Sociological Linguistics

[Tom Wier]

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Nik Taylor wrote:

> "Patrick C. Ryan" wrote:

>> unless, of course, you believe that God bestowed fully developed language
>> on Adam, which belief would disqualify you from any rational discussion of
>> the topic.

> Why should that disqualify a person from "any rational discussion"?
> Admittedly, it would make discussion a moot point, unless it were a
> theological discussion on what kind of language God would've created.

More to the point:  seeing as how Mr. Ryan, convinced though he
might be about the nature of early speech, has not yet provided any
constructive evidence about what this might be, it seems that he
is advocating something at least as rational as believing that God gave
Adam human language fully developed, since there is no positive
evidence for either*.  Unless you can come up with some good hard
soundlaws and provable cognates to show what Proto-World would
be like, then it seems a little silly even to continue discussion of the
matter.

*(Interestingly, the Bible might actually disagree with the idea
of language existing at the beginning fully formed, considering
Gen 2:19, where God brings all the animals before Adam to see what
he'd name them)

>> I have asserted that early language, for any non-believer, would have had
>> to have gone through a stage that was less expressive (more ambiguous) than
>> languages of which we currently have documented information.

> But, this is a moot
> point.  We cannot possibly reconstruct that far back.  Even Nostratic,
> if it is legitimate, would've been long past that point.

Mr. Ryan's belief, whether or not it is correct, essentially, in its logical
underpinnings, bears no qualitative difference from Aristotle's assertion that
heavier things fall faster than lighter things.  Aristotle's error was in not
testing his proposition, in not having any empirical evidence to back up what
his hypothesis claimed.  Until Mr. Ryan can provide scientific evidence as to
what the nature of Proto-World was like, his assertion will have as much
scientific validity.  (Again, this does not mean it's wrong; just that it's
pointless to discuss the matter without further investigation)

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Tom Wier <artabanos at mail.utexas.edu>
AIM: Deuterotom ICQ: 4315704
<http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
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