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Origin of every human language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Lucky Charms Diglot Senior Member Japan lapacifica.net Joined 6950 days ago 752 posts - 1711 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: German, Spanish | Message 17 of 77 16 April 2011 at 4:55am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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It's interesting to find that their might be a corellation between a language's distance
from Africa and the number of phonemes it has (though I'd like to see the original research as well), but I don't see how this would prove that sub-Saharan African languages have been around longer. After all, it seems to me that the phonemes and other areas of language simplify over time just as often as they get more complex (see, for example, Sanskrit vs. modern-day Indo-Aryan languages). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5321 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 18 of 77 16 April 2011 at 8:23am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Religion and science usually don't mix well, and many archeology scholars have long questioned the historical accuracy of the bible. In particular, Finkelstein's and Silberman's book The Bible Unearthed comes to mind. As the feedback to Lingoleng's post in this thread shows, you may want to restrict quoting scripture to posts discussing bible translations and related topics. For those interested in language development, I can definitely recommend John McWhorter's very well written book The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| ChiaBrain Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5809 days ago 402 posts - 512 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish* Studies: Portuguese, Italian, French Studies: German | Message 19 of 77 16 April 2011 at 8:28am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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By his noodley appendage, the flying spaghetti monster created them all.
It says so in this book: http://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Flying-Spaghetti-Monster/dp/081 2976568 Edited by ChiaBrain on 16 April 2011 at 8:29am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Keilan Senior Member Canada Joined 5087 days ago 125 posts - 241 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 20 of 77 16 April 2011 at 9:11am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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JW, I must ask exactly what you mean by their being no language evolution. Do you believe every language currently existing showed up at the Tower of Babel? If so, how would you explain the obvious historical relationships between languages (i.e. the Indoeuropean family)?
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 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 21 of 77 16 April 2011 at 12:42pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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JW is of course entitled to believe that the whole gamut of languages appeared in a flash within historical times, as long as he states that belief in a civil tone. And just about everybody else here is entitled to think that there are ample evidence to the countrary. I don't see any point in continuing that discussion.
As for the idea that languages develop it is a simple well-attested fact. In many cases we can follow those developments in detail through written sources (including written sources predating the invention of ziggurats). But it is also a well-attested fact that most of the languages on this planet haven't got a written history going back for thousands of years, and that makes it problematic to think that we ever will be able to form a reasonably credible model for the common ancestor for the languages that exist today. Even the study of *Proto-Indoeuropean is a battlefield, in spite of the fact that we have attested language forms that are op to 4000 years old (the earliest traces of Ancient Assyrian) plus a fair number of texts from 3500 years ago (Mycenean Greek, Hittite and the language of the Rigveda). Attempting anything the includes Proto-Indoeuropean in older families is at best speculative. One main problem is that the classical tree diagram model that lies behind the very idea of a common ancestor isn't covering everything about language development. It has to be supplemented by a wawe model for phonetics, vocabuloary and even grammar - just look at the Balkan languages to find evidence for this. So instead of having one welldefinded (though lost) ancestor we might be facing a bundle of related proto-languages. It is certainly worth noting that click languages are limited to Africa, but it could just as well be due to a special development in some African proto-click-language, which spread over the the continent after the exodus of 'mitochondrial Eve" and her tribe - there is simply no proof that their ancestors had clicks in their language. In my opinion it is simply a waste of time to speculate about any specifics of the oldest common ancestor for the contemporary spree of languages. We simply don't have the necessary facts. Edited by Iversen on 16 April 2011 at 12:54pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| 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 22 of 77 16 April 2011 at 12:55pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
No, I would say that the confusion of languages that occurred at the Tower of Babel not only resulted in an immediate creation of a multitude of languages where there previously was only one, but also that this confusion additionally created an on-going process of language confusion, i.e., evolution and development, that was not extant prior to the confusion at the tower of Babel.
A word of caution about "scholars." Anyone who is familiar with academia knows what kind of absurd nonsense many so-called "scholars" come up with. The Bible actually has some pithy commentary on these types of people: φάσκοντες εἶναι σοφοὶ ἐμωράνθησαν Professing to be wise, they became fools, Romans 1:22 πάντοτε μανθάνοντα καὶ μηδέποτε εἰς ἐπίγνωσιν ἀληθείας ἐλθεῖν δυνάμενα. always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth 2 Tim 3:7 ויתר מהמה בני הזהר עשות ספרים הרבה אין קץ ולהג הרבה יגעת בשר׃ But beyond this, my son, be warned: the writing of many books is endless, and excessive devotion to books is wearying to the body Eccl 12:12
Now you have peaked my interest to set aside some time and read the article in full today :) Edited by JW on 16 April 2011 at 1:00pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| 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 23 of 77 16 April 2011 at 3:27pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Many a scholar would express similar caution before religion. 12 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| 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 24 of 77 16 April 2011 at 4:31pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
And I would agree. This is actually a good comparison. Many people have made "scholars" the priests of a secular religion and blindly take their dictums as gospel. A scholar is simply someone who takes primary source data, interprets and analyzes them, and produces secondary sources (textbooks, magazine articles, histories, criticisms, commentaries, etc.). In so doing, many such scholars bring their own worldview, bias, opinions, beliefs, etc., into the process. Many of them have an agenda, an axe to grind, and/or are on a mission to prove a particular point and misuse the primary source data accordingly. Academia actually encourages this, as to come out with something novel and controversial, is seen as desirable. Thus, caution must be exercised. To accept the veracity of secondary sources, without being familar with the primary source data, is a very dangerous game. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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