Original link: https://headsalon.org/archives/9029.html
【2022-01-13】
@tertio #英语学习之道# There are three important time nodes in the origin of language and characters:
1 The production of vocal language is generally estimated to be 100,000 years ago
2 Origin of writing, Sumerian cuneiform writing about 5,000 years ago
3 The popularization of writing, the progress of different regions is very different, it can be considered that it was 100 years ago
The third point is very important. Before the popularization of writing, most people can only listen and speak, and can only use voice to communicate.
If we condense 100,000 years into one year:
1 Voice language production, January 1 at 0:00
2 Origin of Text, December 11
3 Word popularization, December 31 at 4:00 pm
During the evolution of 100,000 years, the human brain has been highly adapted to vocal language, and even developed corresponding processing areas in the brain. And reading and writing are just a bypass grafted on the listening and speaking language functions. One consequence of this is that, in the case of normal physical and intellectual indicators, it is almost impossible to see people with hearing disabilities, while dyslexia is not uncommon. Even a fool who is too mentally retarded to go to school to read and write can still learn to speak.
If you know this, and you want to bypass listening, speaking, and learn to read and write, then you are fighting against the 100,000-year evolution of nature, and it can be said that there is no chance of winning.
@whigzhou: I agree with the core meaning, but written language is not just a branch. In my opinion, the key difference of written language is that it breaks through the limitation of the working memory capacity of the brain (only 5-9 storage bits) on language composition , so more complex sentence patterns can be constructed, and once these complex sentence patterns are used too much, the form of spoken language will be changed in turn. The speech of scholars is obviously different from that of illiterates
@innesfry: …the letters in the text come from repurposing these shapes on a cultural level. The written word is only a few thousand years old, the brain has not had enough time to evolve for reading, so the writing system must evolve for the brain
@whigzhou: You are right, but the changes I said do not require genetic changes. Written language creates a new set of thinking and expression tools. In Pinker’s words, it is an additional set of stuff of thought
@whigzhou: And once you have this set of tools, the spoken language is different
@whigzhou: This effect can even affect people who do not understand written language. I once said that those illiterates who have acquired written languages also have more thinking tools than illiterates who grew up in non-written languages. For example, illiterates in civilized societies can at least Count, many also add, subtract, multiply and divide
@whigzhou: There is also a sense of history. People in a non-literate society have a very shallow sense of history. The history of the great-grandfather and above has been flattened, and it has become a general lump without depth. In a society with words, even if They are illiterate, and by listening to epics and watching dramas, they can conceive the outline of thousands of years of history in their minds, and the human stage stretching across thousands of miles, in which more complex and wonderful stories are staged. Regardless of their authenticity, their concept world is It is very different from the people in the pre-civilized small society,
@whigzhou: Of course there are exceptions. Although Polynesians have no writing, their sense of history is deeper than other non-literate societies. This is because their nobles spend a lot of time memorizing genealogy and family history. Accurate memory of genealogy is their competition. An element of status power
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