TEDx Talks
Nearly everybody can communicate, and most do so through some form of language, and yet the question of where language came from is one of the most difficult questions in science. Psychologist and author, Michael Corballis explores the many theories of language’s origins, including his own, and details how language and communication have continued to evolve, from primates’ use of gestures, to the advent of communicative technologies. Michael Corballis, emeritus professor at the Department of Psychology at The University of Auckland is one of the foremost global experts on the evolution of human language.
The son of a sheep farmer from Marton, Michael’s long and decorated academic career has seen his studies of the brain and what it is to be human earn him New Zealand’s top science prize, The Rutherford Medal.
He has worked with patients who have had two-sides of their brains disconnected to relieve epilepsy which led him to look deeper into studying the two brain hemispheres. His most recent book The Truth About Language explores the idea that language evolved from manual gestures. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx .
🚪 or 👨
minds of 👨 isn't ur handle of unit or 💺 there now feel for vclicker ok at now
toss it around… nope see FEAR THE LORD
Not as dogmatic as Everett or Chomsky.
So what if you left a load of babies on an island, able to access food and all that and survive. Would they use sound to communicate?
there's a lot of deception in the scientific world – one run by atheists, for atheists, to glorify the deception of atheism. Or 'There's more evidence for devolution than for evolution' (Derek Prince – Cambridge or 'I have doubts about evolution's power to create (John Lennox – Cambridge/Oxford) or Charles Darwin 'I seem to have established a theory that actually works to refute it's own proof' (letter to Walace).
He rejects the biblical account and backs the million years evolution span. Well, that's just a theory, a speculation, it cannot be fully demonstrated, no linguist have lived enough to prove it nor has been there witnessing anythig. I know that believing in God has to do with faith and a belief, but again, issuing speculative theories are also belief. After all, the this speaker starts by admitting that language is a kind of miracle as nobody knows where it came from or how it works. I personally believe in an all-powerful God that has created human being together with his/her language.
language is a liberty of thinker
"One of them has died you'll notice" I've never seen a dad joke in academia before
If we follow the trace of communication capability.
From gesture->tongue->book->printing->telephone->internet->…
it's quite coherent.
i know where language came from.. ask me.
Philosophical anthropology: Man developed language in evolution when he perceives the object of desire in woman. (Essay Fragment)
Like it if you watch this for your university lesson
Всем привет с Урфу
"nobody knows how it works": Read Skinner's Verbal Behavior already, it's been more than sixty years out there.
A very interesting talk otherwise, thank you.
thumbs up
1:51 Bantu is not a language! It's a huge group of languages spoken across great stretches of Africa.
"that makes no biological sense" is the ultimate comeback when arguing with someone on religion.
Assignment again
No shirt No shoes No service could mean owner lost everything including shirt and shoes so no longer can provide service.
Aquarium is Latin, Cologne and Cognac French, From Greek Hydra we get hydrometer and fire hydrant. Most words in so called English are not English.
Nobody:
The first monkey:
RAID SHADOW LEGENDS
Great intro,
One thing do jesus peace be upon him was only sent by God to the children of isreal. God has sent the prophet Muhammed pbuh to the hole world because he is the last prophet.
A perrot talks better than an ape.
Im curious if anyone has any ideas about how grammer evolved. I can see hiw this would work with words, but I don't see how this would explain grammar necessarily.
Onamatapoeic theory which has a mimetic foundation, would argue that just as early animals can vocalise by different calls, early humans identified things by the sounds they made. The Australian Aboriginal word in Nyungar for a whilly wagtail is djiti djiti which mimics the sound of that bird. It would be easy to construct a communication system and then a language from identifying the sounds which things and persons made or the sounds the subject heard and interpreted according to their hearing capacity.
Good
Hogwash!
It's like an evolution eh, thank you
The Engineers came to Earth 90000 years ago.
The last gesture is so cute🤣
Dravid and most of Tribal languages are used before Ariyans Sanaskrit languages in India.
Tamil😍
プロジェクトに重向をおくジェラルド本当に草
単位ください!全部ジェラルドに尽くします………!!
どうか私たちを見捨てないで!!!!!
