proto-proto-proto...
Jonathan Lighter
wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
Tue May 7 19:51:28 UTC 2013
Occam's principle, as I have learned more than once, is a probability and a
method, not a guarantee.
JL
On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 3:10 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject: Re: proto-proto-proto...
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
More information about the Ads-l
mailing list