects ) or to add as well that crystals have long been a part of contemporary computers.
 
I found this article fascinating, and figured someone else (@Chu 😉) might as well.
Imagine if and when they get separated and stranded there, you know, if SHTF, in a catastrophic, isolating situation, the brainiac researcher inhabitants already have a start on their own “new world” dialect!

From the daily galaxy:
“ Scientists Are Stunned by Antarctica’s Surprising Accent – They Don’t Talk Like Us”
“ A new linguistic phenomenon is emerging in the most isolated place on Earth: an “Antarctica accent.”
[…]
“ A Study in Speech
In 2019, experts at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich embarked on a study of 11 participants from the British Antarctic Survey. These researchers, hailing from England, the US, Germany, and Iceland, were recorded every six weeks over the course of their stay in Antarctica. Over time, subtle changes in their speech patterns were observed, notably longer vowel sounds and a shift in how specific sounds—like the “ou”—were articulated. This shift led to a noticeable change in the way their accents sounded, though the alterations were relatively minor.”
[…]
“ “The Antarctic accent is not really perceptible as such—it would take much longer for it to become so—but it is acoustically measurable.”
[…]
He emphasized that the accent is an amalgamation of features from the participants’ original accents, combined with some new speech innovations. It’s still in the early stages of development, making it far less defined than established accents, but nonetheless a fascinating example of how language adapts in isolated environments.”

Link to the complete article:

Scientists Are Stunned by Antarctica's Surprising Accent – They Don’t Talk Like Us

A new linguistic phenomenon is emerging in the most isolated place on Earth: an "Antarctica accent."
dailygalaxy.com dailygalaxy.com
 
This reminds of T.C. Lethbridge (The power of the Pendulum). Where certain areas, mostly due to some form of changes of great emotional imprint could exhibit a response, for those sensitive and could produce an imprint a recording tape, in the ether, much like an a frame by frame of events gone by for those sensitive. I think the C's intimated that this was possible.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Trending content

Back
Top Bottom