Greek Latin arabic Chinese hebru ena all languages coming from tamil only tamil finds all languages tamil is first human civilization in world
I think Michael's close, but I think it's more likely that once we started using our hands to communicate, we used certain sounds from the mouth/throat as emphasis for our gestures, and language began there.
Especially in times of panic/danger, there could be an imperative to communicate threats (or opportunities) more precisely.
So, perhaps those grunts of emphasis became more sophisticated, and, simultaneously, over time, the hand gestures became less effective than vocal cues, and became less frequently used or focused on.
We see this passing back and forth from hand to mouth, and back to hand as our dominant communication tool throughout history too. After we got bored of speaking, we created a way for our hands to emphasize our vocal communication – hieroglyphs/pictograms/paintings/art/etc. Then we perfected a way of expressing our art through a vocal means – singing. Then back to the hands with writing. Eventually we come to the present, where text-based communication (typed with our hands) is our most dominant form of communication, and once again, an emphasis on our vocal communication which we feel is insufficient. People feel more heard online on social media where no one is speaking a word.
We use our gestures to emphasize our voices, and we use our voices to emphasize our gestures. Perhaps gestures and voices are two inseparable components of the system we call language – much like the system of communication consists of the two inseparable components of speaker and listener – and perhaps they have evolved in tandem. Perhaps they will continue to do so.
TIL even linguists hate Chomsky.
Professor Corballis is not only tackling the most mysterious problem in biology, he is coming up with proposals (such as gesturing) that are TESTABLE through the study of extant apes.
Basically what he's saying is languages or communication started after a loud scream while receiving oral with a bite on the family jewel's. What do you believe?
Corballis seems to be talking about "Communication," not what Chomsky calls "Language". Chomsky points out that Language (a modular faculty of the mind) can be used for communication, but it is something deeper, it's the ability to create an infinite variety of abstract structures (generative grammar) representing thoughts, from finite means (finite set of words or, basically, the alphabet).– these structures can be mapped onto the sensory/motor apparatus (speech, gestures, signing, writing etc) in a variety of ways, but that's separate from the underlying nature of Language. Chomsky thinks it happened all at once because he thinks it's based on the ability to go from a finite system to an infinite system, which in logic and mathematics can happen once you can combine any two things into a new entity (merge), which is not an incremental process: once you can go from 2 to infinity you can go from 7 to infinity — once you get an "successor function" there is no reason to think it would stop at, say, 7 — so, boom, once you get it, you get the whole enchilada, no half-ways. This simple ability is what Chomsky thinks is the root of Language ability in humans. 50,000 years ago humans could not do that, and then someone was suddenly able, which gave them enhanced planning and thinking capability etc. Chomsky also emphasizes that Language is mostly internal/self talk — it goes on in our minds continuously — that's one of the reasons he thinks it has nothing to do with communication, at least initially — it has everything to do with thinking, and ultimately with the subconscious.
Ironically nowadays our evolution has led us to mostly communicate with our hands again…
When you talk for 17mins w/o making a point
There is no way to know that the first verbal communication was just a few simple sounds, nor is there any evidence of languages having evolved to ever more complicated ones,. What we do know is that there are no primitive languages. Those that were considered primitive by early evolutionists are in fact mostly much more complex than for example English. Those that are left alone, isolated, are the ones that tend to become more complex. There is for example a number of native languages in North America that are so difficult and complex that if an English speaker has not learned one before the age of thirteen, she or he will never be able to speak and understand half of it.
Extinction of languages is currently so rapid that of the now existing 6000 only an estimated 500 will be left in 100 years. And in that process the remaining ones will be ever simpler. What is observable is language devolution and extinction, not evolution.
0:46 guy is sleeping during the talk.
"God destroyed the tower". 🤣🤣🤣 Yeah of course you would say that. You don't believe in God. You don't believe scripture. Do you even read it? Yet quote it with pure ignorance? Hate God or myself all you want I dont care…at least get your facts straight so it's more believable if you truly want to hide behind "opinions".
Your way of processing or lack of simple scripture 101 information discredited the entire video for me 👎
God taught human beings the use of the pen and the sense of clothing.
Enoch or Odris or Thiruvalluvar was the first prophet who was taught the use of pen.
We have the first of Gods book in Tamil Thirukural