PIE vs. Proto-World (Proto-Language)

Rick Mc Callister rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu
Mon Jul 19 21:27:49 UTC 1999


	You raise the questions of what is relationship and what is the
difference between language and speech.
	All languages are related in the same sense that all humans are
related. All humans settled on oral speech rather than sign language or
flatulence for communication. Given that all human brains are wired for
speech in the same way, this suggests that there is a degree of
relationship.
	The question is whether the time span between speech and language
allowed languages to develop separately or whether quickly developed from
that single event.
	I don't think this question can be answered in absolute terms but
it may possibly be answered in practical terms. Given that modern humans
left Africa about 100,000 years ago, there is a good chance that all of
these are ultimately related. This presupposes that language had developed
before humans left Africa. DNA studies obtensibly show that non-African
humans seem to go back a single population distinct from Africans. While
one cannot prove that the members of this group spoke related languages,
it's more likely than not. If one establishes that non-African languages
are related, only Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Kordofanian, Khoisan languages [and
possibly Afro-Asiatic] are left.
	The next step is to prove this, and I'll leave that all of you :>

[snip]

>And the same goes for "Proto-World", or whatever.  Until a persuasive
>case has been made that *all* of the world's 6000 or so known languages
>are genuinely related, there is no point in attempting a
>"reconstruction" of "Proto-World".  The result of such a rash attempt
>can be no more than legerdemain.  Of course you can show that this, that
>and the other *might* have a common ancestor, but you can do this in
>countless entirely different ways, none of them superior to any other,
>and you cannot show that these things really *are* related.

>Larry Trask

[ moderator snip ]

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701



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