Click and Human Evolution .

Click and Human Evolution .
Andre Willers
26 Aug 2009

Synopsis :
Human echolocation generated by tongue clicks led to enhanced dwelling , hunting , food gathering and information sharing techniques . Remnants are still around (San-bushmen)

Discussion :
See
http://www.worldaccessfortheblind.org
NewScientist 11 Apr 2009 p31 "Seeing with sound"

What echolocation can do :
1.Location
2.General shape and size
3.Nature
3.1 Density (solid vs sparse)
3.2 Reflection or absorption
This is integrated in the sensorium with visual data to create a world-picture .

Benefits :
1. Caves become habitable (even in the absence of fire) .You can get around without injury . This is an important consideration without your handy pharmacy with antibiotics .
2. Ripe fruit can be easily distinguished .
3. Pack-hunting at night becomes possible . The click not only locates and identifies the prey , but also spooks it along . Fellow hunters are identifiable . Smaller predators are warned away .
Humans were and are formidable nocturnal predators . They did not huddle in caves , scared of the beasties outside . The beasties outside were scared of them . Look at your cities , today .
4. Clicks can penetrate surface layers and densities of soil , for edible tubers .
5. Tracking : sonic returns from clicks can very accurately define existence , age and type of tracks . Even in rock where no visual imprint would show compression . (See FlashSonar below)
6. Information transmission : the whole system is much more efficient (ie higher survival rate) if the relationship between clicks and threats or goodies can be taught . Hence first languages were heavy on clicks . The technique would be inherent in the language (cf Marshall McLuhan : the medium is the message.)
7. Cochleal training . Optimal results are obtained by speaking and training before paring of hearing-neurons in the mind and ear .
8. Predator or prey visual camouflage is largely useless . It would be interesting to find the echo-stealth pattern of leopards (the only species that found homonids tasty.). Likely to be quite good even in the surviving sub-species . Hint to the military .
9. Written transmissions: These would be very old , but in incised glyphs that can only be discerned by very a aurally sensitive priesthood . Hence the lack of soot smudges on the ceilings of old sacred caves . These would be rites of passages , showing that the initiate was a master of both aural and visual systems .
10. Incised hieroglyphs would also be optimizated for click-reflection .
11. Get an opinion of viewers in the audio spectrum . We do not even have words for this .
12. The Pyramids : it has long been a puzzlement how the builders of the inside passages could see , since there was and still is not any soot on the ceilings . The answer is that they used echo-location (the Sacred Language of clicks) .
13. See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com "LinearB and Philological Invariance"
Using Philological Invariance principles , and seeing that we are at the end of the process , we suspect strongly that that the ur-click language lies at the root of most Old Egyptian pronunciations .

Example:
Let us see "Jessica" , a known old word .
"dhe" – wet click with most of the forward tongue .
"s" – click with the tip of the tongue .
"ka" – click with the tip of the tongue moving backward and the jaw opening to make the "a" sound .
"Jessica" would sound nearly like "tic-tac-toe" , with a click for the "t" while opening the mouth saying it .
"x!ic-x!ac-x!oe" , where x! is a click of the tongue . Say it rapidly and an Old Egyptian would have understood you , even bowed , as it was a Royal Name in the old dynasties .
A San bushman would understand it as well .

Which is why old systems did not have vowels . The click sound could only be made with an associated vowel (basically , opening or closing of the jaw) . What we call syllabic , but rooted in the pronounciation and frequency of the click .

Bantu-language clicks .
The genetic evidence is that the Bantu population moved from northern Africa , down to the east coast past the equator , then across the continent to the south-western parts of south Africa . The general perceived wisdom is that they picked up the clicks in their language from san-slave women . But it seems much more likely that they always had it . San might have reinforced it , master-servant is a slippery concept at a low level of technology .

As the Sahara dried out , some went east to become the Egyptians , and some went South to become the Bantu . What is remarkable that both kept their identity under extreme external influences . The usual culprits are religion and culture (ie language) .

What use is a click language to a visually orientated , semi-agricultural society ?
Note that this hints that agriculture first evolved in the Sahara , during the desertification . As it got worse , groups moved east , south and west .


Weeds .
The women gossiping in click language while weeding can tell a weed much more efficiently than any other known system . Not only what is a weed , but when it will seed . The agricultural effort of subsistence agriculture is cut by at least a factor of ten
But without a click-language , they cannot tell you how they do it .

Chinese and other tonal languages .
Ur-languages would be tonal as clicks degenerate into tones .
But weed identification would still be paramount .
This influenced their written language . Chinese are basically Tibetan , and they are very sensitive to weeds . Being at the margins , they cannot tolerate any dissent from the collective .

Note sound systems on the steps of middle-american pyramids .

I have had about as much of humans that I can take .

Andre .