Physiological and Neural Architecture of Language and Speech
Speaking is the default modality for language in all cultures. The production of spoken language depends on sophisticated capacities for controlling the lips, tongue and other components of the vocal apparatus, the ability to acoustically decode speech sounds, and the neurological apparatus required for acquiring and producing language. The study of the genetic bases for human language is still on a fairly basic level, and the only gene that has been positively implied in language production is FOXP2, which may cause a kind of congenital language disorder if affected by mutations.
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—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“But as some silly young men returning from France affect a broken English, to be thought perfect in the French language; so his Lordship, I think, to seem a perfect understander of the unintelligible language of the Schoolmen, pretends an ignorance of his mother-tongue. He talks here of command and counsel as if he were no Englishman, nor knew any difference between their significations.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)
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—Paul Goodman (1911–1972)