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From: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Misc Language
Message-ID: <484@psivax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 31-May-85 20:49:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: psivax.484
Posted: Fri May 31 20:49:10 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 3-Jun-85 00:16:54 EDT
References: <1134@uwmacc.UUCP> <126@utastro.UUCP>
Reply-To: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Distribution: net
Organization: Pacesetter Systems Inc., Sylmar, CA
Lines: 32

In article <126@utastro.UUCP> ethan@utastro.UUCP (Ethan Vishniac) writes:
>
>Third (oops, well make that three comments) there may be some arbitrary
>element in drawing the boundary between homo sapiens and erectus but
>500,000 years sounds a bit long to me.  Of course, we know homo erectus
>made tools, he may have also language.
>
	Actually, half-million years bit was only a rough
aproximation of the timing deduced by antropologists, and
it was fairly close to the correct value as of the last time I
really looked. However the dividing line is not altogether arbitrary,
it is based on some rather important morphological differences.
In fact there is one set of differences that is of particular
importance to this discussion. Analysis of the layngeal anatomy
of Homo erectus and comparison of it to modern forms shows that
they were physically incapable of the rich, vowel-oriented vocalization
so important to speech in Homo sapiens! In short, they could not
make as many different syllables as H. sapiens and could not switch
from on sound to another nearly as fast as H sapiens. Thus any
"speech" that they might have had would have sounded quite crude
to modern ears, and would have been significantly less efficient
at transfering information.

	My goodness! Evidence for a functional intermediate state
between ordinary animal utterances and what we would recognize as
language!!
-- 

				Sarima (Stanley Friesen)

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