Newsgroups: sci.lang
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From: petrich@netcom.com (Loren Petrich)
Subject: Re: Word order evolution (speech origin)
Message-ID: <petrichDx2znB.6vI@netcom.com>
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <4vv851$evi@server-b.cs.interbusiness.it> <seagoat.524.03179CC1@primenet.com> <rte-3008961156350001@135.25.40.118> <seagoat.529.023A24F6@primenet.com>
Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1996 01:18:47 GMT
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Sender: petrich@netcom19.netcom.com

In article <seagoat.529.023A24F6@primenet.com>,
John A. Halloran <seagoat@primenet.com> wrote:
>In article <rte-3008961156350001@135.25.40.118> rte@elmo.lz.att.com (Ralph T. Edwards) writes:

... Are you suggesting language evolved independently everywhere? 
>>Sounds unlikely.

>The evidence is in the vocabulary of the Sumerian language.  A lexicon of 
>the 1,119 known logograms of Sumerian can be found at:
>http://www.primenet.com/~seagoat/sumerian/sumerian.htm

>There is also an article there analyzing how the vocabulary evolved.

>I believe that the concept of language spread together with the spread of 
>other cultural practices which ultimately had their origin in the ancient Near 
>East. ...

	This hypothesis does not explain how (say) the Americas got 
language, since those continents are rather far away from the Fertile 
Crescent.

>The widespread groups of humanity do not all speak related languages.  The 
>concept of spoken language appears to have spread in the same way as did the 
>concept of written language.  The peoples of Egypt and the Indus Valley 
>invented different writing systems after having been exposed to the concept of 
>the Sumerian writing system.  This happened around 3,000 B.C.  Five thousand 
>years earlier, the concept of speech appears to have diffused out of the 
>ancient Near East.

	Pure crackpottery. 

	There is reason to believe that our species is hardwired to 
produce and use spoken language; there are specialized brain areas for 
various linguistic tasks, and children have the ability to pick up their 
elders' language without *any* formal instruction. Studies of pidgins and 
creoles indicates that people have the ability to invent various language 
structures.

	However, this genetic hardwiring does not seem to extend to a 
host of linguistic features, such as word order and exactly which sounds 
are used for what concepts; I note that to indicate that one must avoid 
crude genetic determinism.

	Even so, if our ancestors have evolved some adaptations that help 
them use language, then if there had been some language-less human 
society, language must have been lost somewhere long the way, which seems 
to me very improbable.
-- 
Loren Petrich				Happiness is a fast Macintosh
petrich@netcom.com			And a fast train
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