Seems like an unnecessarily small definition of language,
not really, I'm talking about human language specifically.
which is just another way of saying verbal communication.
NOPE, a lot of languages are signed, not verbal.
If your communicating your ideas and emotions your using language, and you have language, otherwise you couldn't be using it. You might have a small vocabulary and you might have a huge one but either way you still have language. Whether that language is native to you or not is irrelevant.
it's not about the ability to communicate at all. a cat might get food meowing constantly. another cat might get food by batting it's owner's face. or not, a cat might have a different problem and use the same method because they realize that's a way of getting their owners attention. what's at question here is are these primates cognisizing language the same way humans do, or did they just find a way to get food from their caretakers.
The idea that the need for interpretation somehow invalidates the communication as a language is just silly. All communication requires some interpretation on the part of everyone involved. And all of the interpretation is imprecise.
I never said interpretation invalidates any of this. what I'm saying is the need for the interpreter to tell us exactly what they're saying is a problem. if Koko was taught ASL it should follow that any ASL signer should be able to communicate with her through ASL.
Even among humans with the same native language, level of education and cultural background mis-interpretation of meaning is extremely common and the source of much of our interpersonal conflict. Never mind 2 or more people with differing levels of language precision or culture.
yes, there are things such as jargon, or dialect. but assuming we have two speakers of English, say one from America and one from India, it's reasonable to assume they can communicate using English without having to strain themselves. if they don't understand something the other does they can explain concepts to one another, like "in this part of America, we usually say package instead of parcel". this was literally me and a roommate I had a few years ago, we got along just fine.
The idea that suddenly I'm not really using language because the guy in the french restaurant when i'm on vacation has to try to interpret my meaning is a little ludicrous.
what? how exactly are you ordering that you feel I would interpret you're not using language?
The same way that my dog is definitely using his language however limited when he goes to the backdoor and whines to tell me he needs out. Thats his verbal communication. His vocab is definitely limited. Pretty much hungry, happy, angry and gotta piss. But he's quite proficient at making his thoughts and desires known with it.
is there a discernible difference whether or not he wants to go out to just walk or needs to pee? can you have a deep discussion about politics with your dog?
There are plenty of people who are also quite lacking in what they can communicate. I wouldnt say they dont have a language.
neither would I. this misses the point.
I mean you're apparently capable of understanding what others are saying and can reply in a way that shows you feel he is describing someone like you.
What about people with bad learning disabilities
how bad? afaik the only real barrier for a human to learn language is severe brain damage or underdevelopment. there's a lot of debate over whether or not the only time someone can really learn language is at a very young age. as you can imagine there's a lot of ethical issues with isolating a young child from any sort of linguistic communication. the only real examples we have are children who were abused and isolated at a very young age until they were in their teens, with almost no language input. they had difficulty learning language, but even then questions such as whether or not they were malnourished or if their trauma has affected their brain too severely makes that hard to figure.
the only cases we have that aren't outright abusive are kids with congenital deafness who grow up in a family that only uses spoken language, but iirc they are capable with learning how to sign at a later age, just maybe not as "articulate" as someone who learned how to sign at a very young age.