Did Everyone Catch What I Said?

How did Henry Drummond Explain Human Language? · Did Henry Drummond Have Any Other Hunch on Language? · Did Everyone Catch What I Said?

Here are my expressions of this truth, from both previous essays:

We must conclude that Tolkien had reached the idea of "expressing meaning by sound" from being taught English as a child, and probably already had realised the existence of non-English languages as well, from actually being taught or at least told at this stage of French (back in Bloemfontein, he may have heard Afrikaans and Sesotho).

[T]he main problem is actually, he assumes once a "Homo alalus" is anatomically equal to a Homo sapiens surely an adult "Homo alalus" would at the very least show the talent in language making of a five year old or ten year old Homo sapiens, thereby becoming a Homo sapiens.

But he had two other leads, or three, one of which is resurfacing and the other ones of which aren't so much. They are just very subsidiary to this egregious error. The problem being that the five or ten year old actual human person actually started talking by being taught that. And an adult so far "alalus" (non talking) would, by definition, not have had any such teaching.

In a more general way: the idea of expressing meaning by sound is experienced in language learning before being in any way, shape or form formulated or thought about in general. A five year old boy confronted with the fact that adults say "duck" or "water" when he says "quack" but they still quite understand him, when he says "quack", isn't concerned with the abstract proposition "can I express meaning in sound?" but with a much more humdrum proposition "how do I express this meaning in sound?"

And before a child can somewhat actively work on his vocabulary (depending extensively on the feedback from adults who have already mastered the language), he has to have some vocabulary and syntax (even if it's just two word syntax "Tommy cold" = "I (Tommy) am cold") to pragmatically understand the concept.

The critical period hypothesis states that the first few years of life is the crucial time in which an individual can acquire a first language if presented with adequate stimuli, and that first-language acquisition relies on neuroplasticity of the brain. If language input does not occur until after this time, the individual will never achieve a full command of language.

Footnoted to Lenneberg 1967, meaning: Lenneberg, E.H. (1967). Biological Foundations of Language. New York: Wiley. ISBN 978-0-89874-700-3.

I would say, this is not just a hypothesis, this is a solid fact. I have no doubt that Eric Heinz Lenneberg formulated it as a solid fact. The article on him states:

In his publication Biological Foundations of Language he advanced the hypothesis of a critical period for language development; a topic which remains controversial and the subject of debate.

The problem is, there is no source given for the opposite view or the existence of the debate. There is no presentation of what that debate looks like. I would say, calling the critical period a "hypothesis" is wishful thinking on the part of those who want to defend an evolutionary origin of language. A pdf in his memory cited as a source by the wikipedians include this passage which is not in favour of the evolutionary origin:

He went on to explore the evidence that language capacity is a specialized form of a more general cognitive capacity rather than a development of either animal vocalization or nonvocal communication.

Thank you very much. He didn't believe in animal vocalisations or non-vocal communication being the origin of human language. And this despite the fact that as far as we know, he was not a Theist. Now, the question is, could the general cognitive capacity of man, given it got biological existence, have worked on the presumed "ancestral" heritage of animal vocalisations and turned it into this specialised form? I would say no.

The problem is not just that a "man with ape language" would have not acquired Language (the human capacity) during the critical period. It's that the "inherited" vocalisations and non-vocal communication would have blocked, positively blocked, the appearance of human language.

And like Greek has Logos for both "word" and "thought" it is — hat tip to Stephan Borgehammar — very unlikely or even impossible for a human being to acquire thought without acquiring language. In other words, the phrase:

[o]nce the idea had dawned of expressing meaning by sounds,

refers to an occurrence that's impossible. The pretended "homo alalus" had never learned to express meaning by sounds, in the specifically human way, and therefore, had no means of having ideas dawn on him. Including this one.

Now, the exception some will cite is, Managua, 1980.

The conditions necessary for a language to arise occurred in 1977 when a center for special education established a scheme that was initially attended by 50 deaf children. The number of pupils at the school (in the Managua neighborhood of San Judas) then grew to 100 by 1979, the beginning of the Sandinista Revolution.

In 1980 a vocational school for deaf adolescents was opened in the Villa Libertad area of Managua. By 1983 more than 400 deaf pupils were enrolled in the two schools. Initially, the language scheme emphasized spoken Spanish and lipreading, and the use of signs by teachers was limited to fingerspelling (using simple signs to sign the alphabet).

The scheme achieved little success, with most pupils failing to grasp the concept of Spanish words. The children subsequently remained linguistically disconnected from their teachers, but the schoolyard, the street, and the school bus provided fertile ground for them to communicate with one another. By combining gestures and elements of their home-sign systems, a pidgin-like form and a creole-like language rapidly emerged — they were creating their language.

