Talk:Language (general)

Article Checklist for "Language (general)"

Workgroup category or categories	Linguistics Workgroup [Editors asked to check categories]
Article status	Developing article: beyond a stub, but incomplete
Underlinked article?	No
Basic cleanup done?	Yes
Checklist last edited by	Pat Palmer 14:48, 13 April 2007 (CDT)

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preserving commented-out link to an image, removed from main page

This link: [ [Image:Caslonsample.jpg|thumb|A Specimen of typeset fonts and languages, by William Caslon, letter founder; from the 1728 [ [Cyclopaedia]].] ] has been removed from the main page, where it was commented out. It was causing an extra skipped line. I'll leave it here awhile in case someone wants to do something about it.Pat Palmer 11:25, 13 April 2007 (CDT)

And, here's another one for preservation: [ [Image:Surfacegyri.jpg|thumb|Some of the areas of the brain involved in language processing: [ [Broca's area]], [ [Wernicke's area]], [ [Supramarginal gyrus]], [ [Angular gyrus]], [ [Primary Auditory Cortex]]] ]Pat Palmer 14:01, 13 April 2007 (CDT)

I've begin editing this page, and so I've revised its status up to 3.Pat Palmer 11:49, 13 April 2007 (CDT)

note to myself: move some of the language vs dialect stuff to dialect continuum

Making a note to myself; I have to quit now but hope to return shortly and finish cleanup of this page.Pat Palmer 14:15, 13 April 2007 (CDT)

saving reference here temporarily

• Crystal, David (1997). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
• Crystal, David (2001). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
• Katzner, K. (1999). The Languages of the World. New York, Routledge.
• McArthur, T. (1996). The Concise Companion to the English Language. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
• Kandel ER, Schwartz JH, Jessell TM. Principles of Neural Science, fourth edition, 1173 pages. McGraw-Hill, New York (2000). ISBN 0-8385-7701-6

The above are not correctly linked to anything on the article but were explicitly typed in to the References area.Pat Palmer 14:37, 13 April 2007 (CDT)

working on a complete rewrite

After playing with this article for a bit, I think it deserves a complete overhaul. The original material coming from Wikipedia made, in my opinion, very simplistic assumptions about the basic definition of language that I would like to handle differently. Also, most sections are worth keeping but need, I think, a quite different structure. Sections about natural language versus animal language versus constructed language versus mathematical and programming language need to be more clearly separated, I think. It's going to be a big job (sigh).Pat Palmer 15:04, 13 April 2007 (CDT)

needed changes to Animal language

There has been a successful project that trained a parrot (I think it was an African grey) to speak a limited vocabulary and limited number of concepts, including reasonably correct English grammar and comprehension. The bird could ask for one of several types of food and could explain to its trainers where the food was stored. It could distinguish and described different colors and geometrical shapes. It was trained by people who gave it praise when it used language "correctly" and ignored it when the words it spoke were not correct. By diligent and consistent feedback, the bird was able to learn. This project changed the prevailing thinking about animals and language. The bird went much farther towards learning English, I think, than any of the comparable chimp projects, including the one where chimps learned a limited sign language (and then astounded researchers by teaching it to other chimps).

Research aside, many pet owners will informally attest that their pets understand a variety or words and, without being able to speak, can communicate certain concepts to their human friends. The current writeup does not do this justice.Pat Palmer 22:00, 13 April 2007 (CDT)

I would strongly advise against any significant emphasis on the alleged abilities of certain animals to use language. The case you are referring to about the African grey (see the BBC here) was widely misinterpreted by the media. Furthermore, a visit to the project's website reveals that their research focus is actually... parrot telepathy. Also, I would not include the opinions of animal-lovers as a substitute for actual research showing linguistic abilities in other species (or rather, lack of it). Finally, the research exemplifying the contrary view has not been subjected to proper peer review, because the most famous researchers, such as Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, have not sufficiently co-operated with others (see Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct for more on this; and there is a reasonably fair piece of journalism covering both sides here). John Stephenson 20:56, 17 April 2007 (CDT)

John, I once saw an hour-long documentary about this project. It is not to be discounted. The bird learned grammar and had a sizable lexicon and used its words completely consistently. I am not "press"; I have enough training in linguistics to know that project is important. I'm not sure where you got the idea that the gray parrot project was somehow of inferior quality; I really can't agree. I didn't see any kind of religious zeal in the documentary or the results it exhibited.Pat Palmer 19:05, 19 April 2007 (CDT)

The reasons I don't want much attention paid to this are like this. The parrot is a single case and a single animal, with all its supposed abilities filtered through its owner, expanding and adding to what the parrot can supposedly do. So we're told, and because we want to believe it, automatically accept, that the parrot has a 950-word vocabulary and can meaningfully communicate. How do we know? Well, her owner and the media say so, so it must be true. This is what has led Wikipedia to make a hash of their page on the parrot; as the logs show, notes of caution regarding these findings have been edited out by those determined to push the 'parrot-can-talk' angle.

Whether you accept this parrot as endowed with a linguistic faculty or not probably depends as well on how you define language. Is it naming or appearing to name things in the immediate vicinity after years of training, or is it a referential system capable of expressing spontaneous thoughts about the abstract as well as the concrete? There are some more blogged articles by linguistics professors Geoffrey Pullum and Mark Liberman criticising the whole 'animal language' deal with specific reference to the African grey case here and here.

Despite reports like 'Parrot's oratory stuns scientists' (by BBC environment and former religious affairs correspondent Alex Kirby), there are no linguists or peer-reviewed research quoted there (or even media organisations, though they have quoted a few welfare groups, primatologist Jane Goodall and a veterinary scientist, all of whom seem to have accepted the BBC's interpretation at face value). In other words, no proper linguistic scientists. I don't think Citizendium is in the business of pushing the views of the media and others well outside the relevant fields.

There is also an interesting sceptical review here (with another about a documentary featuring the parrot here) about the parrot's linguistic performance (and its alleged supernatural telepathic ability - a point which even the BBC removed from its original article), which cover some serious objections. The first review also asks you to listen to an audio clip without reading the transcript in advance - can you follow the conversation without being told what to listen for? Is its owner really having a conversation with the bird, or are things being read into the situation?

I think it's a bit much to devote serious time to this - after all, if the parrot's owner has shown that there is no fundamental linguistic difference between parrots and humans, and overturned centuries of rational, empirical and sceptical thought in the process, why isn't she a multi-billionaire, with monuments raised in celebration and her name in lights? John Stephenson 22:26, 19 April 2007 (CDT)