It’s no big deal. It just forces me to go back and reply again. I think I have covered all of it.

And you did it again:



So your entire argument simply states that the reason men have difficulty emoting and publicly displaying their feelings is entirely based on societal conditioning from the time they are very young? Well that is probably true to a certain extent; however we are not discussing that. We are discussing whether or not females were the originators of language and my theory has clearly demonstrated that BASED on the distribution of labor and the activities performed by women, it is only reasonable to conclude that they would have taken the decisive role in introducing and developing human speech.



It seems really simply to me also. During hunting is it important to be quiet? Yes. Women's labor and activities more conducive to speech and sound? Yes.



I’m sorry you feel that way. There is nothing I can do to remedy that. If you want me to simply agree with you on every point, I wont.

Wow, and I thought it was as simple as a man seeing a pair of really great knockers and was reduced to going duh duh duh.

Thats what it really is.

Premise accepted. (Women originated large parts of words which lead to the development of language)

Conclusion denied. (that this has anything to do with why modern men do not like, or cannot express themselves [which is in itself a vast generalization])


MERRY GO ROUND!!!

And I also stated in my conclusion that I did accept your underlying premise that the organized hunt probably entailed some speech development. It would be impossible to say that men did not verbally communicate on these long hunting trips. I just don’t feel that would be the most conducive set of circumstances or the environment for extended periods of speech because they would have wanted to be quiet for both the purposes of trapping wild game and also for safety concerns.

Now stop being so melodramatic please. Thank you.

Thats just rude.

And this childishness isnt?


Please explain why you are allowed to take little shots at me but if I call you on it, Im being rude?

Sorry Krimsa, not interested.

For anyone else who is interested in this topic versus bickering.


I found this article to be extremely interesting.

I am not bickering with you. You are being insulting and rude. You are clearly not interested in addressing me like an adult. Good evening. I’m sorry if a generalized theory that I first read about from a MALE cultural anthropologist is so utterly devastating to your fragile male ego. I will take my leave if you can not discus this without becoming enraged.

More projection, I am not enraged, just very disappointed. I learned long ago not to let people over the internet effect my emotions, instead I remove them from the friends list and block them, I just wish the forums had the same feature.

I to am quite disappointed with your utter lack of sophistication and ability to speak with me as an intellectual equal. If you are unable to refute this theory, then ignore it. Why create threads and beg that I come and elaborate when all you are capable of mustering is a bunch of lascivious insults and rude commentary under your breath.

Language as a Spandrel

More good tid bits.

But because women began their labor in so humble a fashion, many historians have presented women’s industries as merely “household crafts” or “handicrafts.” The fact is that before machines were developed there was no other kind of craft than hand craft. Before specialized factories were developed in the towns and cities, there was no other factory but the “household.” Without these households and their handicrafts, the great guilds of the Middle Ages could not have come into existence. Nor, indeed, could the whole modern world of mechanized farms and streamlined industries have come into existence.

When women began their labor they pulled mankind out of the animal kingdom. They were the initiators of labor and the originators of industry—the prime mover that lifted humanity out of the ape-like state. And side by side with their labor there arose speech. As Engels points out:

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. As Mason writes:

“Woman, having the whole round of industrial arts on their minds all day and every day, must be held to have invented and fixed the language of the same. Dr. Brinton, in a private letter, says that in most early languages not only is there a series of expressions belonging to the women, but in various places we find a language belonging to the women quite apart from that of the men.

“Savage men in hunting and fishing are kept alone, and have to be quiet, hence their taciturnity. But women ate together and chatter all day long. Apart from the centers of culture, women are still the best dictionaries, talkers and letter writers.”

What labor and speech represented, first of all and above everything else, was the birth of the human collective. Animals are obliged, by nature’s laws, to remain in individualistic competition with one another. But the women, through labor, displaced nature’s relationships and instituted the new, human relationships of the labor collective.

Language as an Adaptation
And more good tidbits.

It appears the professionals have done much of the hard stuff for us amateurs. Its still conjecture, if even professional conjecture, but very fascinating regardless.

Language Evolution and Memes


Far more possibilities then I initially imagined when first I started this topic. Great stuff!

So long as hunting was an indispensable full-time occupation, it relegated men to a backward existence. Hunting trips removed men for extended periods of time from the community centers and from participation in the higher forms of labor.

