Re: Italian vs Turkish

From: Greg Lee (greg_at_ling.lll.hawaii.edu)
Date: 12/30/04 

Date: 30 Dec 2004 13:50:59 GMT

Peter T. Daniels <grammatim@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> John Atkinson wrote:
> >
> > "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@worldnet.att.net> wrote :
> > > >
> > > > Isn't it highly probable that all languages did not have one common
> > > > ancestor?
> > >
> > > No.
> >
> > For something about which we have absolutely no evidence one way or another,
> > and can see no way in which we're ever likely to get any, to say it's
> > "probable" or "improbable" is rather meaningless.
> >
> > Though, if I had to make a bet on this (which I wouldn't, because it could
> > never be determined who'd won), I'd plump for monogenesis like Peter, as the
> > (marginally) more economical hypothesis.

> It's indisputable.

> If a language capacity had evolved more than once, then there would be
> sets of languages that arose within one or another, and they would
> differ in some small but essential way(s), and infants' automatic
> learning of languages would differ at least in efficiency, if not in
> possibility at all. It has never been observed that infants from one
> speech community (or ethnic group) have the slightest difficulty
> learning the language of any other.

Every time all the speakers of a village were killed, leaving only
young children to fend for themselves and exercise their language
capacity by inventing one to communicate with one another, you got
a new language not descended from any one existing. So, it's
disputable. 

-- 
Greg Lee <greg@ling.lll.hawaii.edu>

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