tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post7452617924768985217..comments2024-01-04T04:11:55.717+02:00Comments on Dienekes’ Anthropology Blog: Tracing the origin of language in Africa (again)Dienekeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02082684850093948970noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-43391054406464689692012-05-02T23:33:40.077+03:002012-05-02T23:33:40.077+03:00terryt, that is called a substrate effect. Anyone ...terryt, that is called a substrate effect. Anyone who has tried to learn a second langauge, actually anyone who had a grandparnet who had some other native language, has experienced it.<br /><br />Tone does tend to spread, but it can arise on its own. The Baltic is one area where languages are developing tone systems, across genetic lines, uninfluenced by any external model.Jimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07187836541591828806noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-82925872214598910742012-05-01T06:27:13.017+03:002012-05-01T06:27:13.017+03:00"tone as well as a few other phonemic feature..."tone as well as a few other phonemic features seem to be areal linguistic features (i.e. shared by languages in a region regardless of their parent languages)" <br /><br />That could actually be a result of 'language acquisition from archaics'. We can assume that any language archaics spoke was regionally distinct by the time 'moden' humans arrived there. I think that any influence of archaic languages on modern languages would lead to much the same as has happened with the spread of modern languages around the world. Pronunciation and expressions from 'original' regional languages have survived to influence regional accents within English, French, Spanish etc.terrythttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17327062321100035888noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-39795421172951808582012-04-30T22:46:11.684+03:002012-04-30T22:46:11.684+03:00@Jim
"What is illogical is to assume the eit...@Jim<br /><br />"What is illogical is to assume the either simplification of increasing complexity is unidirectional. in fact it is cyclical."<br /><br />Agree. No need to contrast cyclical and linear, though. It's both cyclical and unidirectional: the cycles of simplification and complexification result in the loss of archaic phonetic properties and the spread of novel phonetic properties, but language doesn't step into the same river twice. E.g., the studies that use click languages as examples of phonemic complexity overlook the fact that other languages (e.g., Piraha in South America) have "whistled" sounds. Whistled sounds look just as odd, childish and auxiliary as clicks. It's possible that whistled sounds are archaic phonemes that got lost in most languages. Some languages lost whistled sounds and didn't gain clicks, others lost whistled sounds and gained clicks. If this hypothesis is true, then whistling to no-whistling or whistling to clicking would be a unidirectional change.German Dziebelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10703679732205862495noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-39190695529258788772012-04-30T21:42:00.361+03:002012-04-30T21:42:00.361+03:00"Simplification is illogical. If languages te..."Simplification is illogical. If languages tend to lose complexity (be it phonemes, declension, whatever), how did they become complex in the first place?"<br /><br />What is illogical is to assume the either simplification of increasing complexity is unidirectional. in fact it is cyclical.<br /><br />A complex consonantal system can simplify with compensatory increased comnplexity of the vowel system. Or the langaage may evolve tones (often from devoicing of voiced consonants, or from lost laryngeal or pharyngeal consonants. <br /><br />Or the language may lose consonant complexity and compensate with compounding or some other way of making longer mophemes. If these collapse through vowel loss, newly adjoining consonants may combine into new consonants that add to the consonant inventory. Or adjoing consonants may influence and change the articulation of a consonant.<br /><br />A language can go through a cycle of having no tones, developing tones, simplifying the tone system, compounding words to compensate for or forestall the loss of distinctive units, which then simplify into still complex but shorter units, which then lose some consonants, making tones necessary to retain distinctions in the system. This cycle has been going in most if not all the Chinese langauges for at least 2,000 years. Shanghainese has gone the farthest, with only two tones left and some fairly long (2-3 morphemes) strings of formerly independent morphems that now function like single morphemes.Jimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07187836541591828806noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-38871664879338051112012-04-30T20:28:03.409+03:002012-04-30T20:28:03.409+03:00I'm very convinced that all human languages ar...I'm very convinced that all human languages are derived from African languages, since the notion of language acquisition from archaics or a new language constructed from scratch in the Middle Stone Age are very implausible. I'm also strongly incline to think that even if there were a few original human languages from different bands in early speaking hominin groups, that the groups that gave rise to modern humans were at least part of a sprachbund and strongly influenced by each other at the phonetic level. But, those aren't conclusions that flow from the linguistic evidence itself.