The problem is, citing this as an exception is only possible if the Nicaraguan Sign Language they created was the very first language they had. Well ... yes and no. It was the first standardised language they had, and they standardised it as adolescents, but each had come from a home where brave parents had done efforts to communicate with them, with signs, seeing they couldn't hear.

Imagine that homeschoolers of parents who taught their children only conlangs, one set of parents speaking Quenya with their children, one Dothraki, one Klingon, one Lìʼfya leNaʼvi, one Mangani language (you'd be better off trying to teach it to a child than to an actual great ape, despite the hypothesis in the Tarzan book series), one Kiliki. Each of the couples having two children, no language had an advantage of numerical superiority later on. The children were taken away from the parents and handed over to a school where the teachers were deaf and only understood sign language. These children would develop a pidgin or even a creole to communicate verbally with each other. It would be the first language they had in common, but it would still not be the first language each child had. Neither was the Nicaraguan Sign Language.

Now, I left out part of the quotation. Just to show my parallel is not pure speculation, here is what happened before 1977:

Before the 1970s, a deaf community largely socializing with and amongst each other was not present in Nicaragua.[2] Deaf people were generally isolated from one another and mostly used simple home sign systems and gesture (mímicas) to communicate with their families and friends, though there were several cases of idioglossia among deaf siblings.[3]

Polich, Laura (2005). The Emergence of the Deaf Community in Nicaragua: "With Sign Language You Can Learn So Much". Gallaudet University Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctv2rcnfjw.
Meir, Irit; Sandler, Wendy; Padden, Carol; Aronoff, Mark (2010). "Emerging Sign Languages" (PDF). In Marschark, Marc; Spencer, Patricia Elizabeth (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Deaf Studies, Language, and Education. Vol. 2. New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195390032.013.0018. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2023-12-19. Retrieved 2024-05-05.

Here is a fuller quote from the latter:

Homesign is a basic communication system created within a family with one or few deaf members. The obvious difference between such a system, which may be conventionalized for the solitary child who creates it, and sign language is the number of people for whom manual-visual language is primary. In homesign, it is one, while in either a village or a deaf community sign language it is many, and this difference leads to structural differences in the two kinds of language. However, the distinction is not categorical but gradient. Homesign systems can emerge in a family with more than one deaf child. In such cases, the community numbers several individuals.

Aha ... yes, in 1980, the adolescents who came together were already tolerably fluent in a sign language, except that sign language was one created ad hoc within a family. It's pretty much the equivalent of a new auxlang between children raised in Quenya, Klingon and the other conlangs in my fictional hypothesis.

This is not a valid refutation of the Critical Period fact.

But there is one more. Human anatomy, from Homo erectus (if we politely "concede" the chronology as a convention) to us, is very well adapted for communication in human language. It has all the traits needed. An ear that is not too thick to pick up consonants. Chimpanzees, Australopitheci, Paranthropi, all have ears that, through thickness, can only hear very low frequencies, and therefore basically growls. A hyoid that doesn't carry any air bags providing distortion. The hyoids of chimps and one found of an Australopithecus did hold air bags and do provide distortion. Impossible to hear "what vowel" is pronounced. A brain that has (presumably) Wernicke's and (certainly) Broca's area. The FOXP2 gene in its human expression (the Neanderthal version is some loci different, but clearly human rather than chimp). None of these things are necessary for the vocalisations of beasts. All of them are necessary for human speech. And no skeletal remains that's sufficiently complete leaves us in any doubt on which side these things fall on, and they all fall on one side or the other, unless the skeleton is too incomplete to check. These things would not be useful without language, and language would not be possible without them. They are too many to be due to just one or two mutations.

I would say, I have not tried to make a case for irreducible complexity. I have succeeded.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St. Severine of Noricum
8.I.2026

Apud Noricos sancti Severini Abbatis, qui apud eam gentem Evangelium propagavit, et Noricorum dictus est Apostolus. Ejus corpus ad Lucullanum prope Neapolim, in Campania, divinitus delatum, inde postea ad monasterium sancti Severini translatum est.

Extract from a Sermon in Latin, from Swedish Middle Ages

My friend Stephan Borgehammar sent this, along with some more material contributions.

In the University Library of Uppsala, a manuscript called C 381, on fol. 75 r contained Sermo de sancta cruce.

My point is, it very totally links Redemption and Fall as parallels and opposites. If one is historic, so is the other.

Christus per suam passionem satisfecit pro culpa prime transgressionis:

• Ibi enim fructus vetitus de ligno est ablatus,
  hic fructus benedictus Virginis ligno est affixus;
  
  
• Ille ablatus per inobedienciam,
  iste affixus per obedienciam;
  
  
• Ille fuit occasionaliter fructus maledictionis et culpe,
  iste fructus benediccionis et gracie;
  
  
• Illa traxit homines de paradyso et alienavit a Deo,
  iste traxit homines ad celum et restituit Christo.

