algebra is not an actual language. it is a mathematical notation system. language is needed BEFORE anything in algebra makes any sense.

I think an interesting point not brought up, is the language of internal dialogue. did humans invent vocal language to represent the ideas in their heads, or did ideas evolve in parallel with developments in language.

Human language or just language? Because I'm pretty sure the Dinosaurs had a language.

What about the international language? That's been around a pretty long while.

esperanto? esperanto sucks.

I think that human brain development was sped up by the creation of language. language allows one to maintain specific information in one's head, easily trasnefrable to someone else's head, just by talking. written language came much much later than that.
I think that human thought occurs without language. look at stories of children raised without language or people near them. their brains do not think in language.

Correct, but I'm talking about language in a broader sense of the word.
Why would you think that it's ONLY possible to speak a language when you have vocal cords?

That book Glice mentioned looks interesting.

SuchFriends' post about internal dialogue is interesting.

And Rob is first-rate with his terminology yet again.

I never said it was only possible to have language if one has vocal chords.
What I am saying is there is no evidence whatsoever that dinosaurs had language.
many birds (mynah, ravens, parrots) can "speak words" but they are not using those words as language, more of a phonetic pronunciation.

one can go threough life without language. it is possible to learn survival skills, and to co-exist in group dynamic without language, just sounds and gestures. humans and pre-humans and apes and monkeys and such would have and still do live like this.

for a sound symbol system to be language it has to be able to accomdate new ideas and new words and new concepts whether concrete or abstract.
gestures and grunts do not accomplish this.

to answer this you'd have to answer about the age of the language organs-- not jsut in the throat but in the brain.

was it homo sapiens? was it before? good luck finding that out.

to those board members whose 1st language was not english, is it hard to learn?

my 1st language was spanish.

english is actually easy to learn for comprehension, but pronunciation and spelling are quite difficult.

english is such a mish-mosh of words from all sorts of different languages that there is no "system" to figure out pronunciation or spelling.

english is a piece of cake when it comes to grammar. pronounciation and spelling on the other hand can be a bitch.

explain the difference

wild
wilderness

wtf, i ask...

in spanish, what you see is what you get. only c and g change their sound (a, o, u -- e, i) , and the h is mute (ha) but those are small quirks. also, we have less vowels (vowel sounds, you see). so for us it's basically a-e-i-o-u that sound sorta like "ah" "eh" "ee" "oh" "uh" no matter where you put them. in english, the written vowels can indicate any number of sounds. nuts.

verb tenses however are much harder in french, spanish, etc. also, we use sentences with multiple clauses and long multisyllabic words that confuse the bejeezus out of english speakers.

Some scientists claim that dolphins call each other by name when they whistle.
Others say that they simply recognise vocal inflection of other dolphins.

My first languages were Italian and Spanish. At school I learnt Engish and now I speak mostly Dutch.
It's a bitch because I often mix up the word order of sentences.

sorry

Hahahahhahahahahha !!!!!

Sonic Youth fans can be a very clever bunch when they feel like it. I wonder if the Slipknot forum has threads like this.

The Sapir Whorf Hypothesis is very interesting, someone has mentioned it on the boards before.
I was speaking to a Polish lady a few days ago, she could speak Russian and was on about how she thinks in her head with one language and then speaks another, I find this strange, but then I can't speak any other language.

Your post made me think of Firefox, one of Clint Eastwood's less artistically successful pictures.

That maybe true, but I haven't seen that film in ages, and your mentioning it has made me want to. I remember reading the book as a kid after seeing the film and being such a fan I even read the sequal, Firefox Down. My nerdishness knew no bounds even then, I'm afraid.

Anyway, didn't mean to hijack the thread.

It's pretty widely discredited; unfortunately, they get a little excited about their salient points and draw inferences that are incredibly deterministic and narrow-minded. Benjamin Whorff was a fascinating character though, there was a wonderful secondary text on him about his days as a salesman. Well worth a read - I couldn't tell you what it was called, but I could tell you where it was located in the library I read it in (2nd floor, the linguistics/ child education section by the door, second cabinet, third shelf down and about 6 from the left).