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Re: Neanderthal and PIE

From:Matthew Turnbull <ave.jor@...>
Date:Tuesday, October 14, 2008, 12:06
somebody mentioned clan of the cave bear earlier, and the main character
does exactly that. She only speaks Clan (a neanderthal sign language), but
being human has a natural propensity to make sounds, so she makes a conlang
imitative of all those things around her (like birds).
I think the only thing the Neanderthals in those books used sound for was
certain intensifying adverbs and most names.

On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 8:29 PM, Herman Miller <hmiller@...> wrote:

> Lars Finsen wrote: > >> ROGER MILLS wrote: >> >>> What if, by some freak of evolutionary development, the Neanderthal >>> language was transmitted _genetically_? >>> >> >> Not a bad idea. The whole thing about human language as we know it is that >> it's so inherently redefinable. Let's say that these Neanderthals never >> innovated that redefinability, and communicated with instinctive signals >> like any monkey, except that they had evolved into a degree of complexity >> approaching a real symbolic language. Theoretically the grammatical >> structures of this lingo could be entirely different from normal ones - >> makes my mouth go watery when I think about it. But that isn't relevant to >> your context, of course. >> > > Well, some bird songs have a good amount of complexity, so it's quite > possible that a complex phonology could develop for whatever reason (e.g., > as a sign of a well-developed memory and fine coordination), and over > generations the different sound-sequences could acquire specific > associations of meaning. Bird songs are not entirely genetic (birds raised > without hearing the songs of their parents might sing an imperfect variation > of their song), but they are specific enough to the species that it's > possible to recognize many birds just by listening to them. So the common > ancestor of Neanderthals and humans in this hypothetical world could have > had a similar sort of communication system. Many kinds of birds are able to > learn new songs, even adopting the songs of other birds -- the mockingbirds > in North Carolina imitate North Carolina birds, while those in Texas imitate > Texas birds. So the ancestors of modern humans could have been more like > mockingbirds in that respect and adopted many of the Neanderthal words. It's > still a stretch, but it's getting closer to the sort of thing that could be > plausible for a story. >