Let's just keep it simple. There's an area of philosophy called "Logical Positivism" which is probably the most boring thing mankind has come up with in the field of philosophy, but the gist of it is what is called the "verification principle" which is: "the meaning of a statement is its method of verification." (the obvious rejoinder being "Meaning = method of verification, what does that mean?" hehehe) Besides stagnating philosophy into an eternal semantics game for the last 80 years or so, it was an attempt at imposing the three laws of logic strictly upon the language structure. I'm merely saying that words do have meaning, and that that meaning is relative to what the symbol represents. We could say it's foolish that there are atheists in the world because someone worships a carrot as his God and can show anyone who wants to see God the carrot, but we'd be wrong. Why? Because "God" has a set definition. A carrot by any other name is still a carrot. Perhaps this is why Taoists are silent on the matter.

You didn't address a single word I wrote in my last post.

>>You didn't address a single word I wrote in my last post<< Geesh Muslim, an Eng major you say, too bad you didn't stick with it, the department may have been able to do something with those selective attention & verbosity problems of yours! Suggestion: stop talking in parables & cut to the chase! Obvious to this observer that you put up so much fluff, it's a hunt, even for you, to find your point! Which was, as evidenced by the use of the iterogative form: >>..."theory answers by saying words weren't used pictures were used. Fine, I won't argue with that, but how were those objects refered to orally?" And to your allusion to theory of words, AK introduced the THEORY of'logical positivism': ..."words do have meaning, and that that meaning is relative to what the symbol represents "ie "A carrot by any other name is still a carrot." Knock Knock! Anybody home in that tent?

Ump, I'm the one who was an English major (with a minor in alcohol conversion). Muslim, You're not talking about language as much as you seem to be talking about linguistics and etymology. Regardless, I don't understand exactly what it is you're getting at. Would you try again? We both agree words have an accepted meaning.

>>Ump, I'm the one who was an English major (with a minor in alcohol conversion).<< Oh! How embarrassing! These threads are so difficult to interpret from the Muslim translations. Was that you perseverating too(But if you want to argue from language...)? BTW ak & mus, I'm also onboard with,..."a rose by any other name"...still pondering the 'toolmaker' question though~~~:+}

Alright, Sorry for being so confusing, I must admit that speaking of this is much easier than writing it. Anyways, here is my question: How did the first humans (whether you believe in evolution or creation) communicate? Now it is easy to understand that they didn't write in the beginning, instead they used pictures, but that is not what I am talking about. I'm tallking about verbal communication. You see if they were the first humans, and they had nobody to teach them any languages, how did they develop their own? My theory is quite simple, if you trace human history back as far as it goes, you would notice that every generation learned their language from the last, the first is not an exception. But since the first generation had no previous generation to learn from, it must've had another source, a source that understands at least one language and with the ability to teach that language to the humans. That source must also understand humans, because the language is obviously best made to suit our anatomy, so the language was designed so WE can communicate with it, not any other race. My conclusion is simple, the only source with the ability and knowledge to teach human beings their first language/s must be a God. Because God is the only source with the ability to know humans better than anyone else, and before anyone else even heard of them. Let me put it this way, if it wasn't God, who did then? I know I made this a bit long, I kinda kept going once I started going. Well that basically covers my entire explanation for the source of language. I will now leave the floor open for questions and comments.

