[Ads-l] "The root of all languages"

[Joel Berson]

Groan.

Joel

      From: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
 To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU 
 Sent: Tuesday, February 23, 2016 4:37 PM
 Subject: Re: [ADS-L] "The root of all languages"
   
> On Feb 23, 2016, at 3:42 PM, Joel Berson <berson at att.net> wrote:
> 
> Today's puzzling Boston Globe again -- 
> 
> 
> "Long ago, I spent some years in what now is Namibia, mostly in the Kalahari Desert. At the time, the Kalahari was virtually unexplored except by the people known as San, Bushmen, or Ju/wa hunter gatherers, now believed to have been the people from whom all of us descend. Their language is thought to be the root of all languages


Ah, it all clicks for me now.

LH

> , and they had lived there for 200,000 years. Archeologists were to find an encampment which had been occupied continuously for 35,000 years."
> 
> Online as "The story behind the book ‘Dreaming of Lions’", by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas.
> 
> The story behind the book ‘Dreaming of Lions’ - The Boston Globe
> 
> |  |
> |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
> | The story behind the book ‘Dreaming of Lions’ -...Elizabeth Marshall Thomas describes her fascination with lions, and what inspired her autobiography. |
> |  |
> | View on www.bostonglobe.com | Preview by Yahoo |
> |  |
> |  |
> 
> 
> 
> How true is the statement about the San language being "the root of all languages"?  I see there is a book Moran, Shane (2009). Representing Bushmen: South Africa and the Origin of Language; is that its thesis?
> 
> I won't ask about the assertion that the San are "now believed to have been the people from whom all of us descend", unless some anthropologist wishes to comment.
> 
> 
> Joel
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
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