Hoc est:
Ego, si exaltatus fuero a terra, omnia traham ad me ipsum (Joh. 12:32).

I'll extemporate a translation:

Christ by his passion satisfied for the guilt of the first transgression:

• There the forbidden fruit was taken off the wood,
  here the blessed fruit of the Virgin is fastened onto the wood;
  
  
• That one taken off by disobedience,
  this one fastened on by obedience;
  
  
• That one was by the occasion it gave* the fruit of curse and guilt,
  this one is the fruit of blessing and grace;
  
  
• That one drew men from paradise and made them strangers to God,
  this one drew men to heaven and restored them to Christ.

This is:
And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself. (Joh. 12:32).

* Stephan Borgehammar prefers "due to the circumstances" but we agree that the preacher considered the fruit good in itself, not bad in itself. Giving an occasion for evil and being evil are two different things. Had the fruit been taken with permission, which could have happened later, it would have been good.

What If Adam Became a Man - When he Became a Man?

Theological Consequences · Jimmy Akin on Patristic and Scientific Expertise. · Child Adam? · Archaic Actual Humans or Apes in Human Shapes? · What If Adam Became a Man - When he Became a Man? · Tolkien's Elves Are Not the Key to Cain's Wife or Adam's Growth

It appears my benefactor did not want to add anything, he thought the ones holding Adam was born to non-human beings automatically held that Adam was himself born non-human. But in Archaic Actual Humans or Apes in Human Shapes? I was mainly considering what if he had been born the image of God to progenitors themselves not such. I only mentioned the idea of himself becoming human as adult in one paragraph./updated 2 days later, HGL

My benefactor Stephan Borgehammar wanted to add [inspired me to add] to the scenario in Child Adam and in previous. Namely by considering another supposition.*

Supposing Adam had a young-hood which was not a human childhood, but God made him, over again, this time in His image, when he became an adult.

First problem: when would that be? Reaching puberty or more like reaching twenty, thirty?

According to the Biblical narrative, taken at face value, Adam had a few hours to name beasts and then go to sleep, before he woke up with Eve at his side.

In this view, there are two possibilities. We'll go by what the ages mean in terms of modern, post-Flood, human anatomy.

Adam becomes a man at twenty sth - meaning he had miserable teens as finding no mate. Or he did find one or more than one, so he had lots of not really human young ones, before he started his God given marriage.

Adam became a man at 14 sth - meaning he is confronted with temptation while his urges are naturally very strong.

Sure, on the traditional view, however strong his urges for whatever thing, God had given him all the means sufficient (and some more) to resist temptation. But would this not be, on the other view here envisaged, a kind of curbing of Adam's previous nature? We need some curbing of ours now, because Adam fell, but would an as yet sinless man have been perfectly happy with such curbing?

Or, he spent years with Eve before falling, meaning he had children in paradise who didn't inherit his fall, or that he and Eve refrained from following out God's blessing, Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and why would they actually be slow to do so, when perfectly obedient to God?

Apart from obviously, if Adam recalled all he had lived as a beast (speaking on this supposition) he would have had occasion for shame, even without nakedness and the fruit. So, no, this scenario too is against the goodness of God towards a man who had not sinned. As is also perfect oblivion, since irretrievable (non-momentary) oblivion is a privation.

And again, if this were the case not just with Adam but with more than one person intermarried to his children, and they became human only after being joined to someone already human (sounds some Evolution believing theologians believe in The Little Mermaid where an actual soul is only needed to go to heaven and all social fuctions of a man can be provided for without it), this would entail a kind of rape, since the as yet beastial only anatomically human individual could not give a valid freewilled consent to marriage before being human. And if God had made some of them human beforehand, this would have been unconditionally, and so we would have had, what the Catholic faith forbids us, several strains of mankind starting out with cursed but personally not yet fallen secondary Adams.

So, no, this doesn't work very well either.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Paul of Narbonne
22.III.2022

Narbone, in Gallia, natalis sancti Pauli Episcopi, Apostolorum discipuli, quem tradunt fuisse Sergium Paulum Proconsulem. Hic, a beato Apostolo Paulo baptizatus, et ab eo, cum in Hispaniam pergeret, apud Narbonem relictus, ibidem Episcopali dignitate donatus est; ibique, praedicationis officio non segniter expleto, clarus miraculis migravit in caelum.

* To not misquote him, his actual words were, he had not considered the implication of it, while the main implications I were dealing with in previous were the scenario Adam being born human by non-humans, born with a rational soul by anatomic "humans" not having such. I mentioned Adam humanised as adult only in passing, so I took this as a prompt to deal more fully with it. If some uncautious reader got the impression he believed this scenario, read my words again, it is not what I said.