<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" align="center">=====================================================<br>
L O W L A N D S - L - 15 April 2011 - Volume 05<br>
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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From:
<span class="gd"><span style="color:#790619">Marcus Buck</span></span><span class="gi"> </span><span class="go"><<a href="mailto:list@marcusbuck.org">list@marcusbuck.org</a>></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject:<span class="gi"> LL-L "History" 2011.04.14 (04) [EN]</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;">From: R. F. Hahn <<a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com" target="_blank"><span style="color:navy">sassisch@yahoo.com</span></a>> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;">Subject:
History</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;"> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;">Dear
Lowlanders,</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;"> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;">Someone
posted a link to an article on my Facebook page that I am sure many of you will
find interesting. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;"> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;"><a href="http://tinyurl.com/3fbbvxb" target="_blank"><span style="color:navy">http://tinyurl.com/3fbbvxb</span></a></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;"> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;">It asserts
that recent findings point toward there having been one proto language, i.e.
one ancestor of all of today’s languages.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">I don't know about
Atkinson's research, I haven't read it (is it available online somewhere?). But
the Wall Street Journal article is not very scientifically trustworthy. Look at
the map. Seems pretty impressive: !Xu in Africa with 141 phonemes and the farer
away from Africa the fewer phonemes til Piraha
with just 11 phonemes. This map is pure nonsense. The picked six languages to
illustrate their point. I could pick six other languages and the map would
indicate the exact opposite.<br>
<br>
The World Atlas of Language Structures (<a href="http://wals.info/" target="_blank"><http://wals.info/></a>) collects information on
languages and puts them into maps. They also have maps on consonant inventory
size and vowel inventory size. You can find languages with large inventories in
any part of the world and you can also find languages with small inventories in
any part of the world.<br>
<br>
And what Atkinson found, as the article tells later, was not a steady gradient,
but just a weak gradient in the average inventory size. The whole Pacific for
example was settled by members of a single language group. If the Polynesian proto-language
had a small phoneme inventory it's descendants obviously are also inclined to
have a below-average phoneme inventory. Most of Africa
is Niger-Congo. If Proto-Niger-Congo had a large phoneme inventory it's
descendants are inclined to have a above-average phoneme inventory. I would
guess that it's extremely hard to statistically eliminate the influence of big
language families.<br>
<br>
Perhaps Atkinson took measures to get a statistically siginificant result from
the data. Without a link to the actual research the WSJ article leaves us in
the dark.<br>
<br>
Marcus Buck</p>
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<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">----------</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From:
<span class="gd"><span style="color:#5B1094">Isaac M. Davis</span></span><span class="gi"> </span><span class="go"><<a href="mailto:isaacmacdonalddavis@gmail.com">isaacmacdonalddavis@gmail.com</a>></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject:<span class="gi"> LL-L "Language history" 2011.04.15 (03) [EN]</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Hello all,</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Paul
Finlow-Bates wrote, in response to Ron:</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;">Ruehlen and
Greenberg have been postulating this for years, with a classification system
that ultimately unites all the world language groups.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;"> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;">I can't see
why a single proto language should be "fringe science". Unless
you believe that different languages were created independently, Tower of Babel fashion, I can't envisage any
mechanism of language evolution that <em>doesn't</em>
involve a single proto-language. The alternative seems to me not just
fringe science, but no science at all. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;"> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;">However,
whether we can actually determine the family tree, and even reconstruct parts
of that language (as Ruehlen and Greenberg claim) is another question.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">I am a layperson at the
moment, and certainly have no data to back up my opinions, but I've long
thought that it would be possible for language ability to develop without there
being one ancestral language. Language is at its roots a system of symbols, and
although it's helpful to share your set of symbols with others, people outside
your immediate family group, it also contributes to group cohesion to have your
own set of symbols that aren't shared. If the human race began as several
related tribal groups, say in the Rift Valley, then there would never have been
any 'political' situation, as it were, that would have caused them to speak the
same language, rather than sharing some words (but not all) with the groups
more closely related to you and having next to no vocabulary in common with
groups that are on the other end of the valley, even as all groups were
developing more complex language skills. The primary function of language, in a
situation like that, is in-group communication, not communication with other
groups.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">If there were a Proto-World
language, on the other hand, I tend to think that it would be
next-to-impossible to reconstruct, regardless of what Greenberg (I'm not
familiar with Ruehlen) would have you believe.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Best,</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Isaac M. Davis</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(136, 136, 136);">-- <br>
<br>
"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master."<br>
—Abraham Lincoln</span></p>
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