Re: Primate communication linked to social bonding

Lance wrote:



The data analysis showed strong relationships between vocal repertoire size and group size, as well as between repertoire size and the amount of time spent grooming, says McComb: “This suggests that changes in communication can facilitate changes in social behaviour.” 

Human data:

Maori has 24 phonemes, English 45, the Kung-ekoka language, has in excess of 50 click consonants and over 140 separate phonemes. Of these the Kung-ekoka (a small bran of khoi-San or Bushmen) have by far the smallest group. One might think that such linguuistic complexity would be an obstacle rather than an aide to sociality.


Big hurdles

The analysis only revealed correlations, so it was impossible to determine causal relationships – whether increases in vocal repertoire caused increases in group size and time spent grooming, or vice versa.


Some techniques do exist that claim to be able to infer causality from correlational data - path analysis etc.

It is also important to remember that there are radical differences between non-human primate vocal repertoires and human languages, says McComb. So it does not follow that languages as complex as ours will necessarily follow from increases in group sizes and social interactions. “There are other big hurdles that have to be overcome to get to human language,” she says.

But some human languages may offer clues, such as Pirahã – a language spoken by only 200 people in Amazonas, Brazil. “Their very small inventory of phonemes could presumably have been made by much earlier branches of hominids,” says Daniel Everett, a language expert at Manchester University, UK.

Pirahã does seem to be fashionable at the moment. Again no mention of Chomsky's crucial distinction between competence and performance. Also no history of the Pirahã people (and in all our modern languages we know they have changed very considerably over time). See above for comments on numbers of phonemes. Would the Maori people also be considered primitive because they have a small number of phonemes?


Lance
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