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From: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Misc Language
Message-ID: <479@psivax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 31-May-85 16:45:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: psivax.479
Posted: Fri May 31 16:45:26 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 2-Jun-85 20:39:56 EDT
References: <1134@uwmacc.UUCP>
Reply-To: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Distribution: net
Organization: Pacesetter Systems Inc., Sylmar, CA
Lines: 70

In article <1134@uwmacc.UUCP> dubois@uwmacc.UUCP (Paul DuBois) writes:
>
>---
>>>       12.  If languages evolved, the earliest languages should be the
>>>            simplest.   On  the contrary, language studies reveal that
>>>            the more ancient the language  (for  example,  Latin,  200
>>>            B.C.; Greek, 800 B.C.; and Vedic Sanskrit, 1500 B. C., the
>>>	    more complex it is with respect to syntax, cases, genders,
>>>	    moods,  voices, tenses, and verb forms.  The best evidence
>>>	    indicates that languages DEvolve [a-c].
>
>> [Stanley Friesen]
>> 	The problem is these languages are only the oldest *attested*
>> languages, since writing was only invented about 1500 BC. Homo sapiens
>> is generally held to have been around at least half a million years,
>> thus these languages would have a *long* history of prior developement.
>> Furthermore, individual languages do not evelve in the *biological*
>> sense, they are all full expressions of the human capacity for language.
>
>(i)  Begs the question.
>(ii)  4000 BC, not 1500 BC.
>(iii)  They are indeed "full expressions of the human capacity for
>language", as you put it.  Don't you find it in the least suspicious
>that language should develop over such a long period of time and then
>just show up full blown with NO TRACE of prior development?
>
	You missed my main point, which is that languages *didn't*
show up full blown as you say, it is only *writing* that does so,
and even that shows some interesting predecessors in early
Mesopatamian accounting systems. *Language* has a long history
prior to the *invention* of writing. Just look at Australian
Aboriginal languages, which are full-blown languages, yet writing
has existed in Australia only since the European settlement!
	Admittedly my 1500 BC may have been inaccurate, but the
point is that the first real writing system only dates back to
the early cuneiform system of Mesopatamia.

>> Thus, this is irrelevant to evolutionary theory, since huamans are
>> not evolving *biologically* with respect to language ability.
>
>I notice that you were awfully silent before also.

	Mainly because this is the first time I have seen this
argument on the net. If it has been here before, I either missed
it during the period I was too busy to read this group, or it
was before I started reading the group.
>
>> Also, I think you will find that most linguists would disagree about
>> the existance of a general tendency for "devolution" in languages,
>> all your examples are from the restricted set called Indo-European
>> languages which share a common heritage, and thus do not form an
>> independant sample. A wider sample shows much less of a uniform
>> tendency.
>
>Ah!  Maybe so.  Can you give this more than a handwave so that we have
>a chance to believe you?
>---
	Well try reading Greenberg's symposium on linguistic universals
for a start, or try the 4 volume Stanford Press series on the same
subject. This is a *lot* of material and would be hard to summarize
other than the general statements I have already made. A common theme
through much of this work is the blind alley linguistics was led down
by relying too heavily on the Indo-European languages.

-- 

				Sarima (Stanley Friesen)

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