Re: [tied] Ah, look at all the lonely languages

From: Gerry
Message: 22954
Date: 2003-06-10

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "anthonyappleyard" <MCLSSAA2@...>
wrote:
> Someone wrote:-
> > I'm simply trying to pull out of the atmosphere some reasons why
a
> > language becomes (or remains) an isolate.
>
> I have heard of a way that an isolate could arise quickly. In some
> climates, it may have happened, very rarely, that some children old
> enough to walk but not old enough to talk, get isolated and survive
> to adulthood on natural food from the jungle, and then start
> breeding. They invent a language among themselves without outside
> contact.

-- cute.

> Another possibility, I suppose, is that a deaf-and-dumb couple are
> ejected from the tribe and raise a large family in isolation, and
> then as ditto.

-- ditto cute.

> Someone wrote:-
> > Guess another answer could be "aliens from outer space".
>
> (1) Infiltrate Area 51 and get from there a textbook of the
language
> of the Greys. Then compare it with Burushaski etc????? :-) :-) :-)

??? huh?

> (2) Among "alien" languages that have been invented by human sci-fi
> authors, I know of only one word from them that has got into
general
> usage in a real natural language: "grok", used sometimes as English
> slang for "understand", started in a fictional Martian language.

Nah. Me no grok.

Gerry