| Archive for langcafe2.myfreeforum.org Come in and have your daily cup of languages! |
| Akoni |
The Vocal abilities of the Neanderthal.Let's discuss: Do you think Neanderthals had vocal abilities?I think they had. A Neanderthal hyoid bone (os hyoideum) has been discovered a while ago, this hyoid bone is exactly the same as the one we have. The hyoid bone is essential for languages, it has tonguemuscles attached to it and by moving these muscles and the hyoid bone you can "form" the airflow generated by your lungs with your tongue to make the sounds which make up your language. The question is of course; was the Neanderthal's tongue the same (size) as ours? There is a good reason to think it was almost the same size because Neanderthal physiology is almost the same as ours. They do have more powerful muscles, a smaller stature and a larger brain, but as we see today small people can also speak  . The larger brain also suggests the capacity to generate speech. Their Hypoglossal canal (canalis hypoglossi) is also the same. The Hypoglossal canal is the canal through which the nerves to the tongue muscles go. See the photo below for differences:
Neanderthal model in wax by John Gurche The major differences between a Neanderthal skull and our own skull is the brow ridge and the shorter jaw. As you see they looked very similar to us. I even think we'd look the same if we had evolved in an icy climate like that of the last Ice age. |
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| Benjamin [inactive] |
Re: The Vocal abilities of the Neanderthal.
As they say, if you saw a Neanderthal on the London Underground, you wouldn't notice.
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| Elaine |
I've actually encountered people on the subway who look like that picture above. It makes me wonder if Neanderthals did in fact die out (????)  " alt="" border="0" />
As to your original question-- sure. I think they had vocal abilities. Did they communicate via language? Quite possibly. |
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| Akoni |
Makes you wonder what that language might have sounded like 
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| Elaine |
Dutch.
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| Akoni |
That would be awesome!  They should find out what sounds the Neanderthal was able to create 
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| Loic |
I would imagine Neaderthals to be big lumbering trolls who point and grunt as a way of communicating their ideas. Their speech would have been mostly guttural and rather intimidating to hear.
But that is just my uneducated opinion, of course. |
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| Akoni |
Like I said Neantherthals looked a lot like us. I doubt you'd see the differences between a Neanderthal and a modern human if you'd encounter one on the streets. Their hyoid bone looks exactly the same as ours and that bone is tiny.
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| Loic |
I once read that the height of an average Neanderthal is around 5 feet and they would not weigh more than 9 stones on average. Well, that'd make them a cross between a dwarf and a troll, wouldn't it? | ||||||
| Akoni |
they had a short stature indeed, but were more muscular so I reckon they were about as heavy as an average modern human. They'd look like small bodybuilders
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| Daniel |
I heard that some of the last surviving Neanderthals during the Ice Age interbred with Cro-Magnons so there might be some Neanderthal blood flowing in the veins of the very tiny minority of... us.
But there's no real evidence of that... |
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| greg in noord-frankrijk |
Re: The Vocal abilities of the Neanderthal.
They certainly had. Even chimpanzees are able to produce sounds. Language abilities based on orality is a distinct matter, though.
If you're speaking about l'os hyoïde found in Israel, its size, shape and proportions are indeed very close to the average for Sapiens sapiens. However, l'os hyoïde of a typical pig is closer to that of Sapiens sapiens than is the Neandertalian specimen from Israel.  
The minimal cranial capacity required to make room for operational Broca's & Wernicke's areas is thought to be around 500 cm3 (probably a third of what Neandertal was endowed with) so volume isn't a problem, indeed. Yet no Neandertalian tissue is left for us to tell how their brains were structured. |
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| Uriel |
Neandertals were simply a cold-adapted subspecies of our own. Small stature and heavier muscle would have conserved heat better. There's no real reason why they would not have been able to talk. I doubt something as complicated as language happened simply in the last 100 thousand years. | ||||||
| Irrintzi |
Why not basque!
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| Daniel |
Apparently, the last of the Neanderthals died out in the Iberian peninsula. But I doubt they spoke a language like Euskara... 
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| Pauline |
How about the universal grammar? I've read that this is the thng in human brains what enable us to learn language - when you're a baby the langauge what you hear, but the brain can learn any of the language in the world.
