Language, evolution, etc.

[SANDRO43]

I opened this new thread because a discussion that may not interest everybody was continuing in Honest question to RW.

[SANDRO43]

Now, this begs the question, how does language evolution and/or "whittling" fit into the Psammothermophonetic Theory?  Are the vowels whittled away over time through human migratory patterns (ultimately influenced by destination areas of cold, sand, etc)?

Beginning with the premise (or tossing it out the window) that human evolution began at a central location and dispersed outward from this point Zero somewhere in Africa (biblical arguments indicating the Tower of Babel theory aside), would not all languages inherently share the same origin, varying over time by migratory splits, sharing these commons within each splitting group, then varying by splits again, etc etc.. so that each language should have regional similarities, with underlying etymologies traceable to the geographical area of each migratory split back through history?

How would a language such as Chinese fit into such a scheme of the evolutionary process?  And if this central dispersion theory is flawed, then why would Chinese and Africans share mitochondrial DNA? Or what else is involved that I'm missing?

I find this discussion absolutely fascinating.  Come on Guru.. put it together for me..   

Dave

Daveman, you raise quite a number of points .

OK, let's start from the wider issues.

Recent mythochondrial-DNA studies seem to favour the dispersion theory rather than its opposing multi-centric theory, so I'll stick with that, at least for the time being.

Supposing therefore that we once had a single "language" in Africa to start with, we should assume that it had its full complement of 5 evenly-distributed vowels (not unlike its contemporary African descendants), and that their subsequent decrease was due to slow adaptation to different environments, since evolution promotes changes beneficial to survival and reproduction (and a Bedu with a mouth full of sand might be otherwise preoccupied ).

Geographically-contiguous populations often exhibit similarities in their languages, when their socio-political situation is stable and not altered by wars, invasions by people from distant areas, etc.

Similarities perceived by linguists between far-apart languages like those spoken in Europe and Sanskrit, led to the hypothesis of a prior common language they called Indo-European (spoken supposedly around 5,000 BC), and a westward migration of Aryan people from the Indian sub-continent. This is totally speculative, with little or no supporting archeological evidence, also due to illiteracy : when you leave no texts behind you, it's hard to imagine what sort of language you could have been speaking (the first specimens of writing found so far date to about 3,500 BC). For more on this : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_languages.

Chinese, on the other hand, is another matter, and the most dramatic example of another phenomenon ("linguistic wear") which, however, is also observable to a lesser degree in any language over shorter periods of time: the loss of declensions in Latin languages is one of the many examples that come to mind.

Energy-conservation (simplification ? lazyness ?) seems to be the driving force here, and probably changing life conditions as well. It's no longer necessary to shout intelligibly : "Be careful, there is a saber-toothed tiger approaching stealthily behind you from the direction of the setting sun !". Now, "Look out, car !" is enough .

[I/O]

Sandro:  A Mexican doctor who speaks 5 languages fluently remarked to me a couple of years ago thus.  (All in good humour of course)

French:  The language of love.
German: The Language of war.
English:  The language of business.
Spanish: The language for talking to God.

For me, having a rough grasp of two foriegn languages, Spanish has been by far the easiest.  Thai is terribly complex and the little bit of Russian I have has not been too difficult, but sheer laziness has limited my progress there.  Personally, French is a little too "Pretty" for my taste, but OTOH German always seems like a "Barking Dog".   

My Italian is limited to a few cursing phrases.  A product of my early Italian riding intructor.

I/O

[SANDRO43]

Personally, French is a little too "Pretty" for my taste, but OTOH German always seems like a "Barking Dog". My Italian is limited to a few cursing phrases.  A product of my early Italian riding intructor.

I/O, this is obviously very subjective.

For instance, French cannot be "the language of love" for me for MUSICAL reasons : it has a markedly "iambic/anapaestic" rhythm (ta-TA, ta-ta-TA), whereas I imagine a more gently-flowing rhythm for that, "dactylic/amphibrachic" (TA-ta-ta, ta-TA-ta), as in Italian or Spanish, or even English (e.g. Shakespeare's Sonnets). Though Spanish is unfortunate in this area, for never using doubled consonants (except for Rs) and thus sounding more "clipped" than Italian. However, I do not think you could have much noticed this with your riding instructor .
German may sound like a "Barking Dog", and its poetry certainly does not sound very musical, but that language possesses a unique feature: the possibility of forming "freight-train" words by stringing 2, 3 or more together (IIRC, the Registrar's is "Einwohnermelderamt",  i.e. "Office for the Registration of In-habitants"). This gives it the possibility of being VERY accurate in defining a concept, and I think it is not a coincidence that most of the major philosophers of the past 200 years were German.