The discovery of agriculture by the women, and their domestication of cattle and other large animals, brought about the emancipation of the men from their hunting life. Hunting was then reduced to a sport, and men were freed for education and training in the industrial and cultural life of the communities. Through the increase in food supplies, populations grew. Nomadic camp sites were transformed into settled village centers, later evolving into towns and cities.

In the first period of their emancipation, the work of the men, compared with that of the women, was, quite naturally, unskilled labor. They cleared away the brush and prepared the ground for cultivation by the women. They felled trees, and furnished the timber for construction work. Only later did they begin to take over the work of construction—just as they also took over the care and breeding of livestock.

But, unlike the women, the men did not have to start from first beginnings. In a short time, they began not only to learn all the skilled crafts of the women but to make vast improvements in tools, equipment and technology. They initiated a whole series of new inventions and innovations. Agriculture took a great step forward with the invention of the plough and the use of domesticated animals.

For a fragment of time, historically speaking, and flowing out of the emancipation of the men from hunting, the division of labor between the sexes became a reality. Together, men and women furthered the abundance of food and products, and consolidated the first settled villages.

But the Agricultural Revolution, brought about by the women marks the dividing line between the food gathering and food producing epochs. By the same token, it marks the dividing line between Savagery and Civilization. Still further, it marks the emergence of a new social system and a reversal in the economic and social leadership role of the sexes.

The new conditions, which began with food abundance for mounting populations, released a new productive force, and with it, new productive relations. The old division of labor between the sexes was displaced by a new series of social divisions of labor. Agricultural labor became separated from urban industrial labor; skilled labor from unskilled. And women labor was gradually taken over by the men.

With the potter’s wheel, for example, men specialists took over pot-making from the women. As Childe writes:

“Ethnography shows that potters who use the wheel are normally male specialists, no longer women, for whom potting is just a household task like cooking and spinning.” (What Happened in History.)

Men took over the ovens and kilns that had been invented by the women—and developed them into smithies and forges, where they converted the earth’s metals: copper, gold and iron. The Metal Age was the dawn of Man’s Epoch. And the most common name today, “Mr. Smith,” has its origin in that dawn.

The very conditions that brought about the emancipation of the men brought about the overthrow of the matriarchy and the enslavement of the women. As social production came into the hands of the men, women were dispossessed from productive life and driven back to their biological function of maternity. Men took over the reins of society and founded a new social system which served their needs. Upon the ruins of the matriarchy, class society was born.

From this labor record of the women in the earlier social system, it can be seen that both sexes have played their parts in building society and advancing humanity to its present point. But they did not play them simultaneously or uniformly. There has actually been an uneven development of the sexes. This, in turn, is only an expression of the uneven development of society as a whole.

During the first great Epoch of social development, it was the women who pulled humanity forward and out of the animal kingdom. Since the first steps are hardest to take, we can only regard the labor and social contribution of the women as decisive. It was their achievements in the fields of production, cultural and intellectual life which made civilization possible. Although it required hundreds of thousands of years for the women to lay down these social foundations, it is precisely because they laid them down so firmly and so well that it has taken less than 4,000 years to bring civilization to its present estate.

It is therefore unscientific to discuss the superiority of men or women outside the framework of the actual processes of history. In the course of history, a great reversal took place in the social superiority of the sexes. First came the women, biologically endowed by nature. Then came the men, socially endowed by the women. To understand these historical facts is to avoid the pitfalls of arbitrary judgment made through emotion or prejudice. And to understand these facts is to explode the myth that women are naturally inferior to men.

I think this is an extremely important distinction to make. Humans have an insatiable desire to communication in all kinds of ways.


Proto language, such an interesting term, and to me elucidates the nature of language development.

I remember as a child probably around 2-3 grade, I am not sure, but I had a friend and we would create codes from the alphabet we would send notes to one another in this secret written language. We then created words and some small signs to give meaning to some of the common words we used it was fun, but eventually basketball took hold of our young minds lol.

Now this is not a development of proto-language becuase we had functional language before we decided to partake on this little fun experiment. But the desire to communicate in class when we where not supposed to was an overwhelming urge, especially in secret where no one but ourselves could know what was being said. However elements of this fashion of alternate communication is illustrative of the process, and highlight the parallel nature of childhood development.

I can easily imagine early humans playing elaborate games of pictionary with improve acting added to get across ideas. I imagine as the brain developed and added processing power was included in the evolutionary upgrades all humanity started to find not only use, but great joy in the ability to communicate even pre-language.

