Of Bafflegab and Science...

Posted by Sparrow on Dec 29, 2001 at 20:58
9.h.arbros.nb.net (209.161.69.100)

Re: Internet fostering linguistics (bobbapink)

...but we used to call it "Gobbledygook".

I thought of starting a new post, but I wanted to be able to reference some of the thoughts immediately below regarding timeline comments, and so I post here at the top.

So another spurious book hits the trail. And it will justify many a grant to chase down the fabled Primrose Path of Scientific Inquiry.

I wrote a chapter in a monograph two years ago about the integration of vision with the other senses. In it, I pointed out what the neurobiologists have found about the importance of the exponential responses of neurons to multiple sensory inputs (it's exponential, not additive). This relates to this current book in this way:

The "net-ese" may be a new language in the same way that ebonics is a valid new language -- NOT! They're both a sloppy shorthand and interesting and fun to observe, but ultimately signify nothing of lasting interest.

Of greater interest -- timelines aside -- is the fact that written language is less than 5,000 years old, and spoken language undoubtedly some good deal older (up to 250-500,000 yrs., by the evolutionary reckoning) and the great neuro-anthropoogical question is, what were the grapho-motor linguistic areas of the Brain DOING all those years, and, why were they there at all? To that I add, "Why can (virtually) all humans be taught to write?" It speaks of two major probabilities, as I see it, please add more, if you can:

1) We were designed to write; or,

2) We all "evolved" from the same (highly) limited gene pool (ergo, Adam and Eve).

Both of these rankle the scientific community.

Language is learned by use. Many, many of the kids and adults that I see for learning difficulties suffer from a relative isolation in which they get poor exercise of their skills and skulls. I fail to see the value of computers and the net in helping people who aren't already language-competent.

In my opinion, it will drag language down among all but the "elite".

Back to younz.....

8)

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