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Re: A short account of the possible history of human languages from Babel (was Re: Evolution - Blind Heart Surgery) http://groups.google.com
Eros (eros_talk_origins@hotmail.com) 2004/02/01 21:21

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From: eros_talk_origins@hotmail.com (Eros)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.uncle-davey
Subject: Re: A short account of the possible history of human languages from Babel (was Re: Evolution - Blind Heart Surgery)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 04:21:15 +0000 (UTC)
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"Uncle Davey" <noway@jose.com> wrote in message news:<bvgdi1$b41$1@atlantis.news.tpi.pl>...

> news:ab0de77f.0401292218.3076200c@posting.google.com...
> > branchofjesse@hotmail.com (Jerzy Jakubowski) wrote in message
>  news:<b9b3de8.0401290517.2f22cb8d@posting.google.com>...
> > > eros_talk_origins@hotmail.com (Eros) wrote in message
>  news:<ab0de77f.0401272216.396eeb1@posting.google.com>...
> > > > "Uncle Davey" <noway@jose.com> wrote in message
>  news:<bv3eev$7lr$1@atlantis.news.tpi.pl>...
> > > >
> > > > [snip childish linguistic fantasy]
> > > >
> > > > > > Incidently, even broader groups than Nostratic have been proposed,
> > > > > > including attempts to reconstruct words of Proto-World.
>  Unfortunately
> > > > > > the only one I recall at the moment is rather indelicate.
> > > > >
> > > > > There's every chance that we can guess at a word that was in the
>  vocabulary
> > > > > of somebody who walked out of Babel, maybe in a sound-shifted or
>  abbreviated
> > > > > form. After all, all the material in every tribal or supertribal
>  language
> > > > > came from someone or other's Babel exit language.  It's not common
>  for
> > > > > languages to invent words, so even 'shit' has good cognates in
>  Greek. If we
> > > > > say that 'skata' is closer, because we can tell it didn't go through
>  the
> > > > > Germanic sound shifts which we know all about thanks to Grimm, then
>  we can
> > > > > ascert with a good probability of truth that some rather powerful
>  man or his
> > > > > wife, with a penchant for talking about his or her bodily functions,
> > > > > received the ancestor word for 'skata/shit' in his or her personal
>  language
> > > > > at Babel.
> > > >
> > > > My personal opinion is that your hypothesis is a load of 'shit'... I
>  mean 'skata'!
> > >
> > > OK. So which alternative hypothesis do you find more convincing and why?
> >
> > You don't even *have* a serious linguistic hypothesis, only wild
> > conjecture based on the presumption that the Bible stories are
> > correct. Trying to make all the facts fit a fundamentalist religious
> > mindset is hardly a scientific approach, is it!
>
> Too right. Trying to make the facts fit an atheist mindset is the correct
> scientific approach. No-one in your circles will object if someone does
> that.

Care to give some examples of that?


> > I suggest you get your head out of the ancient texts and read up on
> > some modern scientific theories on the evolution of human language...
> > any good library would be a start.
> >
> > EROS.
>
> Why don't you stop bluffing and name some of those theories and authors you
> recommend me to start reading?

I doubt very much that you will even seriously consider reading
them... however, try these for a start (you may have to watch URL
wrapping);-

http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/linguistics.html

http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/pubtype/inbook_TheEvolutionofHumanLanguages.html

http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/nowak99theEvolution.html

http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/64674.html

EROS.
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"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its
limits."


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