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Re: CHAT: proto-language

From:Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
Date:Saturday, December 12, 1998, 2:23
Joshua Shinavier wrote:
> A long time ago I saw a TV program about evolutionary linguistics where a > scientist claimed to have found a word (the meaning had to do with milk, > "to suckle", IIRC) which was common, in variation, to all families of languages;
Well, for one thing, a word like "suckle" has a lot of variation. If you're referring to Nostraic, the supposed cognate can vary in meaning between words like "suckle", "milk", "breast", "mother", etc. IMO, it's most likely a case of sound-symbolism, like the fact that most languages have nasal consonants in words for mother (e.g., "mama", "mother", "nana", "anaanaq", etc.), presumably due to the fact that /m/ is among the very first sounds made by infants, especially syllables like /ma/, so that words for mother are often based on these sounds, i.e., an infant says /mama/, and the parents interpret it as a word ("he said mama").
> Do linguists generally think that language emerged in one place
Most linguists think so, but it's unprovable. After tens of thousands of years, its descendents would be unrecognizable. Personally, I rather like to think that God Himself gave us languages once and only once. -- "Cats are rather delicate creatures and they are subject to a good many ailments, but I never heard of one who suffered from insomnia." -- Joseph Wood Krutch http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/X-Files/ ICQ #: 18656696 AOL screen-name: NikTailor