PIE vs. Proto-World (Out of Africa)

[Rick Mc Callister]

[snip]

>If we extrapolate the degree of dissimilarity between IE languages after say
>9000 years (some would say 5500 years), how much dissimilarity would there be
>between languages separated by 10 or 20 times that time frame.  Should we
>expect any commonality at all?

	Maybe, maybe not. But that's no excuse for not looking. You may not
be able to get back to an ur-sprache but you would certainly make some
interesting discoveries. In fact, I'm sure that after Stefan gets back from
Siberia he's going to get together with Larry to formulate a
Basque-Yeniseian language family :>

>in terms of Glottochronology, what should we expect - when languages
>separated by a few thousand years can yield 'kaput', 'penn', 'sarah-' and
>'golova' for an item as basic as a head?

[snip]
>Some stuff re the science on this matter:

>1. Scientific American Aug 1999 p 13 "IS OUT OF AFRICA OUT THE DOOR?"
>summarizes the growing evidence that the premise is not in sync with the
>bones (especially in the Far East.)  Remember also that the original theory
>based on mtDNA backdating the African 'Eve" is now considered flawed and too
>recent - and that she was even then dated to 200,000BP -  so that language
>separations set at 100,000 might as well arbitrarily start back with her or
>her children.  Then, like an exodus out of New Guinea, we could have a 500
>languages leaving Africa at one time.

	It is true that the date for Eve has been questioned but remember
that all non-Africans (as well as some Africans) are in the same
mitochondrial pool. The point is that the mitochondrial separation date for
this group is still a determined fraction of the date for Eve.
	As I remember the multi-genesis theory is based on skull
similarities that are rejected by the overwhelming majority of
anthropologists.

>2. Scientific American March 1998 Review of Ian Tattersall's 'Evolution and
>Human uniqueness' summarizes some of the arguments that Neanderthals had
>language.  This would significantly backdate the appearance of human language
>by 100's of 1000's of years.

	True, but speech and language are two different things. The ability
to speak obviously does not presuppose modern language abilities. I don't
propose a date for language evolution.

>And there's nothing to say that modern humans
>could not have learned language from Neanderthals.

	I don't see how. There are no indications of an "out of Europe"
scenario. If you mean that modern humans inherited language from their
ancestors, this obviously presupposes monogenesis

>3. From an AP story (2/15/99) quoting a paper appearing in the same week in
>the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by a team at Berkeley
>challenging a Duke study positing Neanderthal speech capabilities based on
>the size of the hypoglossal canal (jaw nerves):

>"Researchers have long believed that the ability to make modern human speech
>sounds did not develop until about 40,000 years ago."  (This I believe
>revolved around the time of the appearance of Cro-Magnon.)

	Given that the Australians had already reached Australia about
60,000 BP, that date would seem to be very wrong

>Finally, I suspect the big problem here is in the use of the word "language".

	Agreed but I suspect that language was the key to modern human
expansion from Africa throughout the rest of the world.

[snip]

>Coming out of Africa, humans may have made common noises that were very
>effective signals within respective groups.  But did any of those "local"
>signaling systems equate to a "language system?"   And given the distance (in
>form or time) between *PIE and modern English, what would be the distance in
>time between *PIE and one of those simple signaling systems?

	If this scenario is true, it still presupposes monogenesis
[snip]

>The wonderful concept of "Zeit Geist" should not be forgotten here.  Unless
>monopolized - kept a secret or otherwise controlled - human capabilities tend
>to spread and create the medium for new capabilities.  Spoken language
>(unlike written language) is very hard to monopolize and easy to imitate.
>Once the capability arrived, languages may have been a product of the Zeit
>Geist.

	If you don't possess genetic language ability, you're not going to
be able to learn to speak by imitation.

[snip]

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701