This follows beautifully and explains how when someone suffers brain damage that language can be destroyed yet after time the brain relearns how to map that function to a different processing center and relearn that ability.




Anyone who understands the nature of computer processing can truly appreciate the elegance of this statement.

Articles about China


Nüshu, Women's Secret Script

Nüshu is a special written language used and understood only by women in Jiangyong County, Hunan Province. Discovered 20 years ago, this mysterious language has been handed down, mother to daughter, for generations. It now faces extinction.

The Discovery of Nushu

In 1982, Gong Zhebing, a teacher from the South-Central China Institute for Nationalities ,accompanied his students to Jiangyong County, in Hunan Province, where they hoped to investigate local customs and culture. There they found a strange calligraphy used only by women, which men did not use or understand. It was referred to as "nüshu"(women's script) in the locality. Gong Zhebing instantly realized the importance of these characters, which despite having a long history had never been seen before.

With the help of Professor Yan Xuejiong, a linguist, the institute established a research group on this special language. Researchers went to Jiangyong to investigate, where they collected calligraphy samples and recordings of women reading nüshu and found evidence of a 20,000 word vocabulary. It was not long before nüshu was causing ripples of excitement both at home and abroad. Hence nüshu, which has been passed quietly from woman to woman in Jiangyong for unknown centuries, has finally left its rural home. The secret is out.

According to studies by the Central-South China Institute for Nationalities, nushu has finally been defined as a written language, which contains more than 2,000 characters. The content of nüshu writings have proved to be revealing about society, history, nationality and culture. It is now listed as one of the world's most ancient languages and the only exclusively female language ever discovered. It is, however, a written language only. Women formed their own written symbols to represent the words in their local dialect. Hence men can usually understand nüshu if they hear it read aloud.

Recording Women's Feelings

Older women from Jiangyong all remember the time when they were little, after Qing Dynasty and before Liberation (1912-1949), when there were women in every village who were familiar with n¹shu. They wrote their female script on fans, paper, handkerchiefs or embroidered the characters on cloth. Sometimes, they used the characters to make patterns and wove them into quilt covers and braces.

In ancient times, the women in the area where nüshu spread were good at needlework. As they did needlework, they enjoyed reciting nüshu. Every year there would be competitions at festival time, where they could win prizes for needlework, nüshu writing and calligraphy. When a woman got married, other women would write nüshu for the occasion. In temple fairs, they would write and chant prayers written in nüshu.

Among sworn sisters, nüshu was often used to write letters. Nüshu letters reflect women's joy and sorrow. A large amount of n¹shu work focuses on women's oppression and the suffering they experienced in feudal society. Women had no right to receive an education, let alone to take part in social activities. They did not have as much power or status as men in the home; they were not allowed to include their names in the family genealogy, and of course could not inherit legacies. Under strict control by their husbands and mothers-in-law after marriage, many women were abused and exploited. Using nüshu, they wrote letters, poems, invitation cards, riddles and scripts for ballad-singing, recording authentically the beauty and ugliness of their lives. These works allow us an important insight into the minds of women in feudal society. They also served as a means to help women cope, stay in touch with their female friends and discuss their feelings.

In Crying About a Marriage, the author writes about her resentment towards her friends parents-in-law, who mistreated her friend after she married into their family. In Letters, the writer complains about oppression and yearns for sexual liberation.

Nüshu writing also hits out against forced marriages and almost every single piece of writing contains a sense of resistance and feminist outcry, much stronger than in other folk literature of the period. Another distinctive characteristic of nüshu is that all nüshu letters are written in a structured poetic style.

Nüshu Buried With its Authors

When Gong Zhebing discovered nüshu in 1982, there were still a dozen old women who were still familiar with it. One of them was Gao Yinxian, a woman who was very good at nüshu. She told Gong that she had learned nüshu from her mother, since women were not allowed to go to school. She guessed that the women's script had been handed down for at least two generations. All nüshu writers were buried with their works, believing they could take their work with them to the next life, so today we have very few examples of this precious female script. The rarity of nüshu makes research into the origin of nüshu very difficult.

In the 1920s, the Chinese Women's Liberation Movement made progress and schools were established in Jiangyong County where women could receive a standard education. The number of women who had been learning nüshu rapidly declined as a result. Since 1949, the feudal system has been abolished, women enjoy a better status and the majority of young girls go to school. Most of the young women in Jiangyong today do not want to learn nüshu because they regard it as useless. Gao Yinxian took great pains to teach her three grand-daughters nüshu, but only the second, Hu Meiyue, continued in her studies. Gao has now passed away and women like Hu Meiyue are becoming fewer and fewer each year.

