How long would it take humans to independently develop language?

[Thurlor]

If an amoral researcher were to obtain a group of twenty or so new-born infants and isolate them, how long would it take them to develop complex language with grammar and what-not?

For what percentage of human's existence did we not yet have a complex language? Would the time span (to develop complex language) for the children reflect the time-span for humanity as a whole?

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

A journal paper I read 4 years ago stated it takes one generation.

 

[Thurlor]

@ ProxyAmenRa

So, somebody actually isolated children to test the hypothesis, or was that an educated guess? If the former, I'd have to question the data as it would probably be quite old (I doubt whether it would be possible to do such research in modern times).

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

@ ProxyAmenRa

So, somebody actually isolated children to test the hypothesis, or was that an educated guess? If the former, I'd have to question the data as it would probably be quite old (I doubt whether it would be possible to do such research in modern times).

Why would a child develop language if they were isolated?

Anyhow, I have long forgotten the title of the paper and their methods.

 

[pjoa09]

They'd die or come in contact with the language that their resource providers use.

 

[Sigma Octantis]

my first born shall be isolated, so will the first born of my neighbour.

 

[Thurlor]

I said 'children' not child. Obviously a lone child would have little reason to develop language.

I'm pretty sure it would be possible to limit the exposure of these children to their care providers. Today we could utilise automation. So a group of children raised by machines.

 

[pjoa09]

I said 'children' not child. Obviously a lone child would have little reason to develop language.

I'm pretty sure it would be possible to limit the exposure of these children to their care providers. Today we could utilise automation. So a group of children raised by machines.

That won't save them from all those diseases that can infect them. You'd need over a thousand. You could imagine how many children have been abandoned and how many made it alone.

Being a very arrogant human, I think we have come a long way from other primates. It's not because we are that much more intelligent. It is because we use past information a lot more than any other primate. Development is remembering what you did right in the first place.Guess in the dark. Just. Yeah. I hope it makes sense.

At best with no language intervention you'd get fingers pointing.

 

[7even]

Don't think 20 isolated children would even develop complex language in their life span; but rather just use hand gestures and a few distinct noises for communication.
What needs to happen for complex language to develop is: the 20 isolated babies, once adults, need to reproduce, I'd say 10 generations later, symbolism and art will start to progress, while sign language and vocal 'noises' becoming more diverse. My guess is that complex language would take a very long time to be established; anywhere from 50-300 (or possibly even more) generations or so.. I'm guessing, though.

How interesting it would be, for an experiment like that to be done though - I wonder whether they'd take the same steps through language as us, eventually speaking Latin and so on; or develop an entirely different language...

Anyone know when the arrival of complex language was first thought to be dated, compared to when the first 'homo' (or homosapien, not to complicate things) existed on Earth?

 

[EyeSeeCold]

Hostility or reclusiveness would both be significant hindrances, they'd have to be willing to cooperate before they could even develop a language. They could likely all be dead before that happened.

 

[Thurlor]

@ pjoa09

My figure of 20 was actually somewhat random. I was just trying to make clear that it was more than 1 and at least enough to develop some sort of community.

As far as diseases are concerned, they could all be kept in a giant hermetically sealed environment.

I agree that one of the differences between humans and the other primates is our ability to communicate and pass information on to the next generation. In fact I have previously thought that the difference between the humans of today and those of 80,000 years ago is primarily the sum of our combined knowledge.


@ 7even

So, you think it would take quite a large number of generations for complex language to emerge? I've always thought so as well. It seems like only instinctual things would manifest in the early generations.

If any such experiment were ever carried out I highly doubt that we'd see and historical or contemporary languages recreated.

Anyone know when the arrival of complex language was first thought to be dated, compared to when the first 'homo' (or homosapien, not to complicate things) existed on Earth?

I have wondered about this as well.

 

[7even]

You know what they say: History repeats itself.

 

[TriflinThomas]

I said 'children' not child. Obviously a lone child would have little reason to develop language.

