HMS Senior Member England Joined 5108 days ago 143 posts - 256 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 1 of 77 15 April 2011 at 8:55pm | IP Logged |
I thought a few of you would find this article interesting. It states that every human language is descended from a single prehistoric African mother tongue, and that the further away from Africa a language is, the fewer phonemes it has.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1377150/Every -language-evolved-single-prehistoric-mother-tongue-spoken-Af rica.html
Edited by HMS on 15 April 2011 at 8:55pm
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Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5767 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin
| Message 2 of 77 15 April 2011 at 9:27pm | IP Logged |
Tree model anyone?
I do wish to read the original paper.
Edited by Bao on 15 April 2011 at 9:27pm
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Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5382 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian
| Message 3 of 77 15 April 2011 at 9:28pm | IP Logged |
Back when I was in university, I almost chose monogenesis as a topic of study, but at the time, we had much less data available about the evolution and migration of humans, so it would have been much harder to demonstrate that language hadn't developed in various pockets after migration out of Africa.
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JW Hexaglot Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/egw Joined 6123 days ago 1802 posts - 2011 votes 22 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Luxembourgish, Dutch, Greek, Italian
| Message 4 of 77 15 April 2011 at 11:45pm | IP Logged |
Take a look at the top right of the forum banner to see the time and place of the origin of languages from a single tongue. There was no evolution, it took place in a moment of time:
ו ויאמר יהוה הן עם אחד ושפה אחת לכלם וזה החלם לעשות ועתה לא יבצר מהם כל אשר יזמו לעשות
ז הבה נרדה ונבלה שם שפתם--אשר לא ישמעו איש שפת רעהו
ח ויפץ יהוה אתם משם על פני כל הארץ ויחדלו לבנת העיר
ט על כן קרא שמה בבל כי שם בלל יהוה שפת כל הארץ ומשם הפיצם יהוה על פני כל הארץ
בראשית 11
6 And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.
7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech
8 So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.
9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth.
Genesis 11
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lingoleng Senior Member Germany Joined 5299 days ago 605 posts - 1290 votes
| Message 5 of 77 16 April 2011 at 12:03am | IP Logged |
JW wrote:
... There was no evolution, it took place in a moment of time ...
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Do you ever wonder why you are the only member who keeps doing this kind of bible bombardment?
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JW Hexaglot Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/egw Joined 6123 days ago 1802 posts - 2011 votes 22 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Luxembourgish, Dutch, Greek, Italian
| Message 6 of 77 16 April 2011 at 12:39am | IP Logged |
lingoleng wrote:
JW wrote:
... There was no evolution, it took place in a moment of time ...
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Do you ever wonder why you are the only member who keeps doing this kind of bible bombardment? |
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I submit that my post was perfectly apropos to the original poster's thesis:
HMS wrote:
It states that every human language is descended from a single prehistoric African mother tongue |
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I partially agree with this statement in that I believe that every human language is indeed descended from a single mother tongue. The quote from Genesis 11 supports this.
However, I disagree that the language was "prehistoric." I believe it occurred extemporaneously in approximately 2300 BC. I also disagree that it was an African language, rather I believe it was a Semitic language.
Additionally, since the forum banner contains a depiction of the Bible passage I quoted, certainly the citation should be interesting to forum members.
Edited by JW on 16 April 2011 at 12:40am
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Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5382 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian
| Message 7 of 77 16 April 2011 at 1:05am | IP Logged |
JW wrote:
I believe it occurred extemporaneously in approximately 2300 BC. I also
disagree that it was an African language, rather I believe it was a Semitic language.
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Why?
JW wrote:
Additionally, since the forum banner contains a depiction of the Bible passage
I quoted, certainly the citation should be interesting to forum members. |
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I think that image was put there to inform members that this site is about discerning
myth from fact in language learning.
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JW Hexaglot Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/egw Joined 6123 days ago 1802 posts - 2011 votes 22 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Luxembourgish, Dutch, Greek, Italian
| Message 8 of 77 16 April 2011 at 1:31am | IP Logged |
Arekkusu wrote:
JW wrote:
I believe it occurred extemporaneously in approximately 2300 BC. I also
disagree that it was an African language, rather I believe it was a Semitic language.
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Why? |
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Because this is the date for Genesis 11 given in Ussher's Chronology:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussher_chronology
and I generally think he did an excellent job in his chronological calculations (although he, of course, is not infallible).
As far as the original language being Semitic. I believe that man originated in the Tigris-Euphrates valley, which, given its location, would tend to indicate the original language was Semitic.
Arekkusu wrote:
I think that image was put there to inform members that this site is about discerning myth from fact in language learning. |
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Why do you think this?
Edited by JW on 16 April 2011 at 1:39am
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