Kaballah and the Zohar?

[invert_nexus]

What is language?

That has been much on my mind lately. Good question. I think the answer is out there. In scattered form.

Language is first and foremost a means of expressing oneself, of expressing concepts. True language is composed of syntax -- the way in which seperate words relate to one another and to the world at large -- and grammar -- the accepted order in which words flow and are used. It is a temporal concept. A comes before B before C. Language is a means of expressing abstract ideas that one has no direct physical knowledge of as well as concrete ideas. Language is something that we know, but we don't always know that we know. It's functioning is so basic to our lives that it has been internalized.

Protolanguage is a trickier thing. It has no structure. It is mediated by the limbic system rather than the neocortex. It expresses emotion. It is not even necessarily used in the same way by the same species. I'm probably dead wrong about this concept. You're the linguist. You've explained syntax. Now, it's time to explain protolanguage.


The interesting thing about language is how our brains deal with it. The brain sets up feedback loops in which certain sounds are emphasized and certain sounds are de-emphasized. Infants are born with an open temporal lobe. They are capable of learning any language, hearing any sound. It is through the learning process that certain connections are cut back and we limit our perceptions to those sounds which are useful and proper for our culture.

In fact, our brains sometimes shift the order of sounds about. In experiiments, a word was spoken with a syllable missing and replaced with static. le...latures. The people listening "inserted" gis to hear legislatures. Another experiment the word tress was repeated over and over again. People heard dress, florists, purse, joyce, and stress. So, it is a search for meaningful utterances within a key framework of sound range.

Another example given is "when A. F. Chamberlain visited the Kootenai and Mohawk Indians during the late 1800's, he noted that they even heard animal and bird sounds differently from him. For example, when listening to some owls hooting, he noted that to him it sounded like "tu-whit-tu-whit-tu-whit," whereas the Indians heard "Katskakitl." However once he became accustomed to their language and began to use it, he soon developed the ability to hear sounds differently... When listening to a whippoorwill, he noted... it was saying "kwa-kor-yeuh." From the Naked Neuron. That's just some crazy stuff. I had always assumed that language allowed thoughts to work differently, but this is insane. The brain is a strange, strange place.

 

[water]

Invert Operator,

Heh, private joke. Someone around here thinks I'm a "Smooth" operator. Sarcastic emphasis on the "smooth" I believe.

Who thinks you so?
(I was thinking of Sade's song when I saw your new title.)

What exactly is a protolanguage? Is it coming up with specific vocalizations for specific objects? But lacking in syntax and grammar? That would probably rule out protolanguage for all animals, wouldn't it? Except possibly dolpins. I wonder about the robots, did they have names for things? Or "emotions"? Or actions?

As far as I know, a protolanguage is a language consisting of "words" -- signs that have an certain meaning and understood and used by the users of such a language. However, in a protolanguage, those signs come only separate, one after another, never come in *combinations*.

("Red apple", "yellow apple", "red flower", "yellow flower" are such combinations -- based on syntax.)


Gendanken,

The asnwer seems to be a magical chunk of cortical tissue called the angular gyrus.
A human is not just an ape with language though- so to think its that simple sounds wrong.

Oh no, there is plenty of physiological predispositions for (syntactical) language.

As far as my knowledge goes, the agreement is thus: Early humans (somewhere about 2 million years ago) found themselves living in a savannah, not in a wood anymore. Surviving in those conditions required several adaptations: food was more dispersed and longer food-gathering trips be made; predator animals were endangering them, and some defense needed to be devised. All this took new organisational skills, and successful communication was the key: for food gathering -- where to find it and which; for defense from predators -- those humans had to get together to scare away a big cat or bear-like creature.
So far the external challenges.

My conclusion is, that in order to survive, those challenges had to be accepted ... and along the way the brain grew, in a manner allowing for syntactical thinking -- and we know the rest.

 

[water]

In his book Syntactic Structures, Noam Chomsky argues that all human beings are endowed with an innate ability to acquire language as they are born able to speak in the same fashion, albeit according to the tongue of their culture, environment, and parents. They possess all the rules which govern how language is spoken, and they process and express language in accordance with these temporal-sequential motoric rules which we know as grammar.
p. 247

C.H.O.M.S.K.Y.​

I didn't want to say anything, I didn't want to spoil the fun.
We're actually coming to the Kaballah now, in two ways: with the idea of oneness, and with Chomsky being a Jew. Heh.

 

[invert_nexus]

Who thinks you so?
(I was thinking of Sade's song when I saw your new title.)

