Via Pileta de Prehistoria I just came to read this more than curious article at New Scientist.Genevieve von Pretzinger has cataloged the abstract signs found at caves and mural sites through the world and found that most are surprisingly similar. She thinks that they are a symbolic or pictographic language that must have existed since before the migration out of Africa. However, sadly enough, we can't yet understand it.
Found at Science Daily.Researchers from the UK and USA have found that sound, specially in water, is not just the bidimensional amplitude/frequency graph we normally use but a much more complex 3D structure. Dophins and other cetaceans are immersed in such a 3D sound reality and they use it for eco-location and scanning, as well as for their daily communication.The newly developed human technological ability to depict such complex sound structures and translate them in visual graphs, called CymaGlyphs may be the first step to understand dolphin language.Dr. Horace Dobbs, a leading authority on dolphin-assisted therapy, has joined the team as consultant. "I have long held the belief that the dolphin brain, comparable in size with our own, has specialized in processing auditory data in much the same way that the human brain has specialized in processing visual data. Nature tends not to evolve brain mass without a need, so we must ask ourselves what dolphins do with all that brain capacity. The answer appears to lie in the development of brain systems that require huge auditory processing power. There is growing evidence that dolphins can take a sonic 'snap shot' of an object and send it to other dolphins, using sound as the transmission medium. We an therefore hypothesize that the dolphin's primary method of communication is picture based. Thus, the picture-based imaging method, employed by Reid and Kassewitz, seems entirely plausible."
The CymaGlyphs of dolphin sounds fall into three broad categories, signature whistles, chirps and click trains. There is general agreement among cetacean biologists that signature whistles represent the means by which individual dolphins identify themselves while click trains are involved in echolocation. Chirps are thought to represent components of language. Reid explained the visual form of the various dolphin sounds, "The CymaGlyphs of signature whistles comprise regular concentric bands of energy that resemble aircraft radar screens while chirps are often flower-like in structure, resembling the CymaGlyphs of human vocalizations. Click trains have the most complex structures of all, featuring a combination of tightly packed concentric bands on the periphery with unique central features."
Regarding the possibility of speaking dolphin, Kassewitz said, "I believe that people around the world would love the opportunity to speak with a dolphin. And I feel certain that dolphins would love the chance to speak with us - if for no other reason than self-preservation. During my times in the water with dolphins, there have been several occasions when they seemed to be very determined to communicate with me. We are getting closer to making that possible."
Source: Gara: DEBATE SOBRE LA REFORMA INSTITUCIONAL FRANCESA: La mera mención a las lenguas minorizadas indigna a la Academia.Déclaration de l´Académie française
Depuis plus de cinq siècles, la langue française a forgé la France. Par un juste retour, notre Constitution a, dans son article 2, reconnu cette évidence : "La langue de la République est le français".
Or, le 22 mai dernier, les députés ont voté un texte dont les conséquences portent atteinte à l'identité nationale. Ils ont souhaité que soit ajoutée dans la Constitution, à l'article 1er, dont la première phrase commence par les mots : "La France est une République indivisible, laïque, démocratique et sociale", une phrase terminale : "Les langues régionales appartiennent à son patrimoine".
Les langues régionales appartiennent à notre patrimoine culturel et social. Qui en doute? Elles expriment des réalités et des sensibilités qui participent à la richesse de notre Nation. Mais pourquoi cette apparition soudaine dans la Constitution ?
Le droit ne décrit pas, il engage. Surtout lorsqu'il s'agit du droit des droits, la Constitution.
Au surplus, il nous paraît que placer les langues régionales de France avant la langue de la République est un défi à la simple logique, un déni de la République, une confusion du principe constitutif de la Nation et de l'objet d'une politique.
Les conséquences du texte voté par l'Assemblée sont graves. Elles mettent en cause, notamment, l'accès égal de tous à l'Administration et à la Justice. L'Académie française, qui a reçu le mandat de veiller à la langue française dans son usage et son rayonnement, en appelle à la Représentation nationale. Elle demande le retrait de ce texte dont les excellentes intentions peuvent et doivent s'exprimer ailleurs, mais qui n'a pas sa place dans la Constitution.
12 juin 2008
(Cette déclaration a été votée à l'unanimité par les membres de l'Académie française dans sa séance du 12 juin 2008).
Aren't Basque, Gascon, Occitan, Breton, Flemish, Catalan, Corse or Alsatian German worth even a petty mention in the French constitution? Guess not and that's just another reason to split France, that gothic monster of the imperialist past in smaller pieces. It's time for the decolonization of Western Europe, it's time for the states born in the 15th century at the expense of the peoples to cease to exist.
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