Newsgroups: sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!news.mathworks.com!news.duke.edu!news-feed-1.peachnet.edu!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!swrinde!sgiblab!sgigate.sgi.com!enews.sgi.com!decwrl!netcomsv!netcom.com!smryan
From: smryan@netcom.com (S M Ryan)
Subject: Re: More Proto-World
Message-ID: <smryanCy70A3.5tp@netcom.com>
Organization: Dawn Patrol on the Internet
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL1]
References: <37pqr1$ffn@tardis.trl.OZ.AU> <37q421$b6a@news.asu.edu> <ONEIL.94Oct24011108@fas.harvard.edu>
Date: Mon, 24 Oct 1994 19:46:50 GMT
Lines: 36

: of origin of H. Sapiens^2, then we'd have the date of the origin of
: language.  However, I don't understand why this is necessarily the
: case.  Why couldn't the capacity for language (in the modern sense)
: have existed in separate places first?  After that, language in the
: modern sense could spring up in multiple places independently--and
: thereby eliminating any chance, even in principle, of
: reconstruction. After all, it's not likely that we went from Koko to

Modern human language could not predate our species: the anatomy of
the bones in the throat and mouth are wrong, and the language centers
did not exist in the brain: the skull was the different shape and the
imprint of the brain on the skull was different.

However, unless you want to assume divine intervention, there must 
have existed some level of language and selective pressures in favour
of increasing it. 

For example, some animal raise themselves as high as possible to
eat the leaves of trees. Given that behaviour and the occaisional
mutation to lengthen the neck and forelegs, you get giraffes. Grazers
don't look like that because their behaviour would not favour such
mutations.

Would've modern langauge have sprung up in multiple places? That really
depends on where the genes and behaviour were. It's possible our DNA is 
identical to H Erectus, but with different sections turned off or on. In 
that case the genes could have been turned on in different places. Or 
perhaps all crucial mutations were concentrated in or occurred in one
small group, and once established there, the genes spread out far and
wide.

-- 
 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __________________________________
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | smryan@netcom.com	PO Box 1563
| | | | | | |G|A|T|E| |1| | | | | | | | |             Cupertino, California
|Electricians use gate 2| | | | | | | | |_(xxx)xxx-xxxx_______________95013
|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|____(coming soon: a new signature)
