Homo Erectus and language

[outhouse]

But, we have to be careful not to go overboard. They weren't us...

Agreed

mentally no, physically pretty dang close.

and that brings a few questions to mind. The physiacl aspect of language would evolve from language use, would it not?

I'm shooting for a limited language, not equal to humans

 

[painted wolf]

Agreed

mentally no, physically pretty dang close.

and that brings a few questions to mind. The physiacl aspect of language would evolve from language use, would it not?

Not necessarily. You need the morphology to produce language before you can have a conversation.

We have found one (that I know of) probable hyoid bone from an H.erectus and it shows that they didn't have the ability to move their vocal cords like we do. Essentially their vocal control wasn't any better than Chimps. And this is the biggest morphological strike against their having language.

A Homo erectus hyoid bone: possible implicatio... [Coll Antropol. 2008] - PubMed - NCBI

This one bone essentially makes or breaks the ability to produce human like speech. (it doesn't stop you from understanding it necessarily, just being able to speak)

I'm shooting for a limited language, not equal to humans

The trick is how we define "language"... from a scientific standpoint it's a pretty restrictive definition.

You need grammar, syntax and so on. They well may have had a limited precursor to language as we know it, without having what we would define as a true language.

Since they can't control their voices like we do, they likely couldn't develop the vocalizations needed to produce grammar, syntax and so on. You need to be able to control your sounds to vary their meaning.

Now... if you could time travel and teach them to use an iPad like we are teaching Orangutans to do... I'm sure you would find that they would have the mental capacity to learn very nearly, if not fully human, language using glyphs to communicate.

But they were limited by their physiology... they simply wouldn't be able to speak about what they learned.

wa:do

 

[outhouse]

The trick is how we define "language"...

agreed.

I did find this searching for more info on the hyoid

The Earliest Hominids

Homo erectus lived between 1.8 million and 300,000 years ago. It was a successful species for a million and a half years. Early examples had a 900cc brain size on the average. The brain grew steadily during its reign. Toward the end its brain was almost the same size as modern man, at about 1200cc. The species definitely had speech. Erectus developed tools, weapons and fire and learned to cook his food. He traveled out of Africa into China and Southeast Asia and developed clothing for northern climates. He turned to hunting for his food. Only his head and face differed from modern man. Like habilis, the face had massive jaws with huge molars, no chin, thick brow ridges, and a long low skull. Though proportioned the same, he was sturdier in build and much stronger than the modern human.


then it begs, is speech considered a language?

 

[outhouse]

Nope. Certainly more advanced than pebble tools, but again they had the hand-ax and they stuck with it. No awls or scrapers... just the hand-ax. The only real variation was in size.

Lets add to this, because they dis have advanced tool making, [according to this article]

Early Humans Were More Advanced Than Previously Believed

According to the Huffington post, science researchers discover that the oldest Homo erectus tools found were earlier than previously believed. Homo erectus populations were creating and using advanced stone tools almost 2 million years ago, much earlier than previous science theories argued, according to archaeologists who exhumed new artifacts in northwest Kenya. Homo erectus people never export the technology behind their sophisticated tools (hand axes, picks and flakes) when the people migrated out of Africa, according to Nature this week.


According to Anya Luke-Killam's paper on the Language Capabilities of Homo Erectus & Homo Neanderthalensis, although Homo Erectus and Neanderthal people have the human hyoid bone, which is necessary for either verbal or spoken communication, many within the scientific community question whether Homo erectus and Neanderthal humans could communicate like modern humans. Homo erectus and Neanderthal brains were similar to modern humans. Some scientists have been slow to agree that Homo erectus and Neanderthals communicated just as well as modern humans because of their commitment to Darwinism. Analysis of Homo erectus and Neanderthal sophisticated tool production, artistic creations, sufficient brains, and a hyoid bone confirms that verbal communication was necessary for the development of their tools and art work.

 

[fallingblood]

Lets add to this, because they dis have advanced tool making, [according to this article]

Early Humans Were More Advanced Than Previously Believed

According to the Huffington post, science researchers discover that the oldest Homo erectus tools found were earlier than previously believed. Homo erectus populations were creating and using advanced stone tools almost 2 million years ago, much earlier than previous science theories argued, according to archaeologists who exhumed new artifacts in northwest Kenya. Homo erectus people never export the technology behind their sophisticated tools (hand axes, picks and flakes) when the people migrated out of Africa, according to Nature this week.


According to Anya Luke-Killam's paper on the Language Capabilities of Homo Erectus & Homo Neanderthalensis, although Homo Erectus and Neanderthal people have the human hyoid bone, which is necessary for either verbal or spoken communication, many within the scientific community question whether Homo erectus and Neanderthal humans could communicate like modern humans. Homo erectus and Neanderthal brains were similar to modern humans. Some scientists have been slow to agree that Homo erectus and Neanderthals communicated just as well as modern humans because of their commitment to Darwinism. Analysis of Homo erectus and Neanderthal sophisticated tool production, artistic creations, sufficient brains, and a hyoid bone confirms that verbal communication was necessary for the development of their tools and art work.

