Clicks

[Ronald Kephart]

At 9:51 AM -0500 3/28/06, Eve Danziger wrote:

>Well, since you ask for more, isn't it also true that the prevailing 
>linguistic view of the use of clicks in non-San African  languages 
>is that these are in fact due to contact with San speakers? So 
>nothing to do with DNA in that case, ancient or otherwise.

I think I've seen that also. By the way, I don't (necessarily) read 
into Shreeve's statement any notion that San DNA codes for click 
consonants; my charitable reading is that since San DNA appears to 
reflect a long-lasting lineage, an unusual (from a non-San 
perspective) feature such as clicks are also long-lasting remnants of 
the language spoken earlier in the lineage's history. It just seems 
to me that their rarity could just as easily reflect a fairly recent 
innovation.

>And just in case this comes up in the letitor (?)...

I'm sorry; this is a blend that a colleague and I use for letter to 
the editor... letitor. Do others use this (I just assumed it was 
something already out there)?

>...when migrating popluations are not representative of the range of 
>genetic diversity in the original stay-at-home population, I believe 
>it's called "founder's effect", not genetic drift.

Right, founder effect is a special case of genetic drift. Thanks.

Ron