>From: John Cowan <jcowan@...>
>...I would think that the overwhelming
>majority of the world's population 6-10 thousand years ago spoke languages
>that are either gone without a trace, dead but recorded, or moribund today,
>mostly the first category. Mammals and dinosaurs arose at about the same
>time, but only with the destruction of the dinos did the mammals get a
>chance to radiate into the many niches they occupy today.
It's an intertesting opinion... why should it be so tho? You make it sound
as tho languages are Darwinian rivals. Are they? Is there some way that some
languages or language families are more 'fit' to survive than others?
Mat
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