Is Language Possible?

Chris Knight is an anthropologist with an interest in language origins. Along with his new book,Decoding Chomsky, (reviewedhere), in which he does a great job of pointing out this particular emperor ’s nudity, he has published an intriguing paper inLanguage and Communication, titled “Puzzles and mysteries in the origin of language” (abstracthere). He gets straight to his point: “Language evolved in no species other than humans, suggesting a deep-going obstacle to its evolution.” The point is critical. It is not enough to propose a reason for language’s presence among humans. You also have to explain its absence everywhere else.I have argued on this blog that language is a tool for sharing news about topics of mutual interest. This view of language is the one Knight says “presupposes anomalously high levels of mutual cooperation and trust….” But, says Knight, “One possibility is that language simply cannot evolve in a Darwinian world – that is, in a world based ultimately on competition and conflict.”The need for cooperation and trust explains why other species don ’t have language. They live in a Darwinian world where everybody is endlessly competing. The alarming feature of this observation is that it suggests language is not possible amongst humans either. Frankly, I’m amazed that the creationist forces in America do not constantly bang this drum.Knight then looks at three theories that place language and Darwin in opposite columns.Noam Chomsky. ...
Source: Babel's Dawn - Category: Speech Therapy Authors: Source Type: blogs