Communication, Speech and Language
See also: Animal communication and Animal languageA distinction can be drawn between speech and language. Language is not necessarily spoken: it might alternatively be written or signed. Speech is one among a number of different methods of encoding and transmitting linguistic information, albeit arguably the most natural one.
Some scholars view language as initially a cognitive development, its 'externalisaton' to serve communicative purposes occurring later in human evolution. According to one such school of thought, the key feature distinguishing human language is recursion. – in this context, the iterative embedding of phrases within phrases. Other scholars – notably Daniel Everett – deny that recursion is universal, citing certain languages (e.g. Pirahã) which allegedly lack this feature.
The ability to ask questions is considered by some to distinguish language from nonhuman systems of communication. Some captive primates (notably bonobos and chimpanzees), having learned to use rudimentary signing to communicate with their human trainers, proved able to respond correctly to complex questions and requests. Yet they failed to ask even the simplest questions themselves. Conversely, human children are able to ask their first questions (using only question intonation) at the babbling period of their development, long before they start using syntactic structures. Although babies from different cultures acquire native languages from their social environment, all languages of the world without exception – tonal, non-tonal, intonational and accented – use similar rising "question intonation" for yes-no questions. This fact is a strong proof of the universality of question intonation.
Read more about this topic: Origin Of Language
Famous quotes containing the words speech and/or language:
“When toddlers are unable to speak about urgent matters, they must resort to crying or screaming. This happens even with adults. The voice is the carrier of emotion, and when speech fails us, we need to cry out in whatever form we can to convey our meaning. Often, what passes for negativism is really the toddler’s desperate effort to make herself understood.”
—Alicia F. Lieberman (20th century)
“I invented the colors of the vowels!—A black, E white, I red, O blue, U green—I made rules for the form and movement of each consonant, and, and with instinctive rhythms, I flattered myself that I had created a poetic language accessible, some day, to all the senses.”
—Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891)