----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2003 10:45
AM
Subject: Re: [language-origins] Fw:
[Nostratica] [Fwd:Re: In Click Languages, an Echo of the Tongues of the
Ancients [long]]
I think that the answer can not be yes and
can not be no, but it is a lesser degree of error in
saying no.
I lack much of the knowledge that I would like to
have to write about this in a detailed manner,
nevertheless I hope to write contribute to think
about it.
Before this question it is needed to clarify what
is meant by *a language* or a *mother tongue*,
the distinction between a language and dialect is
not a clear one. Generative linguisticians hold
and I agree in this with them, that there is only
one language and that the different languages
of the world are just instances of this language.
But, this, to me, means that we can understand
that all languages share a coherence or
consistence between them, such that we can expect to
communicate with any
human despite of witch particular mother tongue such human has, may
be
at the start just a little but progressively
learning either language the ability to communicate would
grow.
I think that at the time evolution leads to a
sufficient degree of intelligence still culture has not yet
fully developed and due to the lack of
communication between human communities of the past
these would
have reached independently and more than once enough cultural maturity
to
develope languages, so that these language would
have originated independently. We have
the as a posibly near analogue
in the origing of writting systems, some systems like ideographic
systems
have originated more than once, also the so called syllabaries have originated
from
than once either in from different ideographic systems or from the
same ideographic system,
last, phonological systems might have been
originated only one time or may be two times.
Present day writing systems show some mixing of
symbols, for example the symbols <?> or <!>
are seen also in Chinese or Japanese, the
Indian symbols for numbers <0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ,7 ,8 ,9>
are used
all over the world mixed with all writing systems.
I think that many of the oral
language symbols could have developed in a very similar way to
writing symbols, that is from figurative or mimic symbolizations
to more abstract symbolizations.
And also some groups borrowing
symbols from the symbols used by other groups. I think it
is
particularly important the level of knowledge and culture for a mother
tongue to become a
model for others; more important that political or
military domination.
So my view is that the languages of the past had
less similarities than the languages of the
present, because a historical
process in witch languages integrate between them and share
some
of their original particular features.
Languages change in some centuries, the more in
some millennia. The species also change, after
we can not say 100 000 or
500 000 years there will be not Homo sapiens sapiens, not because
extinction, but because
evolution; this is a possible fact very often
forgotten.
Cordially,
mariano
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