Fred-Rick
2 min readJun 16, 2024

--

I like that when all human words are counted for in numbers, then a certain outcome is found. Words like 'a' and 'the' are found early on with very high counts, whereas specialist words have far fewer counts overall.

The slant of these words reappeared when the different sounds an animal species can make were recorded in their numbers. If I remember correctly, a good number of animals had the same slant in sound numbers as humans have in word numbers.

I like that. It tells me animals are also communicating in a sophisticated manner, perhaps simpler but still as if they are using language. It will be all about their environment, not much about anything else though we cannot know for certain.

--

Humans used to be animals.

The word 'milk' has been found in many cultures with meanings such as to suckle, breast, female, sister, etcetera.

I can see in that word the movement of milk in the mouth of a baby.

With the M, the baby closes its mouth around the mother's nipple.

With the L, the baby moves the milk from front to back of the mouth.

With the K, the mouth closes off the throat.

So, a baby dry mimicking suckling could produce the sounds mlk, mlk, mlk, mlk, mlk.

The mother would hear the sounds and understands what the baby wants. Later on, the mother uses the word to communicate with others.

The level of communication would have been sparse, for instance, certain sounds for certain situations (animal threat, for instance) and not much else. Yet the word sounding like 'milk' would have entered the limited vocabulary as something tender, something to cherish. It would be a word that would be remembered.

--

--

Fred-Rick
Fred-Rick

Responses (2)