That would be telling.

And every time I see it I think of the song too. Not sure if it's Sade. Don't know who the band is. Only words I know are "Smooth operatorrrrrr. Smoooooootttthhh Operatorrr." Heh, trying to put music in with extra letters.

My conclusion is, that in order to survive, those challenges had to be accepted ... and along the way the brain grew, in a manner allowing for syntactical thinking -- and we know the rest.

Tool use, temporal structure, added integration of various brain functions. Key in the angular gyrus.

Edit: C.H.O.M.S.K.Y.? He's an acronym?

 

[water]

It's Sade.

I don't think she did this song with Spandau Ballet, if this is what you had in mind.

 

[water]

Edit: C.H.O.M.S.K.Y.? He's an acronym?

Well, let me see

C -- communication.
H -- human
O -- obscure
M -- monitoring
S -- scientist
K -- kosher
Y -- Your


This is fun!

As for the definition of language:
I would like to see what Gendy has to say on her definition of language, and I'll get back then.

 

[invert_nexus]

Rosa,

Speaking how sounds seem different to different ears. I want to see if you can figure out what his means. Ready?

Maresy doats and doasy doats and lidle lamsey divey, a kidley diveytoo, wouldn't you?

You may have heard this before, but I hope not. Can you make it out?

 

[water]

Smooth Operator,

Maresy doats and doasy doats and lidle lamsey divey, a kidley diveytoo, wouldn't you?

Hm. Haven't heard of it before. Thanks, I love such riddles.

Can you give me more of such text? I can't make out the phonetic rules, I have too little material.

 

[invert_nexus]

Nope, I'm sorry. That's all there is to it. It's a song which is why I thought you might have heard it before. I'm not even sure if I could give a clue without completely giving it away.

Edit: I will give the rest of the song up until it spells out the proper phrase.

Maresy doats and doasy doats and lidle lamsey divey, a kidley diveytoo, wouldn't you?
Now it may sound queer and funny to your ear, a little bit jumbled and jivey.
But....


Edit: Oh, by the way, you're really getting a kick out Smooth Operator aren't you? Maybe I should give up invert_nexus and go with Smooth Operator? I've noticed you've used Invert Operator, I think I even remember a Smooth Invert. Why no Smooth Nexus?

 

[water]

Invert,

On to linguistics:

A very important thing to keep in mind when it comes to talking about a language and its native speakers is this:


Native speakers INTERNALIZE a set of principles that determine well-formedness.

This goes for *all* levels of language: the phonological, morphological, syntactical, textual.

In accordance with these principles, native speakers (or those who become very good in a language) then speak and hear. You described the neurological processes that most likely take place in a baby's brain as the baby internalizes those language principles.


These principles then have such consequences when it comes to speaking a foreign language -- examples (for the sake of simplicity and because I don't know ASCII that well, I'll resort to the usual alphabet and not the phonetic):

1. Meli Kalikamaka.

What is this?
This is how a Hawaiian who doesn't speak English would repeat "Merry Christmas".
Namely, Hawaiian has only 13 phonemes (vowels: /a, e, i, o, u/, consonants: /p, m, n, l, k, h, w, ' (a kind of a h sound) / ). A consonant that is not in their system, like /r/, is given with the sound that to a Hawaiian sounds closest to it -- what the English hear as a /l/. Same goes for /s/ which they hear and repeat as what the English hear as /k/.
Hawaiian also has the principle of not allowing consonant clusters, like /kr/. It breaks them up by adding 'filler vowels', in Hawaiian, this is /a/.


2. What basketball term do you think "suturaiku" is?
This is how a native Japanese repeats the English word "strike". Japanese also doesn't allow consonant clusters, the vowel to dissolve such a cluster is /u/.


3. Like just recently, "we need the look of other eyes" -- this doesn't seem to be in accordance with the English principles of well-formedness, so it was given as "eyes upon you".

Also, would you prefer to say "my father's car" or "the car of my father"?

The sentence "I have not seen nobody at the hall." is not in accordance with the English principles of well-formedness, but it is in accordance with Slovene.

And so on and on and on and ever so on.



************

"Maresy doats and doasy doats and lidle lamsey divey, a kidley diveytoo, wouldn't you?"

See, I haven't internalized many English principles of well-formedness, so I can't solve that play of words. If I had more of such text, I could devise some rules, and then try to solve the riddle, but now I'm lost.

'doats' could be 'dots', 'dotes'
'lidle' is most likely 'little'

This is going to be soooooooo offf:

'Mercy dots and daisy dots and little lamb doves, a kid dove too, wouldn't you?'