I suppose that this developped and is more complex now after many years of complex language. So it wouldn't be the size of the brain only, or the physical ability to produce the sounds but also the specific ability for learn language. For example when a child is isolated from humans during some years (from very young) then this eprson can't sufficiently learn language, also not after the person has contact with people, language etc... They can memorise some words or short sentences but they can't do what language is: construct infinite things using the grammar etc..This is because the ability for learn language this way has a time limit of the first years of the life. i was told that this is the difference between animals' languages and humans' ones: humans can use a certain number of structures for telling an infinite variety of infos. Animals have a certain number of sounds with meaning but can't tell more that those things. i'm not convinced that it's true because it's evident that birds and animals communicate with other ones of their type. Also, they can undertsand somethings not spoken in their communication and for example, dogs can understand humans but humans mostly can't understand their talking, so it's clear we don't know sufficiently. I think that humans are very arrogant to conclude that humans are the only creatures who have language. For humans everything must be a certain way, and if it's another then it doesn't exist or it's incorrect. humans are capable of not much in comparaison with other creatures e.g. when a bird learn something, then other birds (of the same type) will know this things as well, also the birds who are very far away and didn't communicate with the one who's learned it. For humans, they must read or learn for know something what another human has learned if the person is very far away and doesn't tell them it. Akoni's question wasn't had the neanderthals infinite language but vocal ability then I would answer yes, for sure!!! The minimum would be some sounds for certain meanings and then sentences for more complex things. But, it was about vocal communication waht's only one method: there's other ones for communication. Also, humans think that the animals and birds etc.. havn't language because they can't hear them (different frequency for example) or understand them because it's another way to think or because of the most of human brains only can interpret the meaning of human langaueg, more specific, their native tongue and the ones the person have learned. |
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| Irrintzi |
My Basque professor, guaranteed to me that some place names as rivers, towns, regions resulted from a very ancient language present all around Europe. We saw these place-names look like Basque appelations a lot... Obviously, the Neanderthalians didn't speak Basque, but the homo-sapiens encounted their illustrious cousins, and maybe cultural exhange were made, and miscegenations... Toponyms of places: karpe (the Karpathian moutains): proto-european language: in Basque k(h)arr: the rock (it's same in Armenian (khar), Gaelic (carraig ), Albanian (karpë) archaic Polish (karpa) bun, munho (in basque): 'mound, knoll or hillock' : Bunus < Bunoz, Munich ;popular etypology with "moines"), Monaco < *Monoecu-, Monein… ibar (basque) 'river' > 'valley' : Iberia, Ebro, Ebron (Aragon, Provence), Ibar (Montenegro), Ebrach, Ibra (Germany), Ybbs (Austria)… derivated ibai (basque) 'river' > 'bay' : Baía / Bahia (Brasil), Wey, Wye (England, Wales), Bayonne < *Baihun(a), etc. Elisabeth Hamel and Theo Vennemann, in their article: " the Basque was the primitive language of the continent ", support that in Germany, the place-names ibar 'valley' are there reinterpreted to eber 'wild boar'. Others remain faithful to the explanation by the Celtic eburos 'yew'. (complete article in french: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toponymie_basque) All that to show you that linguistics in europe was uniform formerly, a long time, then say that the Neandertal spoke a similar language... We don't know it, but linguistic exchanges certainly existed and we have certainly tracks... |
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| greg in noord-frankrijk |
Le propre de l'homme — outre le rire — c'est d'être le seul animal à savoir qu'il est en est un et, parallèlement, à ne pas se juger comme tel. On a pas vu de lion se déclarer membre du règne animal ; aucun dauphin n'est venu nous voir pour nous faire part de son refus d'être rangé au sein des animaux. Autrement dit, l'Homme n'est pas *seulement* un animal pour la simple et unique raison (nécessaire et suffisante) qu'il se perçoit ainsi. There is no half-man : you either are a human being or are not ; there is no half-human animal. Il existe un saut qualitatif entre l'Homme et l'animal impossible à franchir pour ce dernier (du moins pour l'instant — qui sait ?). L'arrogance humaine est fille de notre singularité sur cette bonne vieille Terre. Nous sommes seuls — et pas uniquement en tant qu'espèce biologique. Now, regarding language, we need to define what it's all about before concluding animals do have one.
Au contraire ! Humans are the only living beings able to communicate beyond death. You don't need to see Cæsar, talk to Plato, smell Cicero's odour or touch Aristotle's hand to know what they thought. Je pense que c'est énorme en comparaison des capacités des oiseaux. |
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| Yelina |
Le propre de l'homme — outre le rire — c'est d'être le seul animal à savoir qu'il est en est un et, parallèlement, à ne pas se juger comme tel. Autrement dit, l'Homme n'est pas *seulement* un animal pour la simple et unique raison (nécessaire et suffisante) qu'il se perçoit ainsi.
En effet. L'homme est un animal et ne se juge pas comme tel pour la simple et unique raison que les hommes ont une conscience refléchie (la conscience d'avoir conscience) alors que les animaux ne l'ont pas. Par exemple, quand on met un animal devant un miroir, il ne se rend pas compte que c'est son image qui y est reflétée. En revanche, ils ont (comme nous) une conscience immédiate (c-a-d la capacité de voir ce qui arrive). Ce qui nous différencie aussi des animaux est que chez l'homme l'identité n'est pas donnée au départ comme chez les animaux ou les choses. Un homme doit laisser agir le temps pour devenir ce qu"il est, tandis qu'un animal reste ce qu'il est depuis la naissance. C'est d'ailleurs pour cela que Sartre a dit concernant les hommes "l'existence précède l'essence" |
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| Deborah |
Some animals realize they're looking at themselves. I saw a documentary that in which a young chimpanzee starts to suspect that he's looking at his image, and then tests his theory by getting into contrived positions and viewing the result, very much like human young. |
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| greg in noord-frankrijk |
Je ne suis pas sûr à 100 %, mais je crois qu'en effet les (certains ?) primates peuvent se reconnaître à travers leur image dans le miroir. But animal language (whatever that is), self-consciousness etc are a huge topic. |
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| fab |
Oui, c'est aussi ce que j'ai vu dans des documentaires. Il semble que certains grands singes - dont nous faisons partie - ont une conscience d'eux mêmes.
Celà dit, je ne pense pas que les chimpanzés se posent autant de questions existentielles que nous... |
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| Deborah |
But maybe just a few, eh? |
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