The Originary Hypothesis of Human Language
The central hypothesis of generative anthropology is that the origin of language was a singular event. Human language is radically different from animal communication systems. It possesses syntax, allowing for unlimited new combinations and content; it is symbolic, and it possesses a capacity for history. Thus it is hypothesized that the origin of language must have been a singular event, and the principle of parsimony requires that it originated only once.
Language makes possible new forms of social organization radically different from animal "pecking order" hierarchies dominated by an alpha male. Thus, the development of language allowed for a new stage in human evolution – the beginning of culture, including religion, art, desire, and the sacred. As language provides memory and history via a record of its own history, language itself can be defined via a hypothesis of its origin based on our knowledge of human culture. As with any scientific hypothesis, its value is in its ability to account for the known facts of human history and culture.
Read more about this topic: Generative Anthropology
Famous quotes containing the words hypothesis, human and/or language:
“It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young.”
—Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989)
“Of moral purpose I see no trace in Nature. That is an article of exclusively human manufacture—and very much to our credit.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“This poem is concerned with language on a very plain level.
Look at it talking to you.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)