Episode 191 - Language

The Common Descent Podcast

Common Descent

Science, Education, Earth Sciences, Natural Sciences, Science:natural Sciences

4.8 • 764 Ratings

🗓️ 12 May 2024

⏱️ 125 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Language is possibly the most important and incredible ability that sets humans apart from other species. Whether spoken, written, or signed, language exists in thousands of varieties among modern human cultures, and there are some very language-like communication systems in other animals, too. This episode, we discuss what defines language, what makes it so special, and what we understand about its history and origins among our ancestors. In the news: orangutan medicine, frog skin, giant sharks, and dinosaur eggs. Time markers: Intro & Announcements: 00:00:00News: 00:05:15Main discussion, Part 1: 00:34:35Main discussion, Part 2: 01:14:25Patron question: 01:58:00 Find Dr. Alex at https://www.bridgetalex.com/ or @bannelia Check out our website for this episode’s blog post and more: http://commondescentpodcast.com/ Join us on Patreon to support the podcast and enjoy bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/commondescentpodcast Got a topic you want to hear about? Submit your episode request here: https://commondescentpodcast.com/request-a-topic/ Lots more ways to connect with us: https://linktr.ee/common_descent The Intro and Outro music is “On the Origin of Species” by Protodome. More music like this at http://ocremix.org Musical Interludes are "Professor Umlaut" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to the Common Descent Podcast.
0:19.0	Hello, Will. Hello, David. Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Common Descent Podcast, a podcast about paleontology
0:25.4	evolution and the fascinating history of life on Earth.
0:29.0	This is episode 191.
0:32.1	This episode's topic is language.
0:35.8	Yeah.
0:36.9	This is a long-awaited episode. Not only has it been requested a bunch
0:40.7	by our listeners, but also I've wanted to do this episode for a long time. Yep. But indeed,
0:46.2	I will not be doing this episode in the traditional sense. We will be joined for the discussion
0:50.8	by returning guest to the podcast, Dr. Bridget Alex, paleoanthropologist,
0:56.7	who joined us for our Neanderthals episode, 177, and is back to talk about language.
1:01.9	We'll talk about what language is, the diversity of it, what counts as language,
1:06.0	what are the parallels we see elsewhere in the animal kingdom, and how we understand language of the past.
1:13.1	Yeah, I had a lot of fun in this one talking about like, where do you draw the line on what counts as language?
1:18.7	Yeah.
1:19.4	Super fun.
1:20.3	Also, this has happened a couple of times in the podcast that it is very self-referential to do a podcast about language.
1:26.6	Oh, yeah.
1:27.2	I don't have any deeper thoughts on that.
1:28.6	That's just a thing that's fun.
1:29.7	Well, to use the thing you're discussing to discuss the thing you're discussing.
1:32.9	Yeah, absolutely.
	...

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