Newsgroups: sci.lang
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From: hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu (H. M. Hubey)
Subject: Re: primitive language
Message-ID: <hubey.788123363@pegasus.montclair.edu>
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Date: Thu, 22 Dec 1994 19:09:23 GMT
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mounce@u.washington.edu (Doug Mounce) writes:

>I have heard that there is currently no such thing as a primitive language
>for homo sapien.  At the same time, sociobiologists promote the idea of a
>natural and gradual selection process whereby language developed in crude
>steps toward what we have today.  Why aren't examples of that crude,
>primitive language still around?  The linguists state that all humans have
>the software to use language, regardless of its form, in the same
>sophistication.  Do the linguists support a gradual evolutionary process
>that would include primitive language language development? 

It seems to oscillate like other fashions. Probably in order the correct
the extreme view of the 19th century that languages (like people)
were superior and inferior, the idea that all languages are equal
was promoted, "equal" in a sense that whatever you can say in one
language you can really say in another.

There seems to be more serious thinking about the topic these days since
ideas like complexity theory and formal language theory have made
their impact.

--
						-- Mark---
....we must realize that the infinite in the sense of an infinite totality, 
where we still find it used in deductive methods, is an illusion. Hilbert,1925
