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If language began in the hands, why did it ever leave?

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Re: If language began in the hands, why did it ever leave?

#21

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

adinisom wrote: post #13
ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #5

There are a ton of problems with hand gestures. One, they're hard to see and blocked by line of sight (voice isn't.) Two, they require hands to be free to communicate (not always the case, and in situations of survival it's probably not doable at all.) Three, they're limited versus voice. Voice has soft and loud and more sounds can be made than variations of hands. More meaning can be ascribed to a sound.

The first is an issue: can only be looking at one thing at a time. The second doesn't seem to come up much in practice. Can eat and sign at the same time unlike voice. Third isn't true -- signing is more expressive because it takes advantage of space, facial expressions, and signs can be modulated to adjust the meaning. But it almost has to be since the symbol rate is lower than speech.

> The second doesn't seem to come up much in practice. Can eat and sign at the same time unlike voice.

If you're being attacked or in a fight, do you really think you'll have a hand free to do sign language?

Re: If language began in the hands, why did it ever leave?

#23

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

kerkeslager wrote: post #12
ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #5

There are a ton of problems with hand gestures. One, they're hard to see and blocked by line of sight (voice isn't.) Two, they require hands to be free to communicate (not always the case, and in situations of survival it's probably not doable at all.) Three, they're limited versus voice. Voice has soft and loud and more sounds can be made than variations of hands. More meaning can be ascribed to a sound.

> Three, they're limited versus voice. Voice has soft and loud and more sounds can be made than variations of hands. I agree with your first two points, but I have to disagree with you on this third point. Mute your computer and check out the way she provides emphasis in this[1], or the way Lydia Callis signs so expressively[2]. Large motions are like loud exclamations, smooth, slow motions are like a crooning voice,…

Of course - I never said there was no expression in sign language. But I don't think that expression has as many degrees of freedom as using voice. Plus as the article said - it's tiresome.

Re: If language began in the hands, why did it ever leave?

#24

Post by i_love_lamp »

I do not believe language began in the hands for a simpler reason than I'm seeing in the rest of the comments here. Here's my armchair philosophy:

How do you begin a conversation? You first have to get the other person's attention. You can't get someone's attention with sign language if they are not looking at you.

Necessity breeds invention, and the ultimate necessity is survival. If a chimp sees a pack of hyenas coming, she doesn't walk in front of each chimp in her clan and point to the hyenas. Instead she makes some kind of guttural yell to make the clan aware of the danger. The clan then looks at her, and then utilizes body language of her eye tracking or pointing. The most dangerous situations in nature are when one is not aware of a threat because one cannot see it, and vocalization can solve that in ways sign language cannot. This behavior (vocalization used before signing) is exhibited in most social mammals.

Assuming we evolved from primates, I'm betting it's likely vocalizations were already an established form of communication before humans as we know them began coming up with more advanced signs, but by that point we likely had more advanced vocalizations as well. Since vocalizations have a better SYN/ACK methodology, it was the easier and more effective form of communication throughout our entire history.

Re: If language began in the hands, why did it ever leave?

#25

Post by kerkeslager »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #23
kerkeslager wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Three, they're limited versus voice. Voice has soft and loud and more sounds can be made than variations of hands. I agree with your first two points, but I have to disagree with you on this third point. Mute your computer and check out the way she provides emphasis in this[1], or the way Lydia Callis signs so expressively[2]. Large motions are like loud exclamations, smooth, slow motions are like a crooning voice,…

Of course - I never said there was no expression in sign language. But I don't think that expression has as many degrees of freedom as using voice. Plus as the article said - it's tiresome.

shrug I suppose it's a bit silly to argue over a spectrum of expression, but I'd say that the Lose Yourself video shows someone communicating in sign with a level of expressiveness that verbal speakers rarely achieve. Now granted, that's comparing an above-average signer to average speakers, so it's not a fair comparison. Perhaps a better comparison would be between the signer and the original artist (Eminem). But if advanced signers can compete with advanced speakers for expressiveness, I think it's hard to argue that sign is less expressive.