[I/O]

Though Spanish is unfortunate in this area, for never using doubled consonants (except for Rs) and thus sounding more "clipped" than Italian. However, I do not think you could have much noticed this with your riding instructor .
German may sound like a "Barking Dog", and its poetry certainly does not sound very musical, but that language possesses a unique feature: the possibility of forming "freight-train" words by stringing 2, 3 or more together (IIRC, the Registrar's is "Einwohnermelderamt",  i.e. "Office for the Registration of In-habitants"). This gives it the possibility of being VERY accurate in defining a concept, and I think it is not a coincidence that most of the major philosophers of the past 200 years were German.

Sandro:  I am not sure what the relevance of all this is to RWD, nevertheless it is interesting to hear an "Expert" take on it.  I have to say that if I was to seriously learn another language, Spanish would be my choice.  For me it is facinating, although my usage would horify the experts.  I have actually found some similarities in the process of learning Russian, and they are the reverse of the adjective and the noun from English.  IE: Casa Grande. vs Big/Large House.  However the most dificult thing for me is the depth of the RR which sounds something like Rddddddddd or Rvvvvvvvv.  Similarly to Russian to an extent, I can master this at the begining of a sentence without effort, but to insert such a word in the middle of a sentence is extremely difficult.

As for the "Clipped" versions of Italian ....hmmmmmmmm  "Ugly Pigs" spring to mind from memory. I seemed to hear the Italian version of that quite regularly.

Per..leeeeeeese not lets get into the Germanic influenced philosophers......Hezern is the main subject of my current book of interest, not to mention Marks and others.  BTW I don't share their political views, however find their thinking and experience interesting.  Nevertheless the German language precision is perhaps indicative of the poeple.  I suspect also the Germanic fame for precision and quality manufacturing is also related.

I/O

[SANDRO43]

Sandro:  I am not sure what the relevance of all this is to RWD

Very limited, that's why I opened a separate thread in Odds and ends: someone showed some interest in the subject, and I am rather bored by seeing the same old subjects discussed and re-discussed ad nauseam .

I have actually found some similarities in the process of learning Russian, and they are the reverse of the adjective and the noun from English.  IE: Casa Grande. vs Big/Large House.

In most Latin languages, the adjective is normally put after the noun it refers to, or before it for emphasis. Compare:

Es una casa grande (statement of fact)
¡Es una GRANDE casa! (wow !)

However the most dificult thing for me is the depth of the RR which sounds something like Rddddddddd or Rvvvvvvvv.  Similarly to Russian to an extent, I can master this at the begining of a sentence without effort, but to insert such a word in the middle of a sentence is extremely difficult.

Now repeat after me this gruesome sentence :

"Mi caRRO bién aRREglado se aRRAncò listo, aRRastrando y aRRollando un peRRo qui aRResgaba atraversar el camino."

Per..leeeeeeese not lets get into the Germanic influenced philosophers...Hezern is the main subject of my current book of interest, not to mention Marks and others.  BTW I don't share their political views, however find their thinking and experience interesting. 

I am not concerned with their specific views here, only with their clarity of expression and definition.

Nevertheless the German language precision is perhaps indicative of the people. I suspect also the Germanic fame for precision and quality manufacturing is also related.

As I said elsewhere, my opinion is that their language was mostly responsible for shaping their character, rather than viceversa.

[TexasBoar]

Sandro, have you read Nicholas Wade's Before the Dawn, published last year? He's a science journalist, and the book surveys what geniticists have been uncovering about human evolution and prehistory . . . Chapter 10 is about language.

Apparently, the methods geneticists use to track, and date, changes in the genome are being applied to changes in language, with intriguing results.  Some theories tossed, some confirmed . . . but almost all of the dates pushed WAY back.

~Boar

[SANDRO43]

Sandro, have you read Nicholas Wade's Before the Dawn, published last year? He's a science journalist, and the book surveys what geniticists have been uncovering about human evolution and prehistory . . . Chapter 10 is about language.
Apparently, the methods geneticists use to track, and date, changes in the genome are being applied to changes in language, with intriguing results.  Some theories tossed, some confirmed . . . but almost all of the dates pushed WAY back.

Thanks for the tip, ~Boar, it sounds quite interesting, I'll see if I can find a copy locally.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Having a look at some reviews of this book, I found this quote:

One of the great puzzles of prehistory is the proliferation of languages. Linguists believe, for credible reasons too complex to review here, [4] that present-day languages descend from a small number of early prototypes, and splintered into many thousands of variants. Wade says (p 204):
This variability is extremely puzzling given that a universal, unchanging language would seem to be the most useful form of communication. That language has evolved to be parochial, not universal, is surely no accident. Security would have been far more important to early human societies than ease of communication with outsiders. Given the incessant warfare between early human groups, a highly variable language would have served to exclude outsiders and to identify strangers the moment they opened their mouths.

