PIE vs. Proto-World (Proto-Language)

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

In a message dated 7/29/99 2:27:35 PM, you wrote:

<<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...>>

Not a given some of us accept.  But given common human physiology in general,
the fact that sound travels farther and faster than hand signals
and that the vocal cords and jaw are more controllable than other body parts
that make sounds - oral speech is by far the most practicable way to
communicate before the invention of the written word (which makes use of
another part of our body that has more sensitive controls.)

<<Given that modern humans left Africa about 100,000 years ago,...>>

There's the rub.  You'll need to backtime that a bit.  And whether
genetically endowed by a miraculous quirk of nature or invented by us
ourselves, a universal first language would have to go back far enough to
include ancestors of the Chinese - and that may be going back a ways.

Was one day a child born with pre-wired language to non-lingual parents and
did she/he essentially sit around talking to her/himself until a similar
sibling showed up and the first conversation happened?
Or was language invented in one place at one date and spread from there?   Or
did it arise as human communities and cultures reached the point where
assorted communal grunts, groans, clicks and fricatives became customary and
structured and were passed on for the immense practical value of
understandable communication.  If the latter, then language could well have
developed in different places at different times.

Regards,
Steve Long