I'm pretty sure it would be possible to limit the exposure of these children to their care providers. Today we could utilise automation. So a group of children raised by machines.

They'd die. Children need physical, human contact to survive. My psych teacher told us about a king in someplace (I don't remember where) that did the same thing and all the children died (I'm pretty sure it was a real thing, though, not entirely sure...). Also they did a similar study with orangutans where some had a metal "mother" with a bottle in the chest and others had the same "mother" but with fake orangutan fur on it and the ones with the metal "mothers" died.

 

[7even]

They'd die. Children need physical, human contact to survive. My psych teacher told us about a king in someplace

Interesting. How do we exist then? The first human being had to be a child, right? - How did he/she survive? What's your scientific belief, I guess?
Hm, is that an argument against the existence of God? ... Think so.

 

[NinjaSurfer]

If an amoral researcher were to obtain a group of twenty or so new-born infants and isolate them, how long would it take them to develop complex language with grammar and what-not?

For what percentage of human's existence did we not yet have a complex language? Would the time span (to develop complex language) for the children reflect the time-span for humanity as a whole?

1. Why does the researcher have to be amoral? what if the findings would better mankind. I don't like the way the hypothetical is posed.

2. It would probably take as long as humans took to develop grammar in the first place. How long was that? When did humans first show up on Earth vs when are the first signs of complex language?

 

[Thurlor]

@ TriflinThomas

If the metalic carer would cause issues I'm sure we could devise a more human-like form. Besides, I have heard of various 'wild-kids', so obviously adult human contact isn't required.

@7even

What makes you say the first human being had to be a child? Was it born from 'Homo Heidelbergensis' (or something similar) parents?

This seems alot like the whole 'chicken vs egg' argument. From what I understand it was such a gradual process that one can't see a species change from on generation to another.

 

[7even]

What makes you say the first human being had to be a child? Was it born from 'Homo Heidelbergensis' (or something similar) parents?

This seems alot like the whole 'chicken vs egg' argument. From what I understand it was such a gradual process that one can't see a species change from on generation to another.

Hm yeah, you're right. Actually rather not even get into that on second thought.
Though still, every organism has to start from, well, zero. So whoever our common ancestor is, had to be a 'baby' at one point, then begin to develop.
Though now I am very confused and not in the mood to think about evolution.

 

[pjoa09]

Hm yeah, you're right. Actually rather not even get into that on second thought.
Though still, every organism has to start from, well, zero. So whoever our common ancestor is, had to be a 'baby' at one point, then begin to develop.
Though now I am very confused and not in the mood to think about evolution.

It's just chimpanzee mom, human child.

Like when you were the only brown kid among white kids even though you were from the same womb.

 

[TriflinThomas]

@ Thurlor for proper development, yes.

 

[7even]

It's just chimpanzee mom, human child.

Perhaps. It's such a shame that's not fact but theory, though.


(nevermind, it's fact - was on crack; nah that just rhymed.)

 

[Thurlor]

I wouldn't even call it a theory.

 

[BigApplePi]

If an amoral researcher were to obtain a group of twenty or so new-born infants and isolate them, how long would it take them to develop complex language with grammar and what-not?

For what percentage of human's existence did we not yet have a complex language? Would the time span (to develop complex language) for the children reflect the time-span for humanity as a whole?

Great thought experiment. What if we put a few children in with deaf parents or a deaf community? They would survive well because their parents would take care of them.

The children would start by making sounds to each other. Something might develop once they discovered they could vocalize. At first, since they could hear, they would imitate sounds around them: banging, birds, pets ... I don't know.

 

[TriflinThomas]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_(feral_child)

 

[pjoa09]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_(feral_child)

That was no contact. We are talking contact here. Several babies hanging out together but were not taught a language.

 

[TriflinThomas]

Oh. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/07/2/l_072_04.html

 

[Thurlor]

@ TriflinThomas

That last article is pretty darn interesting. I'd never even considered the languages of multiple birth children.

