Good point, what also needs to be detailed here is if we are talking about the VERY first sets of words in use (a single lifetime) or are talking about the development of language, which would take many lifetimes . . .

Again extremely simplistic to say, women gather, men hunt. Gathering can be a noisy affair, hunting is a quite affair and that is why men have trouble 150+ thousand years later expressing emotions . . lol absurd.

Krimsa what you fail to realize is that we are not challenging the idea that women had a good deal to do with the formation of words and there use, its YOUR conclusion that this has been handed down and now we as men fail to verbalize due to this simplistic notion.

It has not only been refuted, but blown out of the water.

I have personally explained how it is simplistic, I have personally explained how it is not really capturing the nuances of language development, and I have explained how it does not follow that your conclusion from tasks which would indeed allow the creation of new words in differing quantities related to the task would not get handed down via any kind of genetic predisposition that is linked to gender.

IE that women are from venus and men are from mars has anything to do with the early development of language.

Are you talking to me? I thought you said that you would refuse to address me. If this theory is absurd, then REFUTE it.

I have.

It is not a simplistic notion. It is a theory detailing the evidence that would depict females as being the originators of human speech due primarily to the division of labor in these clan societies.



Really? Where? Please point out where you or creative have even come close to offering a reasonable or logical rebuttal.



I have also refuted all of your supposed "explanations." Please point out where I have not. It is not "overly simplistic." The only thing that is overly simplistic is your constant assertion that males would have somehow magically been the initiators of language in early humans. How? If a female chose a mate that was more verbal, would it not stand to reason that her offspring would have a greater propensity for language capabilities?

Where?

I agree with this Krimsa, and have from the beginning of the thread. The fact that there are differences in how most men and most women communicate their emotions does not warrant sufficient evidence to draw the conclusion that women, because they are more emotive in their language, originated or invented language in humans.

I actually got involved as a result of an oversimplication by you in the other thread. You combined all men into a group. You then said that we were incapable of expressing ourselves emotionally. That is not true. All men are not the same.

That is a stereotypical thing to say. I simply wanted to make a face about it.



This statement leaves me at a loss, Krimsa. I can assure you that I have not deliberately taken shots at you. The thing about Borders and man-haters being an exception, and I apologize if it hurt your feelings. With the things that you had been saying throughout the thread, I figured you would see it as an innocent joke, perhaps because that was how I had been viewing your comments.

Honestly though, for you to accuse me of taking shots is truly a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black... is it not?






Billy...


Some very good extrapolations...




EDIT:

Krimsa... what would you call these things below, which you said back at the beginning of the subject?









That is just a few of the "shots", by you non-the-less...

I truly thought that it was in good fun, seeing how you not only initiated it, you also continued throughout...

My daddy always said, "Don't dish it out if ya cain't take it!"

...Peace...

I would like to know why it is it has to be men or women would started and devoloped communication and language. Honestly people communication is a vital survival skill that every species develops. Both men and women developed it as a faculty of survival and co-dependence. This battle of the sexes nonsense is ignorant and if we had this much contention between man and woman back then,civilization would have never happened.

The development of labor necessarily helped to bring the members of society closer together by multiplying cases of mutual support and joint activity. The origin of language from and in the process of labor is the only correct one in my opinion. First comes labor, after it and then side by side with it, articulate speech. While men undoubtedly developed some speech in connection with the organized hunt, the decisive development of language arose out of the labor activity of the women. I stll stand firm in this theory. I do not believe it has been successfully refuted although I feel that we are at an impasse.

Creativesouls said:



I would also agree that "some" language would have occurred in the course of the hunt, yet I do not feel that was where speech would have originated. That is a thought based in common sense really.

Not one of those remarks would be considered a "shot" and a couple of those were made in direct response to statements by you on this thread. Anyone can go back to page one and take notice of your condescension in which I clearly held my tongue.



And your daddy would have been correct in his assertion. You just admitted that you were attacking me. However I never initiated any "dishing back” so to speak.



I did read this later. I do accept your apology and the condescension was clearly out of character for you though I understand the subject matter might be taken as "derogatory" or offensive to men in certain circumstances if they have never been exposed to any of this research before. If I offended you in any manner, I do apologize as well. It’s also difficult to understand if someone is saying something in a manner that denotes levity on an internet relay chat forum setting because we do not have access to facial expression and voice inflection. Interestingly enough, subject matter that is part of the discussion.

Krimsa,

I feel the need to clarify a few things, from this perspective. I believe that I see what you were talking about now, although it is clearly a misunderstanding. I was referring to myself.



My apologies for your misunderstanding the above, which is what I believe had happened.

