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From: petrich@netcom.com (Loren Petrich)
Subject: Re: Reposts: Sumerian
Message-ID: <petrichDy0ErL.G8v@netcom.com>
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References: <5184eg$p8a@halley.pi.net> <seagoat.563.00161FDD@primenet.com> <rte-1809961743100001@135.25.40.118> <seagoat.565.01FA9ECB@primenet.com>
Date: Fri, 20 Sep 1996 02:26:09 GMT
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In article <seagoat.565.01FA9ECB@primenet.com>,
John A. Halloran <seagoat@primenet.com> wrote:

>Is this a description of how a community goes from nonspeaking to speaking?  
>What kind of words would have to be in the vocabulary of the first generation 
>of speakers? ...

	Why not study simian vocalizations some time? And check on what 
their various sounds mean to them.

... Would the first vocabulary have to include words for the 
>most important things? ...
[similar rhetorical questions deleted...]

	This argument reminds me of an advocate of Erich von Da"niken's 
ancient-astronaut theories that I once had confronted. "Could there be 
life on other planets?" "Could they have invented spaceships?" "Could 
they have visited Earth?" "Could they have done some genetic engineering 
here?" -- you get the picture of a string of rhetorical questions.	

>In Sumerian, there is a direct correlation between the phonetic structure of 
>its words and how important/peripheral are the concepts being described. 

	I believe that to be a non sequitur. Look at the distribution of 
word lengths in this posting, and the short words tend to be very basic ones.

>  The best evidence for an origin of
>>language in remote prehistory is that all communities of humans, some of
>>which have been isolated from others for 10s of millenia, use language
>>with roughly equal facility.

>I would argue that humans are equally intelligent.  This explains your 
>observation.

	Ignoring brain specializations for language, not to mention our 
specialized lowness of larynx.
-- 
Loren Petrich				Happiness is a fast Macintosh
petrich@netcom.com			And a fast train
My home page: http://www.webcom.com/petrich/home.html
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