Gerry asked in relation to Piotr's point
> No. I don't think it will ever be reconstructed, even the smallest
> fragment of it. The time depths involved are too immense. It's also
> possible that language is polygenetic, in which case a reconstruction
of
> a single Proto-World Language would make no sense at all.
> Perhaps language may be polygenetic. But what reasons do you think
> account for this simultaneous emergence? One reason I've come up with
> is the possibility that events in the universe evolve, one following
> lock step another. In Stephen Hawking's words: the universe always
was
> and always will be. It's similar to a theologic focus only without a
> god. If for no other reason, this viewpoint has been around since the
> beginnings of mankind. Any comments Piotr? Or any from others who
wish
> to speculate?
My viewpoint, and one put up as a compromise solution by the Camridge
Encyclopedia of Language is that Language may have begun as a polygenic
emergence, but because it happened so long ago, and because language
replacement has occurred so many times, all extent languages have
descended from a common source. It is a little like the fact that
although the Chinese once had many thousands of surnames, over the
centuries the number of surnames has decreased, and now over 40% of the
Chinese have one of 4 surnames. A similar feature is found with
mitochondrial DNA. The mitochondrial eve was only one of many
thousands of women alive at the time, but as the centuries progressed
by chance her descendents slowly replaced the descendents of the other
women who were her contempories. By this way we can unify monogenetic
linguistic origins with polygenetic ones, through a composite
possibility.
As for the origins of language, I suspect the situation is more complex
than Chomskyans would argue. With the current gap in Hominid language
between the "attention grabbing" repetitions of desires in Chimps and
Gorillas, to the gramatical utterances of children is not just one
step, but a number of intervening ones. Thus, rather than a once off
invention, languages, with varying degrees of complexity are likely to
have developed from at least Homo habilus, if not Australopithecus
onwards, along multiple pathways. Unlike genetics - where pathways
only diverge, because language is based as much on learning as inbuilt
linguistic capacity, "discoveries" in one area can have impacted upon
neighbouring groups, until some time - probably between 130-90,000
years ago, our Upper Paleolithic ancestors wove together gramatic
utterances of an essentially "modern type".
Hope this helps
John