> > Anyway, it's very difficult to apply modern linguistics to this
> > problem without assuming the existence of such an ur-language, because
> > one of the very foundations of linguistics is that all speech evolved
> > from a single root.
>
> Hrm. Last I heard even Nostratic was regarded as an interesting
> hypothesis, but somewhere between "unproven" and "unprovable". I'm not
> aware of any such assumption about *all* language being widespread among
> linguists, much less it being the 'foundation' of anything. What'd "go
> wrong" in linguistics if this were falsified? Functionally nothing,
> surely.
Er, yes. The basic premise and more importantly _methods_ of linguistics assume that there has been an historical evolution from a common core.
This permeates every single part of linguistics, but to give a simple example it's assumed that the Romance languages evolved from Latin, which in turn evolved from an earlier group, itself derived from Indo-European etc.
Some linguists attempt to find the Origin of Speech in our genes, which are they themselves the product of an evolutionary (and cybernetic) process ; others prefer the idea that the Origin is linguistic in nature (not incompatible with Christian theology BTW).
However, the very concept of linguistic shift and evolution et cetera _requires_ (from our limited POV) that the model postulate an Origin, or the model would simply not function.
The notion of Multiple Origins is pretty much an anti-linguistic one.
Julian Lord
--__--__--
End of Glorantha Digest
Powered by hypermail