Genetics and language, ugh

From: Glen Gordon
Message: 13807
Date: 2002-06-10

John responds to my quote below:
>>As for the genes debate, I'm just so tired of people intertwining genetics
>>with linguistics as if the two must somehow completely correlate. [...]
>
>No Glen, you are not getting through for the following reason.

John continues:
>1. The number of languages spoken today largely belong to one of a dozen or
>so different major language families
>(with about as many isolates thrown in for good measure). >This is only a
>very small number of the 10,000 or so
>langauges that existed 10,000 years ago.

What does that have to do with a correlation with genetics?
Genetic and linguistic lines have pined down in the same
manner but this doesn't mean that each language correlates
with particular genes simply because their general
evolutionary processes happen to be parallel. There is
no "English" or "Chinese" gene so why do you insist on this
crap?


>2. A language family spreads because the number of speakers of that
>proto-language increases. The number of speakers of other languages
>declines.

Exactly, and since a new language can and HAS been adopted
by an originally allolinguistic population, this is the very
reason why genes and language do not always correlate.


>3. The numbers of speakers of any language increase because
>(a) It becomes temporarily fashionable to speak a
>particular language (i.e. it confers social standing upon
>the speakers)
>(b) Because the population of speakers of a particular
>language increases (reduced deaths, increased births).

Your a) automatically demonstrates that genes and language
DO NOT NECESSARILY correlate... This is my point!

Whether we decide the scenario was a) or b) requires
special attention of whatever individual language that one
is studying. With IE, it appears to be a healthy mixture
of both a) and b), and indeed, this is the most popular
scenario for the spread of any language, whether it be
English, Spanish, Hindi or Mandarin.


>4. People of higher social standing are generally able
>to command access to more diverse and better resources
>than those of low standing. They are therefore likely
>to leave more surviving offspring (all else being equal).

Only if we assume that scenario b) is prevalent enough
to make a) a logically insignificant scenario. You must
first prove the above for every language on earth both
alive and dead before you can assert that language and
genes always correlate. Have fun with that proof and I'll
see you in fifty years.

Again, genes and languages do not always correlate.


>Glen, whilst in 3(a) linguistics and genetics are totally
>independent (as you keep asserting),

Wrong, I'm asserting that linguistics and genetics are
are not dependent enough to give us any meaningful
information without examining specifics of the languages
we are dealing with. I accept both your 3a and 3b but this
is the very reason why your attempts to blindly link genes
and languages are misguided.

Your assumptions of absolute correlation are similar to the
technique of mass comparison. It may help us pinpoint
general facts about a given language but it certainly tells
us nothing meaningful about the specifics. Here, genes can
only give us general ideas about the movement of languages
indirectly via the movement of people and/or genetics
(two different movements that themselves need to be
seperated but are hard to distinguish in genetic studies).

But there is an entire slew of other problems that need to
be properly looked at such as social considerations, local
economic issues, prehistorical disasters such as the Lake
Euxine event, and most especially the actual study of
linguistics which you continuously demonstrate to know
little about. You're not concerned with addressing these
problems and they are heavily important to understanding
the spread of any language, whether historical or
prehistorical. You're losing out on a big aspect of
comparative linguistics. It's a multidisciplinary field.
Genetics alone won't help you.


>This is the reason why languages like Latin has, whilst >languages like
>Iberian or Thracian have dissappeared.

The spread of Latin was clearly the combination of
demic, genetic and linguistic spread, for gods sakes.
They do not correlate! Can you honestly tell me that
there wasn't an advantage to speaking the lingua franca
as a foreign speaking citizen of the empire??

Allolinguistic populations, even with different genes
other than "Italian genes" (to quote your racist,
ultimately meaningless phrase), were most definitely
adopting Latin. By the way, please identify what
these Italian genes are that you've discovered, mister
armchair-geneticist, or forfeit your statement. What
constitutes an "Italian"? What period are you speaking of?
Is it 2000 BC? 1000 AD? What? What borders from which time
period are you speaking of that might genetically define
"Italians"? You're way out there in left field at this
point and sounding more neo-something by the minute.

All that I'm saying is common sense so I can only shake
my head if you don't understand my points.


>Lets have a little reality in the discussion.

I can only pray that you will one day be capable of
understanding reality. At the very least, it would be
nice if you had enough reading comprehension to properly
quote my views when addressing them in a logical debate.

To repeat, genetics and language DO NOT **ALWAYS** correlate.
This is different from "Genetics and language never
correlate" which is what your entire message was wastefully
responding to.


- gLeN


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