>>How did the first humans (whether you believe in evolution or creation) communicate?<< Probably through gesturing and grunting. >>Now it is easy to understand that they didn't write in the beginning, instead they used pictures, but that is not what I am talking about. I'm tallking about verbal communication. You see if they were the first humans, and they had nobody to teach them any languages, how did they develop their own?<< Most theories I've read on the subject attribute the development of common languages to family-tribe-culture scalar development. Grunting and gesturing has a imitative component, particularly in storytelling - raising one's arms above the head and bringing them down slowly while waggling the fingers and making clicking noises with the tongue could symbolize rain and the sound it makes when it hits the ground, and so on. Jump forward 1,000,000 years and you have ancient Romans listening to the speech of North African nomads (which sounded like non-sensical "bar-bar-bar-bar" to them) and labeling them Berbers. It was the violent, uncivilized behavior associated with Berbers at the time that gave rise to the Latin word "barbarus" (literally "of the Berbers") from which we now have the English word "barbarian." So it's easy to see how spoken communication has it's origin in imitation and symbolic representation. >>My theory is quite simple, if you trace human history back as far as it goes, you would notice that every generation learned their language from the last, the first is not an exception. But since the first generation had no previous generation to learn from, it must've had another source, a source that understands at least one language and with the ability to teach that language to the humans. That source must also understand humans, because the language is obviously best made to suit our anatomy, so the language was designed so WE can communicate with it, not any other race. My conclusion is simple, the only source with the ability and knowledge to teach human beings their first language/s must be a God. Because God is the only source with the ability to know humans better than anyone else, and before anyone else even heard of them. Let me put it this way, if it wasn't God, who did then?<< There are two glaring problems with your theory. 1.) The size of the vocabularies of individual languages and the number of concepts their words can symbolize have grown exponentially as the human race has advanced culturally. If "God" taught humans a spoken language, it either didn't teach them very much, or anything worth remembering. 2.) There are families of languages (Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic, etc.) and dialects between them that, if anything, display the commonality of cultural development. And if you look at the names of what people call themselves (particularly at the tribal level); like Sioux, Cherokee, Hebrew, Aztec, etc. they all translate from their specific languages as "the people." To say that spoken language first came from God, then there should be common etymological roots of words in all languages regardless of cultural development. That common, universal etymological foundation is not there.

"Grunting and gesturing has a imitative component, particularly in storytelling - raising one's arms above the head and bringing them down slowly while waggling the fingers and making clicking noises with the tongue could symbolize rain and the sound it makes when it hits the ground, and so on." The problem with this is that there is a barrier between gesturing, drawing, painting, imitating sounds and an actual language. To certain limit, they could name some animals based on their sounds, but what about trees? what about rocks? what the word hair? But even all that takes at least one full generation to develop. Because one has to observe all animals of the same kind to know they all sound the same. Look back to the first two human beings, the first male and the first female. When they were apart, how did one call for the other? When one was in trouble, how did he/she call for the other? "1.) The size of the vocabularies of individual languages and the number of concepts their words can symbolize have grown exponentially as the human race has advanced culturally. If "God" taught humans a spoken language, it either didn't teach them very much, or anything worth remembering." Or,He taught them everything they need to communicate and survive. Everything else evolved from there. "2.) There are families of languages (Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic, etc.) and dialects between them that, if anything, display the commonality of cultural development. And if you look at the names of what people call themselves (particularly at the tribal level); like Sioux, Cherokee, Hebrew, Aztec, etc. they all translate from their specific languages as "the people." To say that spoken language first came from God, then there should be common etymological roots of words in all languages regardless of cultural development. That common, universal etymological foundation is not there." Or God taught the first humans more than one language. Both or's are possible, and more than likely. We are all different, it would only make sense that our languages be as well. Anyways, neither of these two are the points. My point is if the very first humans we're taught at least one language, how would they survive without it? Communications is vital for survival, without it wars and chaos cannot end. That's what makes us different from animals. If the first two humans couldn't communicate, one would've probably killed the other at the first sight of a berry bush. Gestures are an aqcuired trait, they are different between every culture, which means that they are also a learned trait. The only other way life could've countinued without an outside source is no way. Someone must've told the first people that monkeys aren't humans, that lions are dangerous, that certain fruits are actually posion, and when they are cold, someone had to tell them how to start a fire, and how to use that fire for cooking. Certain things don't come by by accident, certain things aren't done through the scientific method. Otherwise, a man could've jumped off a cliff to see what happens, or put his head inside a lions mouth to see where that sheep went. All these are transfered from one genrations to the next through language. You see, a language is vital for survival, and a period without language is a period of chaos, and when you only have two humans on earth, one fight with no communication leads to mankinds exinction. Just think about, today we have languages and we still have wars, divorces, and conflicts in general, but without the language we would never come out of them, so how did the world's first couple solve their first fight, without a language?