You need to be more selective in your sources. I doubt you actually agree with the conclusion of this "article." Here, I will post part of the analysis.

"Darwinism or macro-evolution fails the test of the scientific method because this process has never been observed during life’s 3.5 billion year history on planet Earth. "

"The belief in life originating from death, fishes evolving into amphibians, amphibians changing into reptiles, reptiles developing into mammals and birds, and apes transforming into humans originated from the religious and philosophical corruptions of Darwinism."

"Darwinism contributed to the creation of concentration camps in Germany during the Second World War and the persecution of non-whites in Europe, South Africa, and North America for many years before the 21st century."

"The time has come for many believers in the Darwinian mythology to liberate themselves from the religious paradigm facilitating the continuation of a pseudo-scientific dark age because religion and philosophy have no place in real science"

So, if you actually read the article that you presented, macro-evolution or Darwinism is a religion and mythology, which is the reason why the Holocaust occurred, and racism existed in quite a bit of the world (slavery is also blamed on it). Also, the whole thing is simply wrong as it doesn't pass the scientific method. Do you really want to keep this?

 

[outhouse]

You need to be more selective in your sources. I doubt you actually agree with the conclusion of this "article." Here, I will post part of the analysis.

"Darwinism or macro-evolution fails the test of the scientific method because this process has never been observed during life’s 3.5 billion year history on planet Earth. "

"The belief in life originating from death, fishes evolving into amphibians, amphibians changing into reptiles, reptiles developing into mammals and birds, and apes transforming into humans originated from the religious and philosophical corruptions of Darwinism."

"Darwinism contributed to the creation of concentration camps in Germany during the Second World War and the persecution of non-whites in Europe, South Africa, and North America for many years before the 21st century."

"The time has come for many believers in the Darwinian mythology to liberate themselves from the religious paradigm facilitating the continuation of a pseudo-scientific dark age because religion and philosophy have no place in real science"

So, if you actually read the article that you presented, macro-evolution or Darwinism is a religion and mythology, which is the reason why the Holocaust occurred, and racism existed in quite a bit of the world (slavery is also blamed on it). Also, the whole thing is simply wrong as it doesn't pass the scientific method. Do you really want to keep this?

I read that part, after I posted the article.

the article is fine while using the sources he provided, some of which I read before.

huffington post
Killams paper
ect ect

Do you really want to keep this?

only for cherry picking

 

[painted wolf]

agreed.

I did find this searching for more info on the hyoid

The Earliest Hominids

Homo erectus lived between 1.8 million and 300,000 years ago. It was a successful species for a million and a half years. Early examples had a 900cc brain size on the average. The brain grew steadily during its reign. Toward the end its brain was almost the same size as modern man, at about 1200cc. The species definitely had speech. Erectus developed tools, weapons and fire and learned to cook his food. He traveled out of Africa into China and Southeast Asia and developed clothing for northern climates. He turned to hunting for his food. Only his head and face differed from modern man. Like habilis, the face had massive jaws with huge molars, no chin, thick brow ridges, and a long low skull. Though proportioned the same, he was sturdier in build and much stronger than the modern human.


then it begs, is speech considered a language?

No... it begs, where are his sources?

There are no scientific sources cited in that whole thing. The phrase "definitely had speech" is a bald faced lie. There is no way to determine anything about the speech capabilities of these people "definitely" and the author gives zero evidence to support their assertion.

As for your second article.... are you really offering a creationist piece as evidence for your stance? Did you bother to read this?

If you want to present a scientific study on the hyoid bone of H.erectus that refutes the one I provided then fine... but your current counter sources do you a great disservice.

wa:do

 

[painted wolf]

Killiam's paper in no way says that H. erectus definately had human like speech capabilities. It is a summery paper that says that one of the referenced authors believes it's possible, but that other referenced authors disagree.

At best it says that if they were capable of speech it would lack vowel sounds and be extremely "limited in duration, speed and flexibility".

wa:do

 

[fallingblood]

I read that part, after I posted the article.

the article is fine while using the sources he provided, some of which I read before.

huffington post
Killams paper
ect ect



only for cherry picking

So you are willing to take a clearly biased article, who cherry picked information to support their position (which is much different then yours), and then keep that information simply because you think it agrees with what you're saying? That is hardly research, and really calls your credibility into question.

Also, Huffington Post is hardly a scientific journal or anything like that. More so, you need to follow the links. The one in regards to Huffington Post is actually from History.com. If you read the article, it has nothing to do with speech, and the advanced tools that are being talked about are hand axes.

Going on to the Killams paper, it simply doesn't agree with what your article is saying.

And the entire paper is meant to disagree with Darwinism or macro-evolution (their terms). You need to pick better sources.