Nüshu Mysteries Left

At present, in cooperation with the local government, the Nüshu Culture Research Center is setting up a project to rescue nüshu culture. This project will create a reference library for studies on nüshu, build a museum, a cultural village and will hold an international symposium, the first of its kind. It is hoped that people both at home and abroad will be more able to find out accurate information about this special script.

There are no accounts about nüshu in either historical records or local annals and nothing related can be found in genealogies or inscriptions on tablets.

In academic circles, there are various opinions about the origin of nüshu. Some hold that it is a variant of regular Chinese characters; others think it stems from cuts made in wood; still others maintain that it is the official writing of the Yi (ancient name for tribes in the east of China). But nüshu still remains a mystery.

As an ancient script accessible only to women, nüshu continues to attract attention, but big questions still remain. Which dynasty did nüshu originate in? Why is it used only among women? What kind of relationship is there between nüshu and the standard, pictographic Chinese characters? Maybe one day, we will find the answers.

Very interesting articles, kudos to you both!!!

I am reminded of an earlier topic that dealt with the notion of personal reality and it's distinction from actuality. I am left to wonder how much of what has been written during the course of this thread has been understood as what it was.

After re-reading this entire thread several times through, I have sufficient reason to believe that the words being written do not have the same meaning as the words being perceived. Even though the words themselves are both expressed and received as they are written, the meaning being received does not equate to the intention.

Here is a prime example...

Krimsa, you originally wrote these things below, which I have repeatedly claimed are untrue. I fail to see how one who functions at a high cognitive level can actually believe this. Clearly, this very thread has proven otherwise. At face value, these two statements have negative implications which are often expressed among common and simple minded people. Education and experience interacting with well rounded individuals proves otherwise.



The problem is that rather than accept the fact that your words could not be true, and did not accurately convey your thoughts and/or meaning, you held onto the idea that what you said was true.

Why????

After extrapolating in more concise ways, you expected the reader to translate what you had been claiming was true into what you later stated yourself, which happened to be what I had been saying all along. Below is the post which points out your insistence that coincides with what I just wrote.



By that point Krimsa, you had been saying the same thing, which is an untrue statement. Above I underlined exactly what I was referring to below when I asked you the following...



You also denied saying this, which is true... you did not say it. What you had been writing meant exactly this though. Below when you claimed to clearly state your position, your claim changed into a more accurate and friendly assessment.

Do you see the difference between what you had been saying and what you(which I underlined) say below?





My only question now is for clarity's sake...

Which is it that you believe, because the statements contradict one another?

Is it A.)



Or is it B.)

I still claim they are true. I never stated that they were untrue.



I fail to see why you do not understand that comments like that are rude and inappropriate. You apologized to me last night and now immediately you are reducing yourself to the same reprehensible behavior.



Clearly you are familiar with my post history and realize that I am every bit your intellectual equal so please refrain from such condescension. When this thread was originally started, I was asked to participate. I was called out by name in fact to discuss this theory of gender specific labor division and the impact that this potentially had on the origination of speech in humans.

Krimsa said:



This statement is based on observable behavior I have witnessed myself in the males I have encountered over my lifetime. You even admitted yourself over the course of the thread that men generally will not emote in the same manner or to the same degree as women.

...

This quote was actually said to another member who was complaining that he didn’t understand women.



And I still support this theory. You have not demonstrated it to not be worthy of consideration. You seem to feel that you have but your arguments are the tired old worn out mantras we have heard in every cultural anthropology class since 1958. This is a new outlook on the subject matter.



Because you have not shown otherwise. I gave you my conclusion in which you never addressed. I clearly demonstrated over the course of the thread the points that supported this theory. You offered nothing that would be considered superior to that evidence.



I have no idea what you mean by this comment.



Yes and that is true.



This is not an untrue statement nor have I ever retracted it. You seem to feel I should retract it for some reason but why? I never did, nor will I. You keep insisting that I did at some point. I told you once before, I say what I mean and mean what I say.



I never changed anything.



What are you talking about? What did I ever change? I never denied one word. In fact it only bolstered my position.



No.



I just repeated that since you didn’t get it the first time.



Yes that’s right.



What has contradicted itself?

Is it A.)



Yes.



Yes.

Or is it B.)



Yes. These sentiments are not different. You are clearly reaching at straws.