Huh.

 

[invert_nexus]

Nope, you're looking at it as a riddle and a puzzle, when it's really more of a play on words. If pronounced properly, then it would be easy to figure out, maybe. It does take a bit of lateral thinking, perhaps. Although, you do have little lamb and kid right. Also, too and the and's of course. Think division of words.

I'll give you a pronunciation tip. Mairzy rhymes with Merci. And it's not so much altering sounds as reorganizing the visual representation of them.

If you give up, here's a link to a page with the lyrics and a midi of the tune. Burl Ives is the artist that I've heard do this song when a child. http://www.rienzihills.com/SING/mairzydoats.htm

***

Interesting stuff you've given us. Meli Kalikimaka is also a song, by the way.

And, it's baseball not basketball. Don't think Japanese are very into basketball. They are baseball fiends though. Here in Seattle, we have many Japanese and the star of our baseball team is even Japanese. Ichiro.

I'd say "my father's car." Rolls off the tongue better. The car of my father sounds more formalized. We are generally an unformal bunch over here.

"I have not seen nobody at the hall." Do the negatives cancel each other out? So that it means "I have seen somebody at the hall"? Although it may not be formal English and is frowned upon by english teachers everywhere, double negatives are actually used quite often in American English. The problem is that the people who use it don't generally realize that they are really saying the opposite of what they mean. I like to use triple negatives on occasion, just to mess with people. I see it as a form of stressing the single negative that remains after the cancellation.

This goes for *all* levels of language: the phonological, morphological, syntactical, textual.

Maybe you could elucidate the various levels. We have done syntax. I think I understand phonological (phonemes right?) But what is morphological?

 

[water]

Maybe you could elucidate the various levels. We have done syntax. I think I understand phonological (phonemes right?) But what is morphological?

1. MORPHOLOGY

The level of morphology is about words and their forms.

Words can be flexed: we make forms for number (singular and plural), tense (the 16 or so English tenses), gender (masculine, feminine, neuter), we grade adjectives and adverbs, make forms for passive or active voice, ...

We know regular forms:
car -- carS
tall -- tallER
wish -- wishED
...

And we know irregular forms:
child -- children
good -- better
see -- saw
...

As a native speaker, you have internalized principles of morphological well-formedness. If someone says "three *childrens* were playing in the street", you will hear right away that there is something wrong. If someone says "Yesterday, I *writed* a letter", your language sense will tell you that this ain't right. And so on.


Another field of word morphology is word formation, sometimes regarded as syntactical morphology. This tells you how complex words are made.
Like "brunch", "cesspool", "summer-time" or "community center finance comitee". English word formation is a demanding issue.

***
2. TEXTOLOGY

The textual level seems a bit elusive, as it is often treated as a matter of course. On this level, we are interested into textual genres, kinds of texts (I'm not sure what the present English terminology is) -- like: a description, a report, a formal letter, a personal letter, a weather report, a joke, a SF post etc. etc.

There are principles that determine the well-formedness of a formal letter, for example, and you know when a formal letter has been composed in accordance with those principles and when not. However, these principles may vary greatly from culture to culture, depending on the kind of text (the way you write a personal letter in America may be different from the way you write it in Saudi Arabia).

If we examine the kind "SciForums post" a bit, we see that there is an obligatory way of quoting (with blocks), and that posts that aren't composed in that manner, tend to be harder to read. There are also special signs used to indicate the emotional state of the writer *sighs*, *shrugs*; and other agreed signs to express emotional evaluation ( , :bugeye: , :m: ). ...

***

3. PHONOLOGY

I think we've covered it enough for present needs.
Yes, phonemes, phones. if you have specific questions, do ask.


***
Now I'm waiting for Gendy to come with her definition of language ...

 

[water]

... and little lambs eat ivy.

Dude, that is SOMETHING.
I'll have to figure out the phonological rules behind it, it can't be accidental.

 

[invert_nexus]

Did you figure it out or did you cheat? You have to hear Burl Ives sing it. It's a classic experience for children in this country... at least it used to be. I bet the new children don't even know who Burl Ives is.

 

[water]

Your Smooth Operatorship,


Nah, I couldn't figure it out myself, I had to look it up.

"Maresy doats and doasy doats and lidle lamsey divey, a kidley diveytoo, wouldn't you?"

Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy, a kid will eat ivy too, wouldn't you?

This is possible because English has a writing that is quite ambigous. The writing in my native language is almost phonetical, such plays are impossible.

