All Languages Linked To Common Source 318
Old Wolf writes "A New Zealand evolutionary psychologist, Quentin Atkinson, has created a scientific sensation by claiming to have discovered the mother of all mother tongues. 'Dr Atkinson took 504 languages and plotted the number of phonemes in each (corrected for recent population growth, when significant) against the distance between the place where the language is spoken and 2,500 putative points of origin, scattered across the world (abstract). The relationship that emerges suggests the actual point of origin is in central or southern Africa, and that all modern languages do, indeed, have a common root."
Reader NotSanguine points out another study which challenges the idea that the brain is more important to the structure of language than cultural evolution.
Re:Phoneme counts (Score:5, Informative)
I read this earlier, and at first glance it's counter-intuitive. Why would older languages have more phonemes and not less?
This is a good question and in fact it's right on the money as a way to argue against this study. Languages change, this is true, but they don't change in a monotonic way. Some languages gain phonemes, some languages lose phonemes. That's how linguistic change works. In the same way, some languages have a complex synthetic syntax, and some have a relatively simple creole-like isolating syntax. When languages become too simplified, children learning the language create novel complications to fill out niches.
As an example Hungarian has only about 11 irregular verbs, but this is because their verb system is complex and unwieldy, meanwhile English with its incredibly simple verbal patterns has numerous (and in fact no single authoritative count) of irregular verbs.
Chinese has a limited syllable construction pattern, and as a result has picked up tones to make distinctions between words, while Japanese with a similarly limited syllable construction pattern uses longer words, and Hawai'ian with even more strict syllable construction rules and phonemes has gone for yet longer words. (I was surprised to realize that "Meli Kalikimaka" is literally "Merry Christmas" pounded into the strict Hawai'ian phonemic rules.)
So, while I think his ideas might have interest, and could be intriguing, there is also the fundamental problem that he's making a deep assumption of monotonic language "growth" that is not supported by reality. I imagine it's similar to measuring which animal has more evolutionary change by it having more teeth. But everyone wants to be the person to prove that all the world languages are related, right?
Re:Phoneme counts (Score:5, Informative)
The number of phonemes in a language has nothing to do with intelligence. In theory, the more modern languages have fewer phonemes because of the "founder effect". If you think about this in terms of vocabulary, it is obvious -- no-one knows all the words in any language, so if a small group set off to start their own colony, the language of that colony won't have the words that none of the founders knew. New words may be invented to substitute for the missing words but they will be different. It is the same with sounds (and genetic diversity, where this was first observed). Since new sound formation is a very slow process, the signal remains for a long time.
Your argument for the founder effect works for words, but not necessarily for phonemes. In order for a phoneme to be dropped by founder effect, the phoneme would have to occur in none of the words that the founders brought over. The idea of a phoneme rare enough in a vocabulary large enough for use by a small colony seems unlikely...
Plus, the Scandanavian languages lost the interdental fricative, while the colony of Iceland kept the interdental fricative... poor standing for your "founder effect" notion...
Re:Chimps (Score:5, Informative)
do chimps have the vocal chords to speak a human language? If so then why hasn't anybody taken a newborn chimp and taught the chimp to talk English or Spanish for example? Maybe even an easier language would work.
Chimps lack vocal chords, as well their mouths are not suited towards producing the variety of noises like we can. I recall an early attempt at raising a chimp in a house like any other human child and it never acquired speech.
Later the same experiment was tried with Washoe [wikipedia.org], who was raised with ASL exposure like a deaf child would be. The results were not impressive. She learned some signs and was able to communicate immediate needs and concerns, but never progressed beyond the abilities of a 3 year old linguistically. The research was announced as a success, and that Washoe learned ASL incredibly well, but the researchers refused to release any of the actual data, or anything to substantiate their claims. Having had to raise the chimp as it were a child, they are quite obviously not the most unbiased or objective source on the quality of their research.
Later, a Nim Chimpsky [wikipedia.org] was raised with intent to reproduce the results purported by the Washoe experiment, and failed to replicate the results. He learned again, very limited communication only of immediate needs and concerns with no actual regularized syntax. In fact, the Deaf reviewer on the team consistently reported that he knew less signs than the hearing reviewers. Concerned he might be wrong, he looked into the reasons why, and discovered that people were giving Nim great leeway in signs; reporting some non-verbal behaviors as verbal communication.
Re:Phoneme counts (Score:4, Informative)
Babies "babble" in the full range of sounds a human can make.
Actually, babies "babble" in the full range of phonemes that they have heard their parents use. Even baby babbling is language dependent. Babies don't begin babbling until they are well exposed to the sounds of their parents, and in fact, while developing in the womb fetuses already are honing in on the phonemes used by their mothers, and are born with an innate interest towards the phonemes that their mother used as opposed to any other phonemes.
Re:All Languages Linked To Common Source (Score:4, Informative)
Jesus wouldn't say "For millions of years" because he believes his father only made us 4,000 years ago.
Actually, no place in the Bible comes right out and says what the age of the Earth is. The 6000 year figure comes from some people's (weak) interpretation of some verses.
Re:All Languages Linked To Common Source (Score:5, Informative)
Communication isn't "talking" though. Lots of animals can communicate - a pre-defined verbal code however is something else entirely. Also, there are plenty of documented cases where an infant was separated from human contact and never learned to talk. Here's the kicker: research of these individuals has shown that for the most part, if you don't learn to to speak before aged 5 or 6, it's a skill that simply cannot be developed. The most that these people could ever master was a few broken words.
Re:All Languages Linked To Common Source (Score:5, Informative)
.... you do realise that the athiests aren't the ones claiming the world is 6000 years old right?
There's a decent number of people who genuinely believe it along with a lot of other very very silly things.