Language diversification for security reasons is a new and intriguing explanation for me .

[I/O]

¡Es una GRANDE casa! (wow !) Now repeat after me this gruesome sentence :

"Mi caRRO bién aRREglado se aRRAncò listo, aRRastrando y aRRollando un peRRo qui aRResgaba atraversar el camino."

Sandro: I have supected for some time you would be a "Bastard of a teacher/task master."

I/O

[SANDRO43]

Sandro: I have supected for some time you would be a "Bastard of a teacher/task master."

Your opinion wounds me deeply, 15 years an IBM Instructor and my students simply LOVED me (they only had to endure me for 4.5 days max at a time, though)  .

[DKMM]

Your Mexican doctor was borrowing a famous saying of the Spanish HRE Charles V:  "I Speak Spanish to God, Italian to Women, French to Men, and German to My Horse"

[mirror]

I/O, this is obviously very subjective.

For instance, French cannot be "the language of love" for me for MUSICAL reasons : it has a markedly "iambic/anapaestic" rhythm (ta-TA, ta-ta-TA), whereas I imagine a more gently-flowing rhythm for that, "dactylic/amphibrachic" (TA-ta-ta, ta-TA-ta), as in Italian or Spanish, or even English (e.g. Shakespeare's Sonnets). Though Spanish is unfortunate in this area, for never using doubled consonants (except for Rs) and thus sounding more "clipped" than Italian. However, I do not think you could have much noticed this with your riding instructor .
German may sound like a "Barking Dog", and its poetry certainly does not sound very musical, but that language possesses a unique feature: the possibility of forming "freight-train" words by stringing 2, 3 or more together (IIRC, the Registrar's is "Einwohnermelderamt",  i.e. "Office for the Registration of In-habitants"). This gives it the possibility of being VERY accurate in defining a concept, and I think it is not a coincidence that most of the major philosophers of the past 200 years were German.

...nice point of view. Different languages have different melody,frequency.It is true.I can say another thing...in Russia  some words compositions can have even a medical effect ( I mean prayers).    Maybe therefore different people can feel differently with different languages because of wave resonans.

[Lily]

Your Mexican doctor was borrowing a famous saying of the Spanish HRE Charles V:  "I Speak Spanish to God, Italian to Women, French to Men, and German to My Horse"

This Charles V's line belonged to the mandatory reading in Soviet schools, however, in the interpretation of Lomonossov. Soviet kids had to learn this line by heart and to tell it out loud in class. That's why I remember it quite well

You are right about the first 2 items, but further it was French to Friends, and German to Enemies

[Jazzyclassy]

      French cannot be "the language of love"         

French is absolutely the language of love and I really love this language but sadly only french people talk french , french is not expanding and probably will never be as popular as English ever, also french is a language of music

I agree that English is the language of diplomats and business language that is for sure also it is great language it units people , I like English a lot:) , English is absolutely universal and has such a great power I think  it will always stay that way

German is the language of some Military places it is some kinda war language maybe it is in my gens but for me German has Military colouring

I also agree with I/O that Spanish is the language to talk to God to talk to soul something like that, it is language of something very down to earth , I think it is also language of music and song and language of passionate love

Italian for me is the language of some scandalicious passionate sex ,  something very active something always arguing  , debating, proving  very beautiful language by the way

Chinese language is some kinda market  language to me   I do not know why,  it is very difficult to learn it

Hindi is some kinda mysterious and some kinda philosophic language to me  and definitely language of music too

Russian is the language of strong people!:) strong by spirit and physically strong!

[DKMM]

My goodness Jazzy, that is quite a list!  "Scandalicious" LOL is that like Fergalicious?  As a curiousity, what do you think of Serbian?

[Jazzyclassy]

I think Serbian is like Russian language truly language of working people , strong people and  simple ones I think so , of course I might be wrong but that is my own impressions and associations
Well I think Russian and Serbian  are very similar we have such a variety of sounds in our languages so many musical sounds in our language, like if we compare these languages to English , it looks a little less various in this case I mean cos the combination of sounds are limited in English , they do not have rolling R , they do not have palatalization , they do not have so many vowels:)

[BC]

Interesting topic.

Consider one of the first cavemen hitting another on the head..  the result was probably some guttural sound..  Now I automatically think 'OW!' whereas my wife thinks 'AIA'

'AUA' also popular in Germany..

Evidence of a branch in our origins?

Now OW and AUA are similar..  so maybe both stem from the same branch migrating northwest, with the slight difference from those headed towards central Europe and the other more towards what is now UK/Ireland?

My wife's branch headed in a more easterly direction with their AIA..

