Garrulous Glaahk grasshopper Posted December 31, 2011 Share Posted December 31, 2011 There must have been some point back in time, before everybody was called either John or Barrack, that nobody had their own individual identifier: a name. When did they come about, and how? Or is it possible that monkeys and dolphins and donkeys give each other names too? If there were only two people in the world, would they give each other a name, or would they just rely on calling each other me and you? At what point did someone say, hold it lads, I've got a brainwave, there's far too many me, you, hims and hers here, time for something new? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Actaeon Posted December 31, 2011 Share Posted December 31, 2011 Naming is a necessity of difference. Words chop one concept off the block of vaguer terms. In some sense "me" and "you" are perfectly acceptable names if there are only two people (an unlikely circumstance). Perhaps a linguistic specialist knows better, but names are not preserved, as such, in the prehistoric archaeological record. Symbols and objects to represent individuality, however, are present as far back as the dawn of anatomically modern humans (some would argue long before that). Do animals give each other names? Depends on your definition. My cats make different noises to greet different people (and each other). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk Dikiyoba Posted December 31, 2011 Share Posted December 31, 2011 Dolphins Name Themselves With Whistles, Study Says Some birds give themselves names too (maybe not according to the strictest definition, but the concept is the same), but Dikiyoba can't remember which ones specifically Dikiyoba read about. Chickadees, maybe? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Slawbug Posted December 31, 2011 Share Posted December 31, 2011 Names are identifiers. They are pretty direct. Pronouns (me, you, etc) are identifiers too, but in spoken language they are much more abstract since you have to unpack them to figure out who is being referred to. It seems like common sense to me, at least, that pointing might have emerged first in sign language, but names (or at least, individual descriptors) might have emerged first in spoken language. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burgeoning Battle Gamma Metatron Posted December 31, 2011 Share Posted December 31, 2011 Some animals have a sense of self. Some animals are able to use a mirror to locate and remove an object that is attached to some part of their head (and would be invisible to them without use of the mirror). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test Many animals can also learn that a particular human vocalization means that human wants attention from that animal. E.g. dogs and birds. I'm not sure if animals like rats and kangaroos can learn their name. So some animals have a capacity to be self-aware and to learn their own name. The potential is there. Songbirds are believed to use their songs as a way of communicating their identity. There's a lot of sites on the internet that say that, but few citations... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rotghroth Rhapsody waterplant Posted December 31, 2011 Share Posted December 31, 2011 Originally Posted By: Metatron I'm not sure if animals like rats and kangaroos can learn their name. Skippy was a kangaroo who was aware of her name. She also learnt the names of the people of her adopted family - although I think she only knew Matt as 'Dad' or Mr Hammond. I'm not 100% on that last factoid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall A less presumptuous name. Posted December 31, 2011 Share Posted December 31, 2011 From personal experience, my cats all recognize their name when directed at them. They're not just responding to voice or tone, either. They look up right after you say their name. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Harehunter Posted December 31, 2011 Share Posted December 31, 2011 My dog has a good grasp on language as well. Not all her words are vocalized; much of it is body language. "Pretty please" is said by assuming the sitting up position. When asked what she wants, she will point at it with her nose meaning "That". All dogs use the 'play bow' position to indicate they want to play. Certain barks are used to say certain things: "Throw the ball!", "get the mail", "someone's at the door, I don't know them.", "someone's at the door, and I do know them." (barking becomes squeaking). What is particularly amusing are her attempts to vocalize human words. Imagine my surprise the first time she said "I'm hungry". I know this may sound weird, but I believe that animals communicate on a third level, something like ESP. All too often I get the sensation that my dog wants my attention. No barking, no sound at all, just this prickling at the base of my brain that says "the dog has something to say". Sure enough, it's something like "I need to go outside to potty", or "My water dish is empty". Our cat had the same psychic ability. As for names of things and people, dogs and other social animals (yes, cats are social animals, just on their own terms) all show an ability to associate human words to objects and other beings. "Purple" means the purple ball, not just any ball. Other colors don't mean as much to her, so she doesn't associate the words as well. The vocabulary recognition of any animal is directly dependent on how much interaction they get. We always talk to our dogs (and our cat when we had him ) in whole sentences. From this, it seems, they learn the context of these sounds we make, and make the associations. One other surprising thing about animals is that once they grasp the ideas of language, they use it freely. Our dog tells us everything that goes on. "Mommie's getting up", "Daddie's getting off the computer", "Daddy, Mommie's calling you", "Mommy, I got Daddy to bring in the mail"... I never knew before that a dog could have so much to say. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrulous Glaahk grasshopper Posted January 1, 2012 Author Share Posted January 1, 2012 Ok so it seems that even social animals name each other, with dolphins calling each other stinky fin, and ugly human nose and birds tweeting, oi red wing get over here, your little beak is squatting on my eggs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Actaeon Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 I'm going to return to the assertion that it's a semantics issue. "Name" is not so cut and dry is it might appear. Slarty has asserted, and I suppose I agree, that "you" or "me" doesn't count. Does any absolutely unique signifier count? If so, based on what's been said about animals, we can probably assume that much predates man. Complex vocalizations used in a verbal context? Probably less than a million years. The equipment for speech as we know it didn't emerge fully until Cro Magnon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast The Mystic Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba Dolphins Name Themselves With Whistles, Study Says That's not surprising to me; they're very intelligent, social animals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fledgling Fyora Fleabag Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 The first man was created by God, who named him Adam Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Actaeon Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 Actually, that raises an interesting question. If I understand correctly, Genesis subscribes Adam's name as coming directly from God Himself, not Adam (or Eve, obviously, as she apparently came later). Does this hold true with Ask and Embla? Deucalion and Pyrrha? Svayambhuva Manu? (Yeah, I definitely had to look that last one up for spelling). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Dantius Posted January 8, 2012 Share Posted January 8, 2012 Ah, the ironclad certitude of religion. It's so wonderfully neat. All the philosophy and intellectual backing was produced so long ago, it's not even a concern. Must be nice to have such deterministic responses to every question that could be asked ready to go at the drop of a hat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Actaeon Posted January 8, 2012 Share Posted January 8, 2012 Somehow, I found his lack of a period softened the blow significantly. I asked my question, not because the answers are necessarily a truth in their own right, but because tradition often contains slivers of history, as well as insight into the human condition. Nearly every creation has a story for creation, many have a cleansing period shortly thereafter (often a flood)... I can't help but suspect that there are messages there if you connect the dots. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curious Artila daShadowalker Posted January 8, 2012 Share Posted January 8, 2012 Well admit that most of us don't know much and there is a lot to learn. \m/ Atheism \m/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Actaeon Posted January 8, 2012 Share Posted January 8, 2012 I think science and religion are in agreement on that point. I'm a little afraid of this turning into an ideological debate, but I'm sure the mods have everything well in hand. (I'm a pantheist, by the way.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rotghroth Rhapsody waterplant Posted January 8, 2012 Share Posted January 8, 2012 Pantheism rates higher than nihilism on my list. I'm with you Actaeon! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Slawbug Posted January 8, 2012 Share Posted January 8, 2012 Originally Posted By: Dantius Ah, the ironclad certitude of religion. It's so wonderfully neat. All the philosophy and intellectual backing was produced so long ago, it's not even a concern. Must be nice to have such deterministic responses to every question that could be asked ready to go at the drop of a hat. DANTIUS: Sarcastically snapping at somebody else's beliefs is not OK here. Everyone else: Um, no. No religious and ideological debates -- at least not the kind where everyone just cheerleads their own beliefs. Thoughtful discussions are another story, but that isn't what's going on here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts