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How many languages are there in the world?

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How many languages are there in the world?

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Linguistic is all about diversity, and it is also about similarity. And that is because there are about 6,000 languages in the word.

Languages are diverse, they are all different but they are also similar in some way.

Linguistic is all about variety because that is what human language is all about.

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Language is inherently cooperative. But for animals this is very different.

We have more signs and more words to communicate than animals.

Humans can make an infinitive number of messages with this limited set of building blocks, and that they can talk about things other than the here and now. Language is fundamental cooperative tool for humans.

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We have seen that animals do have systems of communication, at least some kinds of animals do. But that they are always different in certain key aspects from human language.

Some animals are able to communicate some of their needs but we cannot have a full conversation with them.

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It is clear that animals communicate, they talk to each other in some way. But it is also clear that there are differences between animal communication and human communication.

The second difference with animal communication is called displacement.

We humans can talk about our here and now, but also about the things far away in the past and about abstract things.

Most animals do not have that. Bees can communicate about space and show other bees where to find their honey. It is a lovey system but it is very limited.

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Do animals have language? - Michele Bishop

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Three dimensions in which language, human language and animal communication are different

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Three dimensions in which language, human language and animal communication are different

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Discrete infinity

Displacement

Joint attention

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Module 1: 1. Human language and animal communication systems

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English has an alphabet of 26 letters. That is a limited discrete set, but with them you can make many different words and with those words you can make many different sentences.

Humans can make sentences longer and longer, infinitely long, as a matter of fact.

Now not so for animals.

Apes also have a discreet set system of goal, they cannot combine them to make more and more complicated systems. They have limited number of combinations.

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Language is fundamental cooperative tool for humans, we use language everywhere. Languages are diverse, they are all different but they are also similar in some way.

We humans can talk about our here and now, but also about abstract things. Most animals do not have that.

But it is clear that animals do have systems of communication, at least some kinds of animals do. But that they are always different in certain key aspects from human language. Some animals are able to communicate some of their needs but we cannot have a full conversation with them.

We have more signs and more words to communicate than animals, they have limited number of combinations. In fact, it is amazing how humans can make an infinitive number of messages with limited set of building blocks.