Homo Loquens: Man as a Talking Animal Dennis Fry.

Syntactic Structures by Noam Chomsky is considered to be the progenitor of the field, and one of the most powerful influences on early cognitive psychology.

You may also be interested in Cbompsy’s Innate Grammar and Bhartrihari’s Shota Theory of Language. Look up Wes Warren’s research on Song Bird Finches speech centers being contolled by ncRNA rather than brain. This is interesting because human sppech centers share 80% identity with them.

Thanks for that link @marinelife. Looks interesting.

@uninsure: There is also the universal rule that says “proofread” before you hit “send.” That helps keep the translation understandable.

@gailcalled It’s mildly humorous that you misspelled @inunsure username. :D

@everephebe: No. It’s hilarious. I had trouble reading the fine print with the glasses I am presently wearing.

@gailcalled I’m just being silly, I’m no grammarian like yourself. I’m sure you could find a number of my posts with much more egregious missuses of the English language than a simple misspelling of a misspelled user name. (In normal case for you and your glasses.) :D Cheers.

Cognitive Scientist, Steven Pinker’s book, How the Mind Works is not exclusively about speech generation and how we learn it, but delves into it and many other areas of human thought and ability to learn. And on top of that, it is fascinating reading. It was a Pulitzer Prize finalist.

Thoughts are words. A translation is not necessary. Language is central to human thinking.

@mattbrowne That remains controversial and unproven. There may be a more fundamental mentalese. I think this hypothesis deserves attention, as we are able to think before we are able to speak. Helen Keller clearly could think when she knew not a word.

Good point, @ETpro. I think some scientists argue, though, that normal (healthy) brain development is not possible without language. Yet the brain is very resilient, so deafblind people can compensate to a certain degree. So let’s say that in most cases human thoughts are words. The human brain was shaped by evolution to acquire language with words and grammar.

@ETpro The mentalese concept is intriguing, but I’m not with you on your example. Helen Keller— she could see and hear until she was about 19 months, so she had plenty of time to acquire a foundational internalizing of language, which Anne Sullivan later built off of.

@linguaphile Very good point. I found this on the teaching of deaf-blind children. It covers the gamut, but includes those who are born without either sensory input. And it does seem to indicate that they can think, but not with the same effectiveness as those who have working senses, or who have learned language skills prior to losing their sensory inputs.

On the list of major causes: Downs, Trisomy 13 and Ushers, then lists CHARGE, FAS, drug use, etc… it is interesting to me that only Ushers does not affect cognitive development. All the others, to some degree, affect cognition and nearly all kids with Ushers are not born deaf-blind. Most kids with Ushers are born with some hearing loss, but progressively lose their vision later in life.

It’s very hard to find a congenital deaf-blind-at-birth baby with fully normal cognitive abilities to be able to access their cognitive processings and research their language development. It would be an intriguing research though, if they could find enough deaf-blind babies with fully normal cognitive abilities whose parents wouldn’t mind them being researched.

If one considers, as I do, that language, at its most fundamental level is the simple association of image/object relationships, then one must consider the fetus may develop language utilities at a very early stage.

The fetus can see, hear, experience, taste and, on a primitive level, even learn in utero . . . Most importantly, he can feel—not with an adult’s sophistication, but feel nonetheless.—p. 12

I believe, that external stimuli is responsible for allowing the fetus to develop a sense of “I” through image/object associations.

Mother sings = fetus comfort.

“One of the main means for communication of maternal attitudes and feelings is the neurohormones the mother releases, which increase when she is under stress. These substances cross the placenta as easily as nutrients, alcohol, and other drugs do. In moderation these hormones cause physiological reactions in the child which stimulate his neural and psychological systems beneficially, but in excess they can affect the developing body adversely. Because of the child’s resilience, it is only extreme and, generally, long-lasting stress that leaves marked negative effects, not isolated thoughts or incidents. Moreover, the mother’s love, acceptance, and positive thoughts for the unborn child act as a very strong protection, so he will continue to thrive even if her own situation is troubled. But if his needs for affection and attention are not met, “his spirit and often his body, too, begin wilting” (p. 27).”

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies Great article—I’ve read similar articles. When I was pregnant with my son, I would lie in bed regularly and play music with the speakers on both sides of my stomach for fun; this was way before I knew anything about fetal responses. I find the type of information you shared fascinating.

I am aware that fetuses can hear human speech in-utero. I haven’t read anything, yet, about whether it contributes to actual language development.

Oliver Sacks’ book Seeing Voices is primarily about how the deaf acquire language and the history of American sign language, but it also contains a lot of interesting theory about how the brain translates thought into words and how language organizes and changes the brain.

Thanks, @RealEyesRealizeRealLies, @linguaphile and @keobooks I can see I have more reading to do.