Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!nrl-cmf!ames!ucbcad!pasteur!ucbvax!cbosgd!osu-cis!tut!tanner
From: tanner@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Mike Tanner)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Cultural Impact on Word Ordering in any Language
Message-ID: <4830@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Date: 19 Jan 88 17:27:36 GMT
References: <1671@russell.STANFORD.EDU> <3037@dayton.UUCP>
Organization: The Ohio State University Dept of Computer and Information Science
Lines: 30


It is probably an error to consider English, German, or any people as
being originally hunters.  What is meant by "originally"?  In historic
times Europe has been agricultural.  In prehistoric times, i.e.,
something like 20,000 years ago or more, the people of Europe were
probably hunter-gatherers.  In hunter-gatherer societies only about
one-third of the food comes from meat (hunting), the rest is gathered
by women.  Hunting is almost never done by women, for many very good
reasons.  But women were the child-rearers, most likely the ones who
passed on language.

When half the people spend their lives walking around digging up roots
and picking berries, and everybody is raised (and probably learns
language) in that environment, I find it hard to believe that hunting
could very strongly influence language.  Though you might be able to
argue that gathering is still more active than agriculture, requiring
more emphatic language, etc.

However, the claim that Japan has "always" been agrarian is also
probably false.  At least in the relevant time-span.  Japan has not
been agrarian for more than 10,000 years or so, about the same as
Europe.

The influences on the development of language are many and complex.
But the hunting-agriculture explanation for the differences between
English and Japanese is a red-herring.  Based on the false assumption
that Europeans were primarily hunters at one time and the false
assumption that Japan has had agriculture longer than Europe.

-- mike