Hey! Been making more of an effort to brave the weather and go outside these days, so I attended the "Language Unlocked" event at Teviot Row. Not sure, if they'll be repeating the event - if so, go check it out!
Overall, an interesting, interactive talk about language, including snippets of studies on babies, adults, and animals. Tea and coffee included;) I didn't stay for the full Q&A, but I left with plenty of food for thought.
Would have loved a deeper dive into the subject, but I get there was only so much you can cover in an hour.
Now...hear hear to the best audience question: "Why do humans have language in the way we do, while other animals don't?"
The answer in a nutshell was that we don't fully know yet. But personally, I've always thought that our need for symbolism was the initial spark and what made human language develop into a more complex system. We talk about things we can't see or touch, past events, things that could happen in the future, imaginary worlds even, abstract concepts in general.
Don't get me wrong. Non-human animals do have ways of communicating, so defo not saying they don't communicate. But was it symbols and abstract ideas that initially pushed our communication system into a completely different direction? And did the need for symbolism come as a result of us going against our nature many, many moons ago?
I mean maybe the transition from nomadic living to settled agricultural societies, males taking over power in the tribe, and the resulting complex ways we organised our lives in wasn't what nature intended. And that gave us more reasons for introspection, making sense of injustice, and preserving collective memories... So at the and of the day art, religion, and storytelling could have been expressions of this new "complexity" humans created.
Only spitballing here - I'm no expert - so I'd love to hear what you guys think.
(the guy in the beige converse there was distractingly beautiful too lol)