 

[I/O]

Gaaaaaawwwwd, I can see this headed back to the "Tower of Bable".

I/O

[Lily]

Yes, if something suddenly hurts, a German shouts out 'AU'. A Russian would shout "OI" or "AI".
do you believe thay would THINK? they would just shout without thinking..

by the way, when I am in Germany and I speak German all the time, I also would use "AU" and other emotional sounds that are nation-specific. somehow they come with the language...

[jb]

An American, OTOH, if he misses the nail with his hammer and strikes his finger, is more likely to exclaim:  "GDammit to hell~!", or,,, "Sonofabitch~!", or something else more discriptive of what he thinks of the hammer itself.  Sometimes a simple "Ouch~!" will not suffice.

[Lily]

German is the language of some Military places it is some kinda war language maybe it is in my gens but for me German has Military colouring
 

It is amazing how many Russians think this way of German.

In my opinion it is the result of our school education program that devoted lots and lots of amount of class and assigned home reading about Hitler's invasion in the USSR for schoolkids.

It would be interesting to take the ols classbooks now and distinguish the relative amount of this information among the other children related topics. But as far as I could very roughly estimate, about 1/4-1/3 of all assigned books, films or class discussion topics were anyhow related to this war during all 10 years of school. As the kids memory is extremely sharp, they got it in their heads for the whole life.

If we ask an average person about his first associations about Germany, in most cases we can expect to hear 'Haende hoch' or 'Hitler kaputt'   No one is likely to say 'Kant', 'Shubert', ' Gruenes Gewoelbe', or even 'Katarina Witt', 'Singer'. Well, some would say 'BMW', 'Mercedes'...

To me it looks like Germany may probably consider suing Russia, particularly Ministry of Education,for that bad kid of propaganda.  

[SANDRO43]

When you feel a sudden, sharp pain, your body's reaction is to quickly empty the lungs of residual air prior to filling them again fully, a reflex probably inherited from ancient times to face an unexpected attack, and adrenalin-induced.

To void your lungs rapidly, you must open your mouth fully, and A is the most "open" of all vowels, so it is not suprising that "pain shouts" in almost all languages begin with it.

And OW in English really sounds AU, blame that on the fact that English is very anorthophonographic (how's that for a dazzling new technical term ?).

Think also of the initial sound you make when you sneeze .

[Lily]

An American, OTOH, if he misses the nail with his hammer and strikes his finger,

just noticed..LMAO..

[SANDRO43]

also french is a language of music ... I also agree with I/O that Spanish is also language of music

I do not agree. Think how many Italian words populate the musical lexicon (sinfonia, concerto, pianoforte, violoncello, andante, allegro, etc. etc. etc.).

A "technical" vocabulary is strongly affected by the language of the people who invented/introduced a particular "technique", or organised it formally.

The first  extant documents of Western music date back to the IV-V centuries and are "scores" of Ambrosian chant (St. Ambrose was Milan's bishop, and is also our patron saint). Gregorian chant came some 500 years later, and the two are generally considered the starting point of Western music.

Although classical ballet had its origins in Italy (as "intermezzos" during operas), the fact that Louis XIV founded the "Académie Royale de Musique et de Danse", establishing Paris as the center of academic ballet, caused French to become the language of ballet.

And English ? Computer, input, output, etc.

Italian for me is the language of some scandalicious passionate sex

Thank you ! Do other RW share this laudable opinion ?

[jb]

I suppose mostly we are exploring the origins of Indo-European languages.  To do that effectively one must look to prehistory rather than modern usages.  According to my archaeology meanderings and studies as I've had to work on projects involving such areas containing prehistory dwellings,  the usual methods involve learning how pottery evolved and was distributed as populations dispersed regionwide.   That is to say, finding a pot shard in one area that is the same type as a bit of pottery from a far distant and older site indicates linage and linkage between the two.  For example, this is how we know the modern day Apache and Navajo are descendent's of the older race of people known broadly as the Anazazi.  Further, since the Navajo and Apache languages are closely similar, it suggests those older inhabitants of the desert Southwest spoke a variation or dialect of the same language.

The same methods are used in Europe as tie points between the development of languages. 

When you are discussing evolution of *a single language*,  i.e., old English vs. modern English, there are plenty of old texts available for the reader to see how his language has progressed over several centuries, the same can be said for other European languages.  Some languages become supplanted with new, such as Latin was largely replaced by Italian, however I wonder how close modern day French is to the language of those people we read about in Cesar's Gaul.  We know that about the same time, English and German were the same language.   Isn't it interesting to see how the two have evolved so separately and distinctly as they were divided over 2,500 years and a few thousand miles, and how much influence did the later occupation of the British Isles by the Romans have on the evolution of the modern English language? 

Quite a lot, I'd imagine.