Re: Linear A tablet Hagia Triada 95

From: Peter T. Daniels (grammatim_at_worldnet.att.net)
Date: 07/24/04 

Date: Sat, 24 Jul 2004 11:32:39 GMT

Franz Gnaedinger wrote:
>
> "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message news:<4100F06D.4F13@worldnet.att.net>...
>
> > > The r and l case is not yet closed. Upon leaving the library where
> > > I type my messages I knew what I should have replied. Here it comes.
> > >
> > > Consider biology. The eye had been "invented" about 17 (seventeen)
> > > times independently, whereupon each eye evolved further, branching
> > > off the taxonomic bush. Now if two similar eyes occur at a close
> > > taxonomic range they have a common origin, but if there is a large
> > > taxonomix distance between them they are independent biological
> > > inventions of the same or very similar structures (to put it simply).
> > > The l and r convergence (whatever the correct biological term may
> > > be) presumably is the phenotype of a micro-evolutionary genetic
> > > shift that may well have occured at several places, and seems to
> > > have occured at least twice, in Syria, and in Japan. Seen through
> > > the eyes of a taxonomist, the Syrian and Minoan phenotypes must
> > > in all probability have a common origin, whereas the Japanese
> > > phenotype represents an independent genetic shift of the same kind.
> > > (Hope I made myself halfways understandable.)
> >
> > So you think persons of Japanese heritage "can't" distinguish r and l
> > because there's something unusual about their vocal tract?
> >
> > Perhaps you've never met a Japanese-American. Persons of Japanese
> > heritage whose native language is English have no trouble with r and l.
>
> An ex of mine can make the tip of her tongue vibrate as long
> as she wishes, her mouth open, looks very funny. I envied her,
> for I absolutely can't. Her l and r are close, mine are very
> different sounds, and so I assumed that the dwellers of Ebla
> in around 2300 BC and the Japanese who fixed their languages
> and scripts might have been especially capable rhotacists,
> as that friend of mine. Furthermore, the ideas, concepts and
> laws of evolution and taxonomy also hold in culture, especially
> when the cultural traditions are understood as epigenetic
> phenomena in the way of Richard Dawkins.

Ok, don't answer the question. I'll continue to skip over your postings. 

-- 
Peter T. Daniels                       grammatim@att.net

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