The whole part about the deaf kids creating their own sign language almost answers my question. Except, those children had already had contact with adults who knew language. In other words, they were aware of the concept of language and possibiliy even the potential complexities capable.

Animals communicate, which is a simplified form of language so I suppose there is no reason to assume that complex language didn't arise in our distant pre-human ancestors. Also, it seems as though the cetaceans have a complex means of communications but could it be called language?

I remember reading a sci-fi novel or short story many years ago about a man who had discovered how to translate all the odour 'writings' of various ant colonies.

 

[hablahdoo]

Oh. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/07/2/l_072_04.html

I'm just here to drop a link to a pretty interesting radiolab episode that goes into this event near the end. But the whole thing is really interesting and provides some insight into the purpose of language. Recommended: http://www.radiolab.org/2010/aug/09/

 

[BigApplePi]

Some good finds there but still we haven't isolated humans. This reminds me of something ... and I can't remember where ... about birds.

Birds apparently learn songs from parents. But experiments were done isolating birds to see how they would learn. I'm forgotten the outcomes.

 

[Coolydudey]

The language would only develop to be as complex as it needed to be. Anything more would be extra strain for no particular reason. Therefore, you wouldn't invent the word antidisestablishmentarianism (or its equivalent) unless there was a need to concisely (well, kind of) express the notion. Therefore, the language would mature along with the needs of the society. If they couldn't express themselves properly, things would pick up fast. Somebody would invent a word for fork, and it would get quickly widespread in a small community.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

The language would only develop to be as complex as it needed to be. Anything more would be extra strain for no particular reason. Therefore, you wouldn't invent the word antidisestablishmentarianism (or its equivalent) unless there was a need to concisely (well, kind of) express the notion. Therefore, the language would mature along with the needs of the society. If they couldn't express themselves properly, things would pick up fast. Somebody would invent a word for fork, and it would get quickly widespread in a small community.

Yeah, didn't think of this but it's a good point, probably the most important. The language / communication system would be built from the bottom-up so the population would have to be pretty large and their needs, information and technology would have to be complicated and nuanced enough to cause increased complexity of language.

 

[Obrens]

The language would only develop to be as complex as it needed to be. Anything more would be extra strain for no particular reason. Therefore, you wouldn't invent the word antidisestablishmentarianism (or its equivalent) unless there was a need to concisely (well, kind of) express the notion. Therefore, the language would mature along with the needs of the society. If they couldn't express themselves properly, things would pick up fast. Somebody would invent a word for fork, and it would get quickly widespread in a small community.

That applies only to lexicon and absolutely no other part of language. Proto-Indo-European was way more complex than English is.

 

[Coolydudey]

That applies only to lexicon and absolutely no other part of language. Proto-Indo-European was way more complex than English is.

Quite true, it is much harder to predict how the grammar and syntax will evolve. Still, you won't evolve extra grammar if there isn't a need for it (there won't be a past tense until people start talking more about past experience). Syntax will probably come of age in a way that makes people communicate consistently. In the passage of ancient Greek to modern Greek, the language has been simplified and cut down, which means slightly longer text. This shows a certain redundancy surrounding the structure of ancient Greek that was not needed though. This shows that languages not only become more complex, but can become simpler as well.

 

[defghi]

I think a good way to look at it is that communication is "hard wired", but language grows over time.

As for a time scale of language developing- what you might call a "language" is subjective, communication has likely existed for millions of years as we can observe it in highly diverged species (dolphins, birds, etc), but I think if we had to make a connection to guess the development of complex language we should choose the development of art- earliest art we know of is in the 40,000's years ago range, and the beginnings of alphabets are about 5,000 years ago.

If you reject art representing complex language, we're looking at a range up to about 1 million years ago, when tool use diversified. Anything before that and our only known tool was a sharpened rock, I doubt we had anything more complex than "rock smash" (and even smash can be done with a gesture, so probably just "rock").

