Re: does Language require Deception to exist?

This seems to me like a difficult question to answer since there's so
much we still don't know about language and its origins: for instance,
did language evolve once or many times? I've read arguments that all
languages spring from a common source somewhere in the depths of human
history, and others that many languages developed independently at about
the same time, and this seems to me like it'd make a major difference.
The first seems to make more of an assumption that language was a
natural development for our species, whereas (like life) if the
evolution of language only happened once for early human beings that it
must be a lot less likely to happen. Examples involving modern humans
don't seem to me to answer the question, since we don't know when
language at any level was first used, and if it first occured amongst
some sub-species before homo sapiens and then developed slowly as we
evolved, then we'd be much more suited to developing language that the
first people to speak were. So since we don't know much (as far as I'm
aware) about the conditions in which language first developed, or what
the first speakers were like, its very difficult to even guess from the
human experience what conditions (apart from a certain level of
intelligence) are necessary for communication systems we'd call language
to develop.
 Having said that, I'm not sure that this argument applies to the
initial development of language. I have heard arguments that deception
amongst our ancestors drove the increase in our intelligence in a kind
of intellectual arms race, and I admit that if that were true then it
would follow that deception was at least partially to thank for the
invention of language given the assumption that intelligence is
necessary, but that's by no means proved. :) It seems to me that even if
a species were completely honest, if they were reasonably intelligent
(and I think these two are unlikely to go together, since usually
intelligence and deception go together) then some way of efficiently
passing on knowledge would be useful, whether it's a simple and
immediate system like the warning cries of various monkeys ("there's a
snake nearby etc"), or an extended system that helps pass on the
knowledge of how to craft weapons, make fire, which plants are poisonous
etc.

> not kidding, folks.
>
> In order to have a language, does a species first need to be able to
>lie/decieve/trick/fool/bluff others of their species?
>
> *If* a deception-free species could & did have a language, would it be
>easily translatable?
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> food for thought, yes?
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