Re: THEORY: Question about the evolution of language

Boudewijn Rempt wrote:
>
> On Mon, 6 Sep 1999, Nik Taylor wrote:
>
> >
> > I wonder what kind of language would evolve.  My guess, if spoken:
> >
>
> My guess is that they wouldn't evolve any language, and die out
> from lack of communciation within a very short time ;-). I don't think
> people can survive without language anymore.
>
> Boudewijn Rempt  | http://denden.conlang.org/~bsarempt
        I don't know if it is a legend or not, but I've heard that this
experiment had already been done, more than one century ago or so. The
person who carried this "experiment" thought that those children would
reinvent Hebrew, as it was the language of the Genesis and so "had to"
be the original language, other languages being corruptions of Hebrew.
Eventually, all children involved in this experiment died of lack of
communication (in fact, they stopped eating and let themselves die).

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