Boy, I really need to start reading my post before posting it. Anyways, I just wanted to change the formating to make it easier to read: "Grunting and gesturing has a imitative component, particularly in storytelling - raising one's arms above the head and bringing them down slowly while waggling the fingers and making clicking noises with the tongue could symbolize rain and the sound it makes when it hits the ground, and so on." The problem with this is that there is a barrier between gesturing, drawing, painting, imitating sounds and an actual language. To certain limit, they could name some animals based on their sounds, but what about trees? what about rocks? what about the word hair? But even all that takes at least one full generation to develop. Because one has to observe all animals of the same kind to know they all sound the same. Look back to the first two human beings, the first male and the first female. When they were apart, how did one call for the other? When one was in trouble, how did he/she call for the other? "1.) The size of the vocabularies of individual languages and the number of concepts their words can symbolize have grown exponentially as the human race has advanced culturally. If "God" taught humans a spoken language, it either didn't teach them very much, or anything worth remembering." Or,He taught them everything they need to communicate and survive. Everything else evolved from there. "2.) There are families of languages (Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic, etc.) and dialects between them that, if anything, display the commonality of cultural development. And if you look at the names of what people call themselves (particularly at the tribal level); like Sioux, Cherokee, Hebrew, Aztec, etc. they all translate from their specific languages as "the people." To say that spoken language first came from God, then there should be common etymological roots of words in all languages regardless of cultural development. That common, universal etymological foundation is not there." Or God taught the first humans more than one language. Both or's are possible, and more than likely. We are all different, it would only make sense that our languages be as well. Anyways, neither of these two are the points. My point is if the very first humans weren't taught at least one language, how would they survive without it? Communications are vital for survival, without it wars and chaos cannot end. That's what makes us different from animals. If the first two humans couldn't communicate, one would've probably killed the other at the first sight of a berry bush. Gestures are an aqcuired trait, they are different between every culture, which means that they are also a learned trait. The only other way life could've countinued without an outside source is no way. Someone must've told the first people that monkeys aren't humans, that lions are dangerous, that certain fruits are actually posion, and when they are cold, someone had to tell them how to start a fire, and how to use that fire for cooking. Certain things don't come by by accident, certain things aren't done through the scientific method. Otherwise, a man could've jumped off a cliff to see what happens, or put his head inside a lions mouth to see where that sheep went. All these are transfered from one genrations to the next through language. You see, a language is vital for survival, and a period without language is a period of chaos, and when you only have two humans on earth, one fight with no communication leads to mankinds exinction. Just think about, today we have languages and we still have wars, divorces, and conflicts in general, but without the language we would never come out of them, so how did the world's first couple solve their first fight, without a language?

There was a cartoon in the newspaper the other day of a caveman drawing a picture of a stick figure man hitting another stick figure man over the head with a club, and another caveman looks at the picture and says "No, no. We have to invent religion to justify our actions before we invent war." Anyway, to your post... Let's step outside the domain of humanity and look at other animals and insects. Science has discovered that whales and dolphins communicate (whale song, for example) and also that ants communicate with chemical pheremones between each other to rapidly alert an entire hive of the presence of and location of food. Bees do this even more impressively with gestures (a dance-like wiggling and spinning) to alert the rest of the hive of the location of pollenated flowers with directions to them in 3-dimensional coordinates (because they fly rather than follow a chemical trail on the surface). I think instinct and sensory perceptions alone are sufficient grounds to emerge communication from, even without a spoken language. Even without the flaws I mentioned previously, there is nothing in your theory to rule out alien spacemen teaching men language or elves teaching men speech before sailing off to the the Undying Lands (Lord of the Rings plug). If we're going to imagine an answer for an unanswered question, why does it have to be God? Why can't it be gremlins or time-traveling extra-dimensional sentient mold spores? Or something else equally irrational? How would you prove it was God and not leprechauns that "taught" humans language? Let's call this the 3rd flaw in your argument.