How are natural languages formed?

[L.Y.S.]

M.I.T., i believe.

You said chomsky, read it and weep, then you don't post any material? I'm assuming this was just a post for comical effect?

 

[L.Y.S.]

I think "Nell" was to some degree based on the real case of Genie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_(feral_child)

Thanks sam, I've actually watched a few specials on Genie truly tragic. But yeah now that you mention it Genie does remind me an awful lot of Nell in the movie.

 

[Halfcentaur]

This is perhaps the most interesting information I've received in this thread. So can people who already know a language like... let's say... anyone of us, could we still create our own devices or would we be too influenced by our own indigenous languages to break the mental barrier required to make our own unique language?

I don't know about a brand new language from scratch, but there are plenty of cases of people being stranded or immersed within populations who don't speak the language eventually picking it up without any instruction really, and multiple people being isolated, like Robinson Crusoe, and forming a language between the two to understand each other. We're going to find a way to communicate as long as we're programmed for it from childhood it seems, and the more we communicate the more subtle and in depth we get.

I lived in Saigon and Vietnam for about 5 months, and was fascinated by the way I'd start picking up on things on my own. After a few months, you really start getting familiar with sounds of the new language, and you start to notice when you hear something odd you've never heard before, even not understanding what it means.

I think one of my favorite things to do is get really drunk with a bunch of people who don't speak your language, and still having a great time and communicating through other means.

 

[L.Y.S.]

I think one of my favorite things to do is get really drunk with a bunch of people who don't speak your language, and still having a great time and communicating through other means.

So true

 

[L.Y.S.]

I don't know about a brand new language from scratch, but there are plenty of cases of people being stranded or immersed within populations who don't speak the language eventually picking it up without any instruction really, and multiple people being isolated, like Robinson Crusoe, and forming a language between the two to understand each other. We're going to find a way to communicate as long as we're programmed for it from childhood it seems, and the more we communicate the more subtle and in depth we get.

Interesting, so it seems that inevitably in a free open group where communication is necessary it will arise. This is a very interesting concept.

 

[quarky]

You said chomsky, read it and weep, then you don't post any material? I'm assuming this was just a post for comical effect?

Sorry about that. I suck at making links. i figured you could google him if you were curious. He's known more for his lefty politics these days, but Chomsky is a linguist by trade, and had some breakthrough theories about how language comes about.

 

[L.Y.S.]

Sorry about that. I suck at making links. i figured you could google him if you were curious. He's known more for his lefty politics these days, but Chomsky is a linguist by trade, and had some breakthrough theories about how language comes about.

I see he wrote an entire library of books. I am truly I'm at a loss for words. I personally don't know where to start. You can start by recommending me some books that I could go back read. Specifically which of his books deal in the theory of language and how languages are formed? I’m assuming since you have recommended his works to me that you have read some of his work. Which books of his did you read? Let's start there.

 

[quarky]

I see he wrote an entire library of books. I am truly I'm at a loss for words. I personally don't know where to start. You can start by recommending me some books that I could go back read. Specifically which of his books deal in the theory of language and how languages are formed? I’m assuming since you have recommended his works to me that you have read some of his work. Which books of his did you read? Let's start there.

Its been so long, i don't recall the names of the books. I'd be inclined to go with the most recent of the linguistics stuff. He also writes lots of papers and gives talks. I don't know if he still teaches.
maybe someone else can chime in.

 

[Olowkow]

The OP's question reminds me of the video of Feynman being asked by an interviewer how magnets work. Feynman first had to figure out what the questioner knew about physics, and what sort of answer he wanted. It is a great piece of history. His frustration at trying to simplify a very difficult subject is just a beautiful thing to watch.

The question of how languages work, and how they develop in communities of speakers requires extremely complicated and arcane answers, and frankly little is known about how the mind organizes the syntax. Semantics is even worse, but much is known about phonology and phonemics. I spent many years in the field when "generative or transformational grammar" was just being introduced by students of Chomsky. It has since largely fizzled, and my friends in the field tell me that the modern rage is "minimalist" linguistics, whatever that is.

My area of research back in the early 70's was bilingualism among various communities of speakers. It turned out that a claim could be made that bilinguals used so-called linguistic universals to govern their behavior in code switching, which was at the time a very controversial claim.

I would recommend starting with Haj (John) Ross, one of Chomsky's students back in the 60's, and George Lakoff, who is still doing semantics. Ross and Lakoff had some truly astonishing insights that gave the appearance of a real theory of language at times, but there was always a hitch. Language is a real melange of culture, custom, creativity,and mathematics that all gets turned into hand gestures, vocalizations and facial expressions.

Theoretical linguistics requires a certain frame of mind to even begin to understand the problem, let alone any attempt to solve it. The jargon can be very daunting, and my experience has been that most people who speak a language (i.e., everyone) is an "expert" in his own language. The data which has to be studied must be the native speaker's intuitions about grammaticality, which is right away not a very scientific commodity.

Generally speaking, Chomsky and many others came to believe that humans have a built in system that causes the child to search out patterns of grammar (no matter which language) based on certain putative universal linguistic constraints, i.e. what can and cannot be a grammar of a natural language. One seems to lose this ability somewhere around the onset of puberty. As anyone who has kids knows, the child of 2 or 3 years learns grammar effortlessly, and this kind of behavior is still quite a mystery as far as I know.

 

[L.Y.S.]

Thanks a lot. If I read these works maybe I'll get some true insight on the issue.