<br /><br />Bottom line, I think that there has simply been too much language churn over time and in the natural process by which languages evolve for contemporary, or event historically attested linguistic evidence to be discernable at even a recent Out of Africa time depth. The deepest linguistic connections discerned to date are in the 6,000-14,000 years old and tone as well as a few other phonemic features seem to be areal linguistic features (i.e. shared by languages in a region regardless of their parent languages) rather than parts of linguistic family tress to some extent at least. And, the options are fewer than they seem because phonemic features interact with each other rather than being independent. <br /><br />Also, even if Out of Africa is really 100,000 years ago, it is quite plausible that a language that swept out of Africa 60,000-70,000 could have supplanted whatever language was there before with modest population genetic impact (Hungary, Alexandrian Greek, Hittite, Arabic, Bantu in Pygmies, Hebrew in Israel, and the Romance languages provide just a few examples).<br /><br />Out of Africa is an oldest possible most recent common Eurasian linguistic ancestor, but a more recent date is possible and not even all the implausible.Andrew Oh-Willekehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02537151821869153861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-244820855382325752012-04-30T19:44:42.470+03:002012-04-30T19:44:42.470+03:00Blogger Baldric said...
Simplification is illogic...Blogger Baldric said...<br /><br /><i>Simplification is illogical. If languages tend to lose complexity (be it phonemes, declension, whatever), how did they become complex in the first place?</i><br /><br />The always increasing complexity is the same funny joke as the (forever) sustainable development of economy. :) <br /><br />Languages evidently reached the complexity necessary to work and being useful a very long time ago.<br />On what base you say that there is any preferred direction of complexity change after this point? I do not know such a natural law, also can't see how could simplification be illogical. <br /><br />Also I do know that language simplification happens, since I am a native speaker of a language that lost most of its tenses it the last several centuries.(Hungarian. We have past and present/future now, but educated people recognize other tenses in texts barely 200 years old and even more in medieval texts. Also this went completely against IE (latin and german) language influence.)Slumberyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05139930329199925111noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-8240535774588441642012-04-30T18:50:48.154+03:002012-04-30T18:50:48.154+03:00Agree with all your points, Dienekes. More from me...Agree with all your points, Dienekes. More from me here: http://anthropogenesis.kinshipstudies.org/2012/04/phonemic-diversity-and-out-of-africa-again-the-myth-is-gaining-a-momentum/German Dziebelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10703679732205862495noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-50348132424533006282012-04-30T17:22:58.350+03:002012-04-30T17:22:58.350+03:00Simplification is illogical. If languages tend to ...Simplification is illogical. If languages tend to lose complexity (be it phonemes, declension, whatever), how did they become complex in the first place?Andréshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00708925743497933631noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-55854621858519908392012-04-30T16:20:22.640+03:002012-04-30T16:20:22.640+03:00Africa is large and has diverse climates and as su...Africa is large and has diverse climates and as such allows humans as well as other living beings to exist in relatively large numbers regardless of changes.<br /><br />On the flip side, I don't think one can make the case that humans, let alone modern humans, solely evolved in Africa. Theory and records indicate that every 50,000 or 100,000 years or so, climate was favorable for ancient humans to live in and disperse from what currently are deserts - parts of the Sahara, Arabia, and generally the Near and Middle East. So, genetic exchange between Europe, the West Asia, and Africa likely was the norm during many of such periods. For example, the very existence of a geographically widely dispersed <i>Heidelbergensis</i> category wold be impossible, otherwise.eurologisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03440019181278830033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-40269654528762871912012-04-30T15:28:17.431+03:002012-04-30T15:28:17.431+03:00On the general topic of out of Africa, several exc...On the general topic of out of Africa, several excellent papers have suggested that the current molecular evidence suggesting an apparent ROA could represent merely a recent gene flow out of many older ones, or a "process' of modern adaptations rather than a single speciation event, and the mtDNA could represent a recent selective sweep, etc. However, what such potentially valid theories don;t discuss is why, almost every time, such flow nevertheless stems out of Africa, each and (almost) every timeRobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07166839601638241857noreply@blogger.com