Thanks for the challenge though, always nice.

 

[gendanken]

Vert:

You know, sometimes I wonder... I was going on about the angular gyrus a while back.

I know exactly what you're wondering.
If I read your posts or just browse through them and a big fat no on both counts.
You have a tendency to bring to me a cornucopia of thoughts and I'm almost like a child at a candy store- I want to grab this and say that and snatch that and do this with it but when you sit down to type, priorities are reorganized and one fails to mention somethings becuase at this point the hands hurt.
I've read everything you've written.

Rosa:

Now I'm waiting for Gendy to come with her definition of language ...

Here it is.
Definition of language: the perfect means of hurting others with impunity.

Kidding.

Language, in the spirit of Unamuno, is a disease.
I believe it makes up the very fabric of what Freud calls the SuperEgo.
I believe it is the essential ingredients for the prolonged guilt that is the human conscience.
Not concsiousness, there is a difference.
There is a difference between the immediate guilt of the dog that's just bit you and the haunting guilt of morals and consequence.
And I believe the catalyst in this difference is language.
I believe that without this wordy fabric spread wide, the gods, fairies, monsters and all things that go bump in the night would have no place to stand on.
Too, would Kaballah and Zen and Buddhism and Christianity have no standing.
Only feelings of ecstacy would remain, as naked as they are without words as they are for the gorilla who no doubt experiences ecstacy as well.
I believe language is a bittwersweet gift, creating wonders as it does nightmares and with its use we have the serial killer devouring himself with his guilt.
The human killer that kills without remorse remains the animal that he rightly is.
The human killer that recoils from his actions is now an animal destroying himself with an entity- conscience- that I believe cannot exist without language.

Our bitter pill- language.

I also think in terms of Chomsky in that the human brain harbors an array of pimitive, innate elements that we only build on with external learning.
Our feelings for math, lanugage, reason, logic- all are an internalized plan we only expound on as we grow.
I belive we are born with embryonic language.

 

[invert_nexus]

If I read your posts or just browse through them and a big fat no on both counts.

So you don't read my posts or browse them? I know, slip of the tongue. I know exactly what you mean. And, when you're gone for the weekend and come back to Rosa and I having added so much material, it's hard to handle it all.


You mention Chomsky. So you have read his work then? Specifically Syntactical Structures? He mentions that embryonic language. Specifically grammar structures if I recall properly.

 

[water]

Gendanken, Invert,

I read your responses, I'll get back to you ... with some questions, methinks.

 

[gendanken]

I do believe this thread will die soon.
Rambling and rambling it went, magically into breathtaking understanding.
I think some of us here read and threw out some, kept some, and developed some and this, dear friends, is the element of progress.

You may not agree with how I've pigeonholed language, perhaps think I've read too much into it, attribute to much to it or think I villify it by calling it a disease. Fine and well, we can't all agree to everything- at times I wish we all came here as willing to read each other as we are when holding a book of the greats. People are not as willing to understand the forum chick or the forum dude as they are to understand Kant, or something as fancy all because of the faith we place on a name.
Though you say the same things.
An agsty youth can write a dark poem to best Poe's but he will die unknown because his reader does not open up to him as he would to Poe's influence.

So the mental state we approach each other with is key- the importance you place on the author and the respect that same author shows to you, his reader, in return by making his thinking as clear and pure as possible so you could know what he is saying and not just want you to know that he knows in his need to show off, like most philsophers......all of this is the beauty of learning.

You mention Chomsky. So you have read his work then? Specifically Syntactical Structures? He mentions that embryonic language. Specifically grammar structures if I recall properly

Read his work some, yes. "Language and the Mind", but got sidetracked with Corbalis's the "Lopsided Ape" and for some reason got into superstition and magic I have no clue how I landed there, must have been guided but I landed on Stuart Vyse's "Believeing in Magic: The Psychology of the Superstitious" and there *boom*- the Epiphany.
That's where I saw my theory.
And Chomsky was forgotten until I got tangled up with Wesmorris and the bilogicial integration of language became more apparent again.

 

[invert_nexus]

I do believe this thread will die soon.
Rambling and rambling it went, magically into breathtaking understanding.

I hope not. This has been an enlightening conversation. The thing is that we have come to the difficult part. All that has gone before has been rather simple and easy. Integration is now needed. I'm still looking for sources of spirituality to add.

Hang in there, Gendanken. I don't think we're done yet. We just need a bit of patience. This is a tricky subject and should not be dealt with lightly.