This is how long language took to grow into what it is now with the knowledge being passed down throughout tribes and to every generation, I don't think a group of newborns today could be much more successful. Of course, they are much more equipped by evolution than people 1 million years ago, but not much more than 10,000 years ago when there was still no [known] alphabet. Also I think most evolutionary adaptations are in the learning of language, which we know children to be so proficient at, and not necessarily the creation of.

It is very difficult to find a bit of language used today that is not derived from previous language, and this is even with a simple 26 letter scheme to construct from. We are heavily geared toward learning and connecting languages, and not at all towards creating them.

thanks for really interesting topic

 

[EyeSeeCold]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQDwoEeO5EE

 

[BigApplePi]

I let it play and found it adventurous, creative, lyrical, fanciful and unhurried. All that and absent language though I take it when one plays the game there is communication.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

I let it play and found it adventurous, creative, lyrical, fanciful and unhurried. All that and absent language though I take it when one plays the game there is communication.

Besides body movement, and hitting the Square button, which emits a sound that varies & strengthens the longer it's held down, there is no other way to communicate. When playing Co-op, two people can develop a personal language based on that sound alone by making changes in frequency and amplitude. It's a pretty interesting look at primitive human contact.

I agree with your descriptions, it's more a work of art than a game. It's too bad it's short.

 

[BigApplePi]

Language development answer?

Besides body movement, and hitting the Square button, which emits a sound that varies & strengthens the longer it's held down, there is no other way to communicate. When playing Co-op, two people can develop a personal language based on that sound alone by making changes in frequency and amplitude. It's a pretty interesting look at primitive human contact.

I agree with your descriptions, it's more a work of art than a game. It's too bad it's short.

Testing the question brought out by this thread.

I don't have the answer (that's for sure), but my intuition says if those playing this game are using a primitive method to communicate, why can't an experiment be designed which loosens the communication rules? Don't we think some of those playing this game would love to break the limited rules by adding some extra communication rule? There's yer idea.

Playing this game is communication without language. Language has lots of rules. Create an experiment which loosens rules, one at a time. Consult with that guy ... what's his name... Noam Chomsky if you have to, lol.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

Re: Language development answer?

Testing the question brought out by this thread.

I don't have the answer (that's for sure), but my intuition says if those playing this game are using a primitive method to communicate, why can't an experiment be designed which loosens the communication rules? Don't we think some of those playing this game would love to break the limited rules by adding some extra communication rule? There's yer idea.

Playing this game is communication without language. Language has lots of rules. Create an experiment which loosens rules, one at a time. Consult with that guy ... what's his name... Noam Chomsky if you have to, lol.

I think the problem with that is modern humans are already have a language bias, so conducting any experiment won't really be indicative of primitive contact or evolution unless you have newborns that don't ever learn the modern languages.

 

[rowen]

After they matured (13-14 years) probably 5 years. Human minds have matured very much since cavemen times. At 12 I was already making a language for fun, not necessity. And it's succesful and can be spoken today by me, and only me. IT even has a grammatical structure.

(Eích bet Rówen Mericanlumenöch, talden Texaslumöch - I am Rówen, of the Americans, hailing from Texas)

 

[Iuanes]

I think the general consensus in linguistics is that we're hard-wired for grammar and language. If we see language as an extension of the way we think (which would makes sense), for example subject- object categorization, and the environment rewarded or necessitated co-operation or socialization, a rudimentary language wouldnt take more than a couple of generations to develop.

The problem with isolated children, assuming all other needs are cared for, is the lack of the mental stimulus from other cultured beings and its possible effect on cognitive development and therefore language development.

 

[Felan]

There are more ways to indicate someone is drunk, someone has *ahem* generous assests, or words for various recreational activities (more than just sex, you gutter minds) then there are words for tool use and complexity like that. I think if this experiment were carried out we would be surprised but the complexity of the language that would emerge from it. The majority of language isn't really very useful, just highly entertaining. That's my two cents.

