Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: lexicon

From:Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
Date:Monday, June 2, 2003, 15:02
On Mon, Jun 02, 2003 at 12:18:20AM -0400, Sally Caves wrote:
> > And while I agree with [that statement], > > ....that society first and foremost functions without art?
No, that humans are machines. :) You're correct, though, that I was using a definition of art that was somewhat narrow. Defined more broadly, as you have done, then there are definitely utilitarian aspects of artistic behavior. And, to contradict myself on the basis of having read more information, it does appear that art may be as hard-wired as language; some aspects of the Universal People discussed by Pinker in _The_Language_Instinct_ are artistic. For instance, just about every society has poetry composed of three-second lines separated by pauses.
> The original argument was whether artistic development came after linguistic > development or developed with it.
Or before it. The specific suggest I took issue with was that language originated as a form of artistic expression.
> We have all agreed that we are in basic ignorance about this fact. > I think one could argue safely that writing developed reasonably late.
Absolutely, but writing is distinct from language. It is a wholly learned skill, and as far as we can determine developed spontaneously only a few times in human history, whereas language - either spoken or signed - is universal.
> I would go further and say that [art] is probably as ancient in development > as language is.
Perhaps. I don't think it's necessarily more ancient, however. Thank you for the discussion. I will go back to my researches somewhat chastened and try to avoid such bald statements in the future. But I still don't see language as being first art and later communication. :) -Mark