Language and society.
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“As humans, we have a very linear view of time and a constrained view of language.”
Encyclopaedia Britannica definition
“Language, a system of conventional spoken, manual (signed), or written symbols by means of which human beings, as members of a social group and participants in its culture, express themselves. The functions of language include communication, the expression of identity, play, imaginative expression, and emotional release.”
Cambridge dictionary definition
“a system of communication consisting of sounds, words, and grammar:”
Collins definition
“A language is a system of communication which consists of a set of sounds and written symbols which are used by the people of a particular country or region for talking or writing.”
Sounds like you should follow the advice you offered:
“Loose thinking leads to the loose use of words, but the loose use of words also leads to loose thinking.”
BJ, Sorry to do a ‘logic bro’ on you, but dictionary definitions are just general descriptions of how words are used. They are not prescriptive in any way and certainly can’t be used to settle conceptual or moral debates.
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Appeal-to-Definition
Thanks DJP.
BJ, I don’t give a fig for your narrowness backed up by traditional prejudice.
This need for you to separate language from communication is the narrowing by you of the definition of language to apply only to the human ape. I have provided links where the word language is used, by scientists, in reference to many species who use both vocal sounds and body language to share information, different types of information, etc. But you will never allow the use of the word in application to other species.
I put forward that the word is for speciesists such a bastion of human “uniqueness” that it must never be applied to other species lest we be “dethroned.”
The policy has to be, in debate over nonhuman intelligence, societies and abilities, that it must be proven whether nonhuman animals “match up” to the human. This assumption, rooted in human society, judges all life by comparison to the human, who is (as a Socialist Standard article once called) “Nature’s supreme achievement.”
Pyramidal hierarchicalism writ large! (That article went on to say that, having produced us, this planet has nothing further of any interest to produce).The Socialist Party of Canada wrote a short article indicating that dictionaries also make mistakes and that some definitions are wrong, they cited the concept of socialism and communism which has been defined incorrectly .
When Malcom X was in jail, he went to the jail library, and he also learned that dictionaries are mistaken, they indicated that whiteness is purity and angelical, and that blackness is dirty and diabolic, it was a definition provided by the supporters of the slave system
Oxford Languages: Socialism definition.
(in Marxist theory) a transitional social state between the overthrow of capitalism and the realization of communism.
“socialism is the first stage of the worldwide transition to communism”Also, a libertine was once a freethinker. The churches then decreed that a freethinker who rejects Christianity must by definition be immoral and a filthy lecher – which is what the word still means today.
Likewise, materialists must be greedy and selfish, indulging in worldly delights, since they deny all things spiritual – which is what materialism means today.
Point taken.
However it suggests that the common usage of the word language implies that in that usage language is usually limited to certain forms of human communication.To put it into perspective the range of what we call as noise and behavioural displays has been found to be at a maximum of 150 separate displays.
The average adult English speaking human has around 20-30,000 words.
Not only that humans can generally utilise Recursive compositionality (combining combinations of words to create new meanings)
Humans can also create neologisms relatively quickly.
I’m not saying that non human animals cannot communicate, they clearly can. Can some of them do it through the use of sound, obviously. Can they communicate through non verbal communication, again obviously.
Is this a “language” it depends upon how you define language.
Does it matter what word we use to differentiate between the very complex range that humans have developed and the other forms of language other animals have developed, not a jot
Human communication (language, vocal or not) fulfils the needs of the human.
Nonhuman communication (language, vocal or not) fulfils the needs of the nonhuman species concerned.Both communicate in forms necessary for their needs.
Both suffice to themselves and the lives they lead.Nonhumans are not steps that failed on a path to becoming human. Species difference and diversity is not a comparing game.
You can recite Hamlet’s soliloquy. A dog does not need to.
Your tail is a remnant you cannot wag. But you don’t need to.TM ‘Species difference and diversity is not a comparing game.’
One of the ways in which we understand the world is through sameness and difference so, in many respects, all language depends on a ‘comparing game’. This is how species are categorized scientifically and why such categories are continually subject to change. It’s hard to imagine literature without metaphor!Terms of abuse:
Bitch
Cow
Weasel
Dog
Pig
Reptile
Cockroach
Rat
Gorilla
Snake
Vulture
Worm
Swine
Ferret-face
Wolf
Leech
Maggot
Pond life
Ape
Insect
Neanderthal
Slimy toad
Animal
Ass
Jackass
Beast
Bestial (adj.)
Brute
Brutish (adj.)
Brutal (adj.)Phrases:
Going ape
Snake in the grass
Chauvinist pig
Dirty rat
Behaving like an animal-
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Positive terms or terms of endearment etc.
Pussy cat
Lion
Honey Bunny
Chick
Hen
Duck
Duckie
Stud
Cheeky Monkey
Stallion (maybe that’s just me)
Pet Lamb
Dogged
a terrier
Doe eyed
busy as a bee
strong as an ox
quiet as a mouse
political animal
etc. etc.Big surprise, human beings use animals as part of their lexicon of description, we also use other things like body parts in the same way
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