Re: joining concultures,was Re: Alternative histories and paralele universes

Kristian Jensen wrote, in reply to Hawksinger:

>This makes total sense. Not only do gorillas and chimps ignore each
>other, but the same phenomenon can be applied to other animals. If
>you don't have chimps and gorillas in your backyard, then all you
>have to do is look at birds to see the phenomenon at work. This is
>pretty interesting actually.
>
>If you decide to accomodate Kenji's Sayat speakers in Nowapan,
>chances are that the Sayat would be left completely to themselves.
>They will live together with the Nowans but they will basically as
>separate species ignore each other.
I don't know about this.  One of the traits that separates homo
sapiens from other species is how they take a more-than-necessary
interest in the world around them.  We have entire fields of study
(biology, zoology...) devoted to butting into the affairs of other
species.  Might not the Nowapans, as fellow intelligent hominids,
have this same trait?

Matt.

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Matt Pearson
mpearson@ucla.edu
UCLA Linguistics Department
405 Hilgard Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1543
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