full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Michael Corballis: Evolution's great mystery Language

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Many researchers are convinced that only humans have language, that the calls and gestures other species use to cimtounacme are not language. Each of these calls and gestures generally copsnoderrs to a specific message, for a limited total number of messages that aren’t combined into more clomepx ideas. For example, a monkey species might have a specific warning call that corresponds to a particular predator, like a snake— but with language, there are ceunltsos ways to say “watch out for the snake.” So far no animal communication seems to have the open-endedness of human language. We don’t know for sure what’s going on in animals’ heads, and it's possible this definition of lunggaae, or our ways of measuring it, don’t apply to them. But as far as we know, only humans have language. And while hanmus speak around 7,000 diistcnt languages, any child can learn any language, indicating that the biological mehnaciry udnryinleg language is common to all of us.

Open Cloze


Many researchers are convinced that only humans have language, that the calls and gestures other species use to ___________ are not language. Each of these calls and gestures generally ___________ to a specific message, for a limited total number of messages that aren’t combined into more _______ ideas. For example, a monkey species might have a specific warning call that corresponds to a particular predator, like a snake— but with language, there are _________ ways to say “watch out for the snake.” So far no animal communication seems to have the open-endedness of human language. We don’t know for sure what’s going on in animals’ heads, and it's possible this definition of ________, or our ways of measuring it, don’t apply to them. But as far as we know, only humans have language. And while ______ speak around 7,000 ________ languages, any child can learn any language, indicating that the biological _________ __________ language is common to all of us.

Solution


  1. distinct
  2. underlying
  3. corresponds
  4. complex
  5. language
  6. machinery
  7. communicate
  8. countless
  9. humans

Original Text


Many researchers are convinced that only humans have language, that the calls and gestures other species use to communicate are not language. Each of these calls and gestures generally corresponds to a specific message, for a limited total number of messages that aren’t combined into more complex ideas. For example, a monkey species might have a specific warning call that corresponds to a particular predator, like a snake— but with language, there are countless ways to say “watch out for the snake.” So far no animal communication seems to have the open-endedness of human language. We don’t know for sure what’s going on in animals’ heads, and it's possible this definition of language, or our ways of measuring it, don’t apply to them. But as far as we know, only humans have language. And while humans speak around 7,000 distinct languages, any child can learn any language, indicating that the biological machinery underlying language is common to all of us.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
great apes 3
kanzi learned 2
million years 2
gestural communication 2
vocal tract 2


Important Words


  1. animal
  2. apply
  3. biological
  4. call
  5. calls
  6. child
  7. combined
  8. common
  9. communicate
  10. communication
  11. complex
  12. convinced
  13. corresponds
  14. countless
  15. definition
  16. distinct
  17. generally
  18. gestures
  19. heads
  20. human
  21. humans
  22. ideas
  23. indicating
  24. language
  25. languages
  26. learn
  27. limited
  28. machinery
  29. measuring
  30. message
  31. messages
  32. monkey
  33. number
  34. predator
  35. researchers
  36. snake
  37. speak
  38. species
  39. specific
  40. total
  41. underlying
  42. warning
  43. ways