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In this second paper, analysing archival SE-Australian Aboriginal word/name lists, Snell's Law is used to deduce the likely minimal sound-systems of pre Ice-Age language superfamilies – some probably dating back beyond the first occupation of Australia by humans. The deduced ‘Turuwal-like’ ancestral sound-system is then used as a basis for reconstructing deictic forms apparently so ancient that they seem to even unify ‘PamaNyungan’ and ‘non-PamaNyungan’ language within a single system of formal logic which, having apparently provided the semantic basis for at least 60,000 years of speech throughout the entire Australian continent, deserves to be called proto-Australian regardless of whether or not it arose in SE-Asia tens of millennia before. Whatever the exact age of this reconstructed proto-Australian, presented here for the first time, it is an order of magnitude older than any known human language and, as such, a ‘Rosetta Stone’ for human languages worldwide. It also provides an unprecedented window into human consciousness and perception of the world up to 75,000 years ago, which is especially significant given that humans can only have engaged in finely controlled speech and fully modern language since chance mutation of our FOXP2 gene about 120,000 years ago. These truly ancient deictic forms dating halfway back to the beginning of modern human speech, retrieved only through modern statistical analysis, provide insight into our very origins and as such are perhaps amongst the most precious cultural treasures that humanity currently possesses.1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Not all of the variance in speech-recognition performance of cochlear implant (CI) users can be explained by biographic and auditory factors. In normal-hearing listeners, linguistic and cognitive factors determine most of speech-in-noise performance. The current study explored specifically the influence of visually measured lexical-access ability compared with other cognitive factors on speech recognition of 24 postlingually deafened CI users. Speech-recognition performance was measured with monosyllables in quiet (consonant-vowel-consonant [CVC]), sentences-in-noise (SIN), and digit-triplets in noise (DIN). In addition to a composite variable of lexical-access ability (LA), measured with a lexical-decision test (LDT) and word-naming task, vocabulary size, working-memory capacity (Reading Span test [RSpan]), and a visual analogue of the SIN test (text reception threshold test) were measured. The DIN test was used to correct for auditory factors in SIN thresholds by taking the difference between SIN and DIN: SRT diff . Correlation analyses revealed that duration of hearing loss (dHL) was related to SIN thresholds. Better working-memory capacity was related to SIN and SRT diff scores. LDT reaction time was positively correlated with SRT diff scores. No significant relationships were found for CVC or DIN scores with the predictor variables. Regression analyses showed that together with dHL, RSpan explained 55% of the variance in SIN thresholds. When controlling for auditory performance, LA, LDT, and RSpan separately explained, together with dHL, respectively 37%, 36%, and 46% of the variance in SRT diff outcome. The results suggest that poor verbal working-memory capacity and to a lesser extent poor lexical-access ability limit speech-recognition ability in listeners with a CI.