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Re: OT: "Tracheal" consonants: a curiosity?

From:Paul Bennett <paul-bennett@...>
Date:Thursday, June 2, 2005, 22:13
----- Original Message -----
From: # 1 <salut_vous_autre@...>
> Yeah that's what I mean, using such sound modifies the throat... > (a genetic > particularity inherited from succecive generations of epiglottis > users?Anyway ,that's not really important...)
That's simply not how genetic evolution works, though it is how Lamarkian evolution works, which was a fairly dominant theory before genetics as a science came to the fore. The simple fact is that (aside from a few extreme situations) the environment does not shape the existing genes of a living creature. If there were a situation where passing on your genes to the next generation depended on your ability to produce epiglottal consonants, I could agree, but I find it quite hard to construct a plausible scenario where that would be the case. Paul

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# 1 <salut_vous_autre@...>