Re: Neanderthals are speaking up - or at least a computer synthesiser is doing so on their behalf.

On 2008-04-15, Jack Linthicum <jacklinthicum@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[...]

Neanderthals speak out after 30,000 years

* Ewen Callaway

[...]

"They would have spoken a bit differently. They wouldn't have been
able to produce these quantal vowels that form the basis of spoken
language," he says.

Do "quantal vowels" form the basis of spoken language?

[...]

Though subtle, the linguistic difference would have limited
Neanderthal speech, McCarthy says.
The language gene

That conclusion doesn't fit in with Neanderthals' large brains, which
may have been an adaptation to language, says Erik Trinkaus, an
anthropologist at Washington University in St Louis. "Ultimately what
is important is not the anatomy of the mouth but the neuronal control
of it."

Neanderthals may have also boasted the genes for language, Trinkaus
says. Last year, researchers discovered that Neanderthals shared a
version of a gene called FOXP2 with humans.

[...]

I'll just mention in passing that voice is not the only means of
communication used by humans or other species today, so there is no reason
to suppose that such a restriction ever applied in the past to any species
or culture. People who can neither hear nor create any 'vocal' sounds at
all can communicate at least as well as those who can - all that's
required is for all those taking part in the communication to have a
common means of expressing a common set of concepts. There are no vowels
or consonants in British Sign Language :))

However, even restricting consideration to communication based on sounds,
the basic structure of the sound-scape of different human languages is
extremely variable: see
<http://www.vistawide.com/languages/language_statistics.htm> for examples
of some of the extremes. Ubyx (spoken in a region of Turkey, and possibly
not a 'living' language at present) has only two vowels (and 81
consonants).

Modern English is generally reckoned to have about 20 vowels and 40+
consonants, although that varies for different dialects and regional
accents <http://www.btinternet.com/~ted.power/phon00.htm>.

As for the number, or even type, of concepts that are needed for a culture
to function, consider "The Marvelous Case of the Piraha"
<http://www.ascentofhumanity.com/chapter2-7.php>.

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