LL-L "Language history" 2011.04.16 (01) [EN]

Sat Apr 16 21:01:12 UTC 2011

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L O W L A N D S - L - 16 April 2011 - Volume 01
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From: Mark and Ruth Dreyer <mrdreyer at lantic.net>

Subject: LL-L "Language history" 2011.04.15 (05) [EN]

Dear Ron & All:

Subject: LL-L "Language History"

Someone posted a link to an article on my Facebook page that I am sure many
of you will find interesting.

http://tinyurl.com/3fbbvxb

It asserts that recent findings point toward there having been one proto
language, i.e. one ancestor of all of today’s languages.

Mark here:

I Also don't don't know about Atkinson's research, but I have some
objections to share with the rest of us

To start with language maps: In isolation they are a pointless guide to
history because people move around; & to add insult they can also change
languages. For example the Damara of Namibia are an isolated strain of Negro
with a vast sub-continent of Bantu between them & their blood-kin in West
Africa. Worse than this, they have abandoned their initial tongue & adopted
that of their conquerers, Nama - a Khoikhoi language. This is not a peculiar
event. I can bore you to tears with a litany of examples from early
classical times to the present. Extrapolating from such phenomena as this
starting in the Dawn of Humankind makes a mockery of any pretention to
continuity, progression or for that matter usable data.

By the way, what is 'fringe science'? This seems to be to be a kindly
circumlocution on a par with 'reasonable concensus' & 'moderately pregnant'.
I would however defer to an argument that it is *good* or *bad* science.

I do not hold with Ruehlen and Greenberg, or any other advocates of a single
proto-language, for a reason that ties in with a previous string on
idioglossia - twin-language. But let me open with a point that humankind,
like all other animals, necessarily underwent a process of biological
evolution right up until the advent of culture - since when adaptation has
been cultural, almost across the board, thus subverting any intervention of
Nature.

It must have been among the very last devations from the biological norm, as
between ramapithecenes, that one strain of which deviated in a
*cerebral*stucture allowing for articulated communication. It must
have bounced around
in latency for generations before anything was actually done with it.

Old Darwinists clumsily called this sort of thing 'pre-adaptation'. In point
of fact the mechanism is simply random deviation. Nature allows this within
limits. Deviation is not significant as away from the norm, as much as
between extremes, & the extremes are policed by limited fertility, access to
fertile mates, & ultimately extinction. However between the extremes Nature
allows a lot; consider the number of benign mutations that occur in Nature
(consider particularly the North American chimney swift). A whole lot of
presently unnecessary capacity is knocking around in every creature's
genetic code, just waiting to be found useful.

But we know all surviving anthropoid apes call out to attract attention, &
to a significant degree to indicate intent. They are also intelligent & to a
high degree cultural. I would expect the natural talent for articulate
language to kick in spontaneously in isolation among a number of
 communities as to this very day, the same phenomenon is manifest
spontaneously in isolation among a number of twins.

Bluntly put, it is not necessary for language to have a single founadation.
Idioglossia don't.

Moreover: Idioglossia aren't mutually intelligable, so actual structure is
not hard-wired into the talent. Furthermore, they are not deviations from
the language heard by speakers around them, though many may borrow, so they
do not have to follow from a prior cultural impulse. These two
considerations define the parameters of human language; not, in my opinion,
merely idioglossia but all our languages.

By the way, it didn't seem to me the kids in that video were actually
communicating verbally, but they had the wit to pretend to, as between
themselves, while actually going by gesture & expression. I am informed that
kids can sign meaningfully long before they are able to speak. Sandy, what
do you say - about this last?

Yrs,

Mark

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From: Sandy Fleming <fleemin at live.co.uk>

Subject: LL-L "Language history" 2011.04.15 (09) [EN]

> From: Paul Finlow-Bates <wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk>

> Subject: LL-L "Language history" 2011.04.15 (05) [EN]

> The human race couldn't emerge from several related tribal groups if there
was no communication. We would have to be descended from one or other of
them, and speak a descendent of one their languages.  Or, if they are
related, they must have a common ancestor - and a common ancestral language
even if it subsequently diverged.

Theory aside, there is a problem with investigating an actual protolanguage.

The Toba event, about 70,000 years ago, eliminated all but several thousand
of the human race.

So either, the survivors spoke different languages and any protolanguage
which these may have been derived from can't really be investigated, since
we have to assume that many other branches of the protolanguage were
irretrievably lost; or, the survivors spoke one language and our
investigations will make this seem to be the protolanguage even if it isn't.

In short, even if a protolanguage can be constructed and it can be
demonstrated that all known languages derived from it, it doesn't mean it
was the first human language spoken.

And I didn't even start on sign languages!

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

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