Re: THEORY: Question about the evolution of language
| From: | Christophe Grandsire <grandsir@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Tuesday, September 7, 1999, 7:45 |
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Tom Wier wrote:
>
> Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>
> > 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).
>
> I believe you're talking about James IV of Scotland, before the
> English Parliament invited him to become James I of England (although
> I could be wrong with the dating). As for the veracity of the tale, I'm
> not sure; it could be apocryphal.
>
I hope it is. Such cruelty is a little bit too much for me to bear
with.
> At any rate, the Greek historian Herodotos talks about a similar attempt
> in his *huge* digression about Egyptian ethnography (the thesis was why
> the Persians and the Greeks came into conflict). According to Herodotos,
> the Pharaoh Psammetikhos wanted to know what the oldest race was,
> so he ordered a shepherd to take care of and raise two children, with
> the stipulation that he was not to speak to them. He did so, and after
> a few years, both of them ran up saying _bekos_, which, the Pharaoh
> later discovered, was Phrygian for "bread". So, he concluded that the
> Phrygians were the oldest race (and, of course, that the Egyptians were
> the second oldest).
>
Interesting. It may be apocryphal too, but the idea that at any time
you can find the same kind of stories is interesting. Language and its
acquisition seems to have been an object of interest since the dawn of
civilisation.
> It can be read in context at:
> <
http://classics.mit.edu/Herodotus/history.2.ii.html>
>
> =======================================================
> Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
> ICQ#: 4315704 AIM: Deuterotom
> Website: <
http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
> "Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
>
> Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and
> oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil
> spirits at the dawn of day. - Thomas Jefferson
> ========================================================