proto-proto-proto...

[Joel S. Berson]

At 5/7/2013 02:37 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>Way I see it, once ape-persons got the synapses to talk, they started
>talkin'. If they started when there was just a single band, language is
>ultimately monogenetic. Iffen they waited till they wuz split up like,
>polygenetic.
>
>Existin' language families, though...you'd figger they came late enuff that
>their *immediate* proto forms musta been one at a time, barrin' the
>cross-pollinatin' an' general interferin'.

OK, humans are mongenetic, according to the one revealed Truth.  (And
proven scientifically, as I think Kant argued, according to Occam's
principle -- polygenesis is more complicated, and the development of
human races can be explained -- or at least he could explain --
without it.)  But what do we learn from the Tower of
Babel?  Polygenesis of language(s)?

Joel

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