All this meant was that just because I had not responded did not mean that I was incapable. It meant that I had no desire or need to at the time. Then you responded with this below, as a result of being offended. It is like Billy said, a simple communication breakdown.




It seems as if what you had perceived as a condescending inflection contained within my wording birthed the same within yours, and the entire thing snowballed.

No harm done, I hope. I was actually complimenting your cleverness throughout...

I assumed that it was merely a friendly jesting between two people who truly had no ill intentions...



Again, my apologies...

I will be sure to keep this misunderstanding in mind from this point forward.

No problem. I accept the apology and like I said, I think it was clearly a case of lack of inflection and body language. When you are speaking to someone face to face you can tell if they are making a joke or not. Here it is a little more elusive at times and especially over the course of a debate where there is already a point of divergent thought. Peace.

Krimsa,

This has been quite an interesting and entertaining conversation throughout, and I am glad that despite the possibility that it had of turning into a negative affair it has not. With this in mind I would like to ask a question.

After having had this conversation, do you still feel like the statements below are true statements?

Yes I do because clearly by this point in the debate, you should have a full understanding of what was intended by those statements.

I would pose this same question to you. After this discussion would you agree with my conclusion?


Krimsa said:

So then, when an author writes words which do not accurately express what they mean to say, it is somehow the reader's responsibility to change the meaning of what was written in order to match the author's true intention?

What you wrote generalized all men into a single category in a negative fashion.

No I never said that at all. When have you known me EVER on this forum not to clearly state my position? I say what I mean and mean what I say. I feel that men for the most part do not communicate their emotions with the same fluency as females. I could be wrong. This is a theory. You totally ignored my question and conclusion. Why am I not surprised?

I don't think anyone ever disagreed with your basic premise Krimsa.

It was the conclusion you drew from that common sense point that does not follow.

It would require a mechanism to hand down a gender specific language advantage which given the way evolution works it would not be your candidate for such a mechanism.

Society is your mechanism, and society acts on individuals.

I also detailed many ways other then hunting that the whole tribe would gain survival advantage from having men and women relate there experiences but again this would not be a gender specific advantage but a population advantage.

It is too bad no other points where discussed in any real depth . . .

I still hold that the tradition of story telling would have started with expressions grunts and incorporated words as they where added to the lexicon of this prehistoric people and that the hunt and consequent adventure of exploration would have been the far more interesting topic for these group story telling times.

But whatever . . .

I don’t follow you here? My conclusion was based on the theory that I had detailed.



The mechanism was labor distribution.



And I to have listed several gender specific labor activities that would have been influential on the origination of language in early humans.



Go for it. I’m all ears.

Which is a societal pressure that changes with changes in labor distribution. So your conclusion from the very first page was that men don't speak much because 150K years ago our jobs where hunting.

So again my point seems to stand that this is not an evolutionary factor but a societal factor, and that generalizations cannot hold true across genders due to the specializations of modern society.

ex.1
I myself as well as every other professionally trained actor that is a man has had the "labor" distribution in modern society of a literary and social expert. (if they where serious that is)

ex.2
Every sales men is likely to have extremely strong language skills as well as emotional manipulation skills.

It would do much more to understand the modern trends to look at modern times, this is my point.

If you want to actually make conclusions about prehistoric men and not modern men then I think everything you have said could be accurate. (except of course the fact we have not fully discussed the camp fire story telling idea)

My point again is that our hardware is equally up to the challenge of developing these skills, its our programing that tends to get less stressed placed on these various areas based on labor division, and societal pressure to fit into stereotypes.

Yoiu edited which makes it diffcicult for me to respond.

Billy said:



Okay what are you disagreeing with exactly? That MODERN men today do not emote on quite the same level as women? Is that the only point that truly bothers you? Well I am basing this primarily on observable behavior. I also asked for the reason that you think there is an entire section of the bookstore dedicated to men and women and how they communicate their emotions and the differences. Creative seemed to feel that those kinds of books sell and increase the profit margin for these stores. I would say yes, thats true but why do they increase the profit margin? Because they sell. Why do they sell? Because there is a NEED for them.

I am mister edit.

The only thing that has bothered me in this entire thread is your lack of even acknowledging anyone else points.

I have half a dozen posts now on this thread that when I reread them seems to detail very clearly my point.


The reason the trend exists is becuase of . . .
Little boys when they smash there finger are taught not to cry about it, when we grow to be men we are taught that being able to carry on without showing emotion in the face of adversity is a virtue . . .

This stuff seems so simple to me. I think I really am done here, its like a merry go round that you except to actually go somewhere, but then you find you are right back at square one.