Depicted on television, cavemen tend to have poor English skills saying stuff like, “Me Grimlock angry!” Okay, that’s actually from Transformers, but it’s the same concept. What’s the purpose of dumbing down their language abilities? Was it to imply that the cavemen had primitive language skills? When did writers start doing this?
What would be the alternative? Conversing in fluent English? Then it wouldn’t be nearly as funny. Just look at Fred Flintstone. Not funny in the slightest.
People tend to assume that those who don’t speak their own language must have poor language abilities. That’s been true since at least the time of the ancient Greeks, who called foreigners “barbarians.” That name was used because to the Greeks it sounded like the foreigners were saying “bah, bah, bah” when they spoke their own language. Many people think that their own language is obviously more advanced than other people’s languages. Since “cavemen” were supposed to be early humans, people assume that they speak primitive languages.
It would seem strange to have someone who’s depicted as primitive in every other way–culturally, techologically and sometimes even anatomically–to speak eloquently. The reason it doesn’t seem strange in The Flintstones is because they actually live modern lives, even if all their stuff is made of rock.
It’s an accurate reflection of the facts. Our records show that the Neanderthal educational system was somewhat lacking in many respects.
Ahem. GEICO cavemen. OK, the show sucked, but the original commercials were mostly considered hilarious.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I’m just a caveman.”
I recall a Gahan Wilson cartoon, two beetle-browed cavemen talking while tearing at meat. Caption: “Sorry I’m not making myself clearer, but it’s difficult to express oneself in a language as crude and primitive as ours.”
Trog not know what you talk about.
Talk rule men no strong. No strong no hunt. No hunt no eat. Grak strong, eat good. No talk argue. Argue no kill mammoth. Talk rule bring argue. Argue bring big cat. Big cat claw teeth eat Grak. Grak no want talk rule.
Grammar’s savings ate up by medical bills. Primitive cave society have no health care safety net for elderly.
They had an excellent Physical Education programme.
Seriously, humans are the only primates with true language. At some point in human evolution it had to have developed. Exactly how is hotly contested; but surely at some point our ancestors must have had some vocalization more advanced than ape cries but not as sophisticated as modern human language.
That said, the stereotypical “caveman” is a cliche based on naive early theories about primitive humans.
I wonder if anyone has any idea what caveman-language actually sounded like in real life? Have any studies been done to try to figure this out? I can’t imagine that it would even be possible, so I doubt it.
It’s kind of funny when they do it in a humorous context, but it’s strange when they do it seriously. I watched 10,000 BC last night and they did this. Yeah, primitive languages probably didn’t have a lot of complex words, but that doesn’t mean they have to make grammar mistakes. It just makes it seem like English wasn’t their primary language. (Of course the English language isn’t that old anyway, but it was their language in the movie.)
I believe all cavemen ( Yes, even the foreign ones!) actually spoke with Scottish accents!
I haven’t seen the movie, but maybe the idea is just that a primitive language wouldn’t have much in the way of grammar. If you don’t have pronouns, articles, different tenses or moods, and such, “Og smash rock” is the way you’d talk.
It’s odd to think of it as “poor grammar/English skills”, as though they’re trying to speak a modern variety of English but failing; clearly, in their own hypothetical language, “Og smash rock” is perfectly grammatical. Though that fictional-caveman-English should function like that is odd in itself, but others have addressed that point. Anyway, seems to me one might as well translate it all over into modern standard English, given that they’re hardly going around using words like “smash” and “rock” in the first place.
What’s also a little funny is the assumption that cavemen would have names like “Og”. Why “Og”?
I believe that general consensus among linguists is that in 10,000 B.C. spoken human language was just about as complex as modern human language. Since there was no written human language, people then might have not used some of the very complex sentence forms that you hardly ever hear anyway in modern languages, although they occur occasionally in written language for experienced writers. Spoken language for most people in 10,000 B.C. was just as complex in grammar as it is for most people now.
Monosyllables appear to be a popular presumption.