Re: If language began in the hands, why did it ever leave?

#26

Post by adrianmonk »

The article mentions some possible advantages of speech over gestures:

(1) Abstractness (which it debunks, I think successfully).

(2) Better in the dark.

(3) Frees the hands.

(4) Energy usage.

There are some others I can think of, too:

(5) Not only does it free the hands of the speaker, it frees the eyes of the listener. I can only look in one direction at a time. If you're trying to communicate to me about a task I'm doing which involves looking at something, with gestures I need to shift my gaze to you and then back to what I'm doing. This makes real-time coordination of physical tasks difficult.

(6) Distance. If two people are far apart (say, 100 meters), they can shout and be understood. With gestures, that could be possible but only if they involve large movements. Verbal communication can be scaled to large distances with a more straightforward modification.

(7) Vision problems are more prevalent and strike at a younger age than hearing problems. What percentage of otherwise-healthy 35 year old people have myopia vs. have hearing loss?

Re: If language began in the hands, why did it ever leave?

#27

Post by jxramos »

jxramos wrote: post #19

Does anyone know any metrics regarding sheer throughput of words? How efficient is ASL in terms of words per minute vs relaxed speech. I'm thinking of something like comparing typing words per minute vs speech recognition words per minute. Here's some context I quickly found in Wikipedia Audiobooks are recommended to be 150–160 words per minute, which is the range that people comfortably hear and vocalize words.[14]…

Looks like its in the realm of

    Yes, you need to be able to "sign" 110-130 wpm.
https://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/topics/how-fast-should-i-si...

Re: If language began in the hands, why did it ever leave?

#28

Post by tgv »

SilasX wrote: post #16
kerkeslager wrote: post #9

One of the things that became really apparent to me during a brief period of dating a hearing-impaired person, was the utility of sign language as a supplement to spoken language. Sign language works better than speech in noisy environments. But this drew my attention to situations where sign language doesn't work: in the dark, around obstacles, when hands are occupied. Guess which situation our ancestors were more f…

Naive question: I thought seeing in the dark was easier pre-electricity because there was no “light pollution” and everything was lit up uniformly, so you could see well enough outdoors once your eyes adjusted, based on moon- and starlight? That is, above some threshold, the main barrier is contrast, not dimness?

Then you should be able to see even better now, since there is more light.

The places I've visited where light pollution is low, are really, really dark at night.

Re: If language began in the hands, why did it ever leave?

#29

Post by tgv »

James_Henry wrote: post #10
kerkeslager wrote: post #9

One of the things that became really apparent to me during a brief period of dating a hearing-impaired person, was the utility of sign language as a supplement to spoken language. Sign language works better than speech in noisy environments. But this drew my attention to situations where sign language doesn't work: in the dark, around obstacles, when hands are occupied. Guess which situation our ancestors were more f…

The article talks to this. "A second supposed advantage is that speech is better in the dark – that, as Levelt put it, gesture is ‘functionally dead during, on average, 12 hours a day’. This is probably overstated. As Emmorey points out, modern signers get by without much problem, even in dim lighting, and can use tactile forms of signing – that is, signing in contact with another’s skin – in a pinch. Our prehistoric…

Speech must have evolved before cooking.

Re: If language began in the hands, why did it ever leave?

#30

Post by tgv »

adrianmonk wrote: post #26

The article mentions some possible advantages of speech over gestures: (1) Abstractness (which it debunks, I think successfully). (2) Better in the dark. (3) Frees the hands. (4) Energy usage. There are some others I can think of, too: (5) Not only does it free the hands of the speaker, it frees the eyes of the listener. I can only look in one direction at a time. If you're trying to communicate to me about a task I'…

(8) Animals communicate mainly via sound. Most don't even have hands.
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