 

[BigApplePi]

Have there been any analytical approaches to this question besides intuitive? I would think groups, (and people will congregate in groups), would fairly easily come up with nouns to name objects. Then verbs for action, and adjectives to describe. The question then is, would we have a "Tower of Babel" where not enough would agree on what words to use? People will soon learn they can make different sounds to create nouns. Once something is started it could take off in a viral and unpredictable manner. Aren't there languages made up of "clicks"? I don't know enough about language.

 

[TriflinThomas]

I think you're using the Tower of Babel analogy wrong. As I recall, they were building a tower to reach the heavens and their wonderful, benevolent God struck down the tower and made them all speak different languages (because apparently they all spoke the same language before).

 

[BigApplePi]

I think you're using the Tower of Babel analogy wrong. As I recall, they were building a tower to reach the heavens and their wonderful, benevolent God struck down the tower and made them all speak different languages (because apparently they all spoke the same language before).

Hi TriflinT.

What I was thinking of was different peoples in different isolated groups would get a start on developing primitive talk. (They might have created words for food, you, me, hand, house, dog, etc. If they met other groups, they might expand the language by merging. However since they would have created different words for many of the same things, they would talk babel ... at least until they decided how to merge words.

 

[Marcher]

I read someone's theory about Asperger's syndrome before (they had Asperger's so understood the matter). They suggested that people with it have a tough time learning a language because they think differently.
So this got me thinking - what if there was a conlang created by and for people with Asperger's syndrome? I wonder how that'd turn out? A part of me thinks that it could never truly happen though because Aspies speak "regular" languages and that would change the outcome.

 

[kamari rised]

It all started with a vibration.

 

[Felan]

Hi TriflinT.

What I was thinking of was different peoples in different isolated groups would get a start on developing primitive talk. (They might have created words for food, you, me, hand, house, dog, etc. If they met other groups, they might expand the language by merging. However since they would have created different words for many of the same things, they would talk babel ... at least until they decided how to merge words.

I think the whole language aspect of Babel is that to build it they needed a bunch of slaves from other parts who didn't speak the same language. Tower falls and people running all over (many slaves even). Some dufus who was more priviledged than worldly noted all the different languages and assumed that something about the tower is the cause, which is only mildly true but not in the way they thought.

 

[Hawkeye]

Great thought experiment. What if we put a few children in with deaf parents or a deaf community? They would survive well because their parents would take care of them.

This reminded me of this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZMX6H6YY1M


Although, the reference is out of context.

 

[BigApplePi]

I think the whole language aspect of Babel is that to build it they needed a bunch of slaves from other parts who didn't speak the same language. Tower falls and people running all over (many slaves even). Some dufus who was more priviledged than worldly noted all the different languages and assumed that something about the tower is the cause, which is only mildly true but not in the way they thought.

I can think of a few kinds of language situations here:

(1) Tribes where everyone knows everyone else. They would have a common language.
(2) Traders over large areas. These peoples would bring their unique languages over large distances. Those they meet would be eager to learn that language for trading purposes.
(3) The Babel slavery thing you mentioned. Here peoples (slaves) are forced together. Their motives for learning another's language as opposed to sticking to their own words for security purposes would be an issue.
(4) What else?

 

[nanook]

i haven't read this thread so dunno if this came up already, but there is a chance that more than a certain time and a certain number of people are required, to force them, to develop language.

an analogy is the development of writing. writing came up with the higher degree of organisation of society that is implied by farming, as opposed to the lesser organisation of hunter tribes. the ability (inventing signs) was there before, but no need for this super systematical approach that "writing" is.

maybe monkeys, any number of them, didn't evolve language, because they have never been forced into a situation, wherein in order to survive, they had to become organised in a way, that can't be done with body language and grunting. and beside whatever other ingredients are needed for such a situation, most likely a higher number of monkeys would have to be involved. language allows to keep track of the past, part of that is creating traditional tabus, that can't be communicated without language. "stay away from the north, there are aliens in the north, they will use you for dirty experiments and you will never be seen again"