"handle yourself in four or five languages \u200b\u200b
would be normal "
" It is proven experimentally that some animals have mental capacities
higher than ours "
" It is proven experimentally that some animals have mental capacities
higher than ours "
- Is language something only human?
"There is almost a paradox because of my orientation linguists maintain that language is innate. Be innate to say that is genetic and, if so, there must be components of the other species because genetics is not specifically human. So why does not the language in other species?
- There is no trace in other animals?
"If you look to the usual parameters, no. Our closest relatives, the Chimpanzees are very intelligent, but do not have a communication system as you and I are using. Now, if you mean the control of the rhythm ...
- What is that?
"If I say 'yabadadadú' and I ask that you repeat, you will not have any problem.
- 'Yabadabadú'.
"The mechanism we have used is very complex: you've heard, your brain interpreted, has sent a signal to your system drive and you have repeated. And all this in milliseconds while still listening. Why do parrots, hummingbirds and songbirds. The other birds. It is a skill that no other apes which relates to a gene, FOXP2. Seem a nonsense to say that a man is an abstract combination between a chimpanzee and a goldfinch. However, at the molecular level it is.
"But a goldfinch is a descendant of the dinosaurs.
"Yes. We are talking about separate beings in evolution for 320 million years. What happens is that the genetic circuits are there much earlier and may be lost and reused much later.
"Animals communicate. "From what extent is language?
"One key is whether the sum of the parts gives a whole more articulate. In the messages of birds, does not happen. There are territorial songs of seduction ... but none seem to have parties.
Language and hominid
- Do you mean can not be broken into parts, then join to form other messages?
"Exactly. That is something that the only communication system that has it is ours. Then, reference is displaced. You and I may be talking now of what lies ahead, but also the coffee we'll take next week. That is not occurs in animal communication systems. "Ojo!, We talk about communication, another thing is the thinking animal systems. We now know that animals are really clever.
- Do you have in mind something more than basic needs?
"Yes. It is proven that some animals have mental capacities higher than ours.
- what?
"A recent experiment has shown that chimpanzees are able to remember better than college students a sequence of nine numbers that are taught for a short space of time. That's amazing! It is true that you and I have 60,000 words in his head, but there are animals that also have complex abilities, although not used for communication functions.
- When did the language?
-bet for some time in the last 200,000 years.
- Is Exclusive 'Homo sapiens'?
"I think so. If you look at Neanderthal culture is very monolithic, hardly changed in more than 200,000 years. In much less time, any brutal change our culture. That suggests a different model. In addition, there are other things. I I am not convinced that Neanderthals had the ability to tie knots ...
- What's that got to speak?
"That knot computing requires a mental processor as complex as is needed for language. Another example is the difference between seeing a lot 'and' little 'and see' three ',' eight ',' twenty-nine '...
"So the language would be a very recent evolutionary product.
"Yes. Nobody has any idea today of whether that time was a radical or underlying language were already there before. I suspect that the basis of language back to do mln of years.-There are about 7,000 languages \u200b\u200b...
"There . We are losing them. We are facing a tragedy comparable to the loss of biodiversity and it is unclear what to do. The only bet is multilingualism.
"It seems easy.
-In Africa and the Amazon, either six or seven languages \u200b\u200bspoken: one with the father, another with the mother, one with ... Handle yourself in four or five would have to be normal. No need to be a philologist. I grew up in Galicia. Galician was my first language, Castilian I learned in school, then English, and German gibberish and Euskera.
"But a child should begin.
"That's the key. So, because I started higher, with Germany and Euskera I'm a dunce. The limit is in adolescence.
He often said that children are sponges for language.
-totals are sponges. Is not true that if a child learn two or three languages \u200b\u200bwill not speak any good. And the learning has to be something fun, you enjoy. There should be no imposition.
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