language

From ScienceDaily: A new study from Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet shows that the ‘grammar’ of the human genetic code is more complex than that of even the most intricately constructed spoken languages in the world. The findings, published in the journal Nature, explain why the human genome is so difficult to decipher — and contribute to the further understanding of how genetic differences affect the risk of developing diseases on an individual level. Under the supervision of Professor Jussi Taipale, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have previously identified most of the DNA words recognised by individual transcription factors. However, much like in a natural human language, the DNA words can be joined to form compound words that are read by multiple transcription Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Monkey. Scanning the brains of humans and monkeys, the research team has identified the area at the front of the brain which in both humans and monkeys recognizes when sequences of sounds occur in a legal order or in an unexpected, illegal order. Scanning the brains of humans and macaque monkeys, the research team has identified the area at the front of the brain which in both humans and monkeys recognises when sequences of sounds occur in a legal order or in an unexpected, illegal order. Professor Petkov said: “Young children learn the rules of language as they develop, even before they are able to produce language. So, we used a ‘made up’ language first developed to study Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Chimpanzee language claims lost in translation, researchers conclude Unbelievably, some researchers tried examining one these claims instead of just accepting it and pontificating about it. The scholarship in question, published in the journal Current Biology in February, centered on the examination of two sets of chimpanzees in the Edinburgh Zoo: one that had been captive for several years in the facility and one that had recently arrived from the Beekse Bergen Safari Park in the Netherlands. Over a three-year period, the researchers claimed that the latter set had altered their sounds to those of the former set when communicating about a common object, apples, resulting in what they saw as a newly shared vocalization. … But a review Read More ›

As in National Geographic: Bonobo peeps point to human language origin (The pop science mind tends to lack practical intelligence. No one even thinks of asking why, if baby bonobo peeping tells us about the roots of human language, it never did anything for the bonobos) and Apes close to speaking? No. (In the middle ages, it was implausible miracle stories but today, it is implausible ape achievement stories. ) And further to Bonobos prefigure language?: Agenda so obvious, it stinks like the garbage on a hot summer night before the pickup. (if bonobos “peep,” that shows they are on the verge of speaking. But if Neanderthals did speak (of course they did), that shows it isn’t a big achievement.) In response Read More ›

Further to National Geographic: Bonobo peeps point to human language origin ( No one even thinks of asking why, if baby bonobo peeping tells us about the roots of human language, it never did anything for the bonobos). and Apes close to speaking? No. (In the middle ages, it was implausible miracle stories that attracted attention, but today, it is implausible ape achievement stories. ) The agenda is so obvious, it stinks like the garbage on a hot summer night before the pickup. For example, this just rolled out of the files: Neanderthals could talk? Warning: Concept now used to claim that language was no big leap after all. Note that if bonobos “peep,” that shows they are on the verge Read More ›

No sooner did we hear that apes are close to speaking (no, they aren’t, and the claim is just another example of how, in our time, impossible ape achievement stories have replace impossible miracle claims)—than we are informed by National Geographic: Bonobo “Baby Talk” Reveals Roots of Human Language As we watch the bonobos, I think I hear a vocalization called peeping—a short, high-pitched sound bonobos make with their mouths closed. Peeping, which is very similar to the burbling of human infants before they form words, may tell us more about the evolution of human speech. That’s because while most animal sounds have a more narrow meaning, bonobos use peeping in several contexts, including eating, communicating danger, and resting, according Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Apes may be closer to speaking than many scientists think In 2010, Marcus Perlman started research work at The Gorilla Foundation, where Koko has spent more than 40 years living immersed with humans — interacting for many hours each day with psychologist Penny Patterson and biologist Ron Cohn. … “She doesn’t produce a pretty, periodic sound when she performs these behaviors, like we do when we speak,” Perlman says. “But she can control her larynx enough to produce a controlled grunting sound.” In other words, Koko does not speak. “Decades ago, in the 1930s and ’40s, a couple of husband-and-wife teams of psychologists tried to raise chimpanzees as much as possible like human children and teach them to Read More ›

Says this German mag, in translation: Farewell to the World Formula The laws of nature are ephemeral Natural laws are in line with established opinion to immutable component of the natural sciences. A physicist and a philosopher now say goodbye to the idea. by Edu Why so and not otherwise? Until recently was Lee Smolin, of the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo thinkers from Canada, expire this idea. But now he opposes her, along with the Brazilian philosopher Roberto Mangabeira Unger of Harvard Law School. They have a thick book published entitled “The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time”. In it they go from “most interesting feature of the natural world”, namely the fact “that it is what it is Read More ›

The new atheists have been holding out on us lately. On the other hand, someone told us about this Raw Story item: Professional atheist Sam Harris looks like an idiot in this email exchange with Noam Chomsky My, my. What do readers think? Is it no longer cool to be a new atheist? Follow UD News at Twitter! Search Uncommon Descent for similar topics, under the Donate button.  

From ScienceDaily: At some point, probably 50,000 to 100,000 years ago, humans began talking to one another in a uniquely complex form. It is easy to imagine this epochal change as cavemen grunting, or hunter-gatherers mumbling and pointing. But in a new paper, an MIT linguist contends that human language likely developed quite rapidly into a sophisticated system: Instead of mumbles and grunts, people deployed syntax and structures resembling the ones we use today. “The hierarchical complexity found in present-day language is likely to have been present in human language since its emergence,” says Shigeru Miyagawa, Professor of Linguistics and the Kochi Prefecture-John Manjiro Professor in Japanese Language and Culture at MIT, and a co-author of the new paper on Read More ›