Re: The Tally-Ho! Theory of Language Origins

benlizross wrote:
>
> rogerprince@xxxxxxxx wrote:
> >
> > benlizross wrote:
> >
> > > Can you explain a little more clearly what would make you entertain the
> > > fantastical notion that writing preceded spoken language? Or perhaps you
> > > do not actually mean what those words appear to mean?
> >
> > I didn't say "Writing preceded spoken language." I said "Perhaps
> > writing, ***in a sense***, preceded spoken language." My sense is:
> > Marks on the ground "symbolizing" the animals that made them. The
> > better humans got at interpreting and following those marks, the better
> > they may have adapted themselves for spoken language.
>
> Actually, my remarks were addressed to Dr Jamshid Ibrahim, who
> elaborated on your one line. But I suspected that your "in a sense"
> might conceal an escape hatch. So, like Derrida, you say "Writing
> precedes speech", which looks startling and original, but turns out to
> be based on using the term "writing" in a sense that nobody else uses
> it. In your case "writing" = "animal tracks". What's the point?

I thought he was saying that the pre-humans would make marks on the
ground in imitation of the tracks of their prey, so as to teach their
fellows what to look for.

That would be vaguely writing-like, but still not a useful extension of
the term.

> > Humans, uniquely among animals to my best knowlege, can look at marks
> > on the ground and "read" their "meaning" w/o using any other sense. If
> > that ability preceded full spoken language, it may have been a
> > foundation of FSL.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@xxxxxxx
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: The Tally-Ho! Theory of Language Origins
    ... >>> better humans got at interpreting and following those marks, ... >>> they may have adapted themselves for spoken language. ... writing in tracking (scanning sequence of visual stimuli with meaning ... qualifies as a "theory of language origins". ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: The Tally-Ho! Theory of Language Origins
    ... > Marks on the ground "symbolizing" the animals that made them. ... > they may have adapted themselves for spoken language. ... So, like Derrida, you say "Writing ... precedes speech", which looks startling and original, but turns out to ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: The Tally-Ho! Theory of Language Origins
    ... >> better humans got at interpreting and following those marks, ... >> they may have adapted themselves for spoken language. ... > be based on using the term "writing" in a sense that nobody else uses ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Why does German favor long compound words?
    ... A major point is that in the early stages of Chinese writing, a single graph could represent more than one word/morpheme. ... However, the earliest examples of written text were already really logographic, as shown by the fact that each character seems to have had a fixed set of readings, with each reading relating to a specific spoken morpheme. ... It is this already existing connection between the spoken language and the written language that permitted the development of the next stage. ... In a language like Chinese, we recognize a particular morpheme by its position in a string, relative to the other morphemes in that same string. ...
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  • Arnold Schwarzenegger (spoiler)
    ... cyborg from the future, Arnie takes a hunting knife, sticks it in his wrist, ... joint and then rips all the skin off his arm in one go. ... i am writing about doing it. ... these marks on the page, i can resist the urge to make marks on my arms. ...
    (uk.people.support.depression)