RE: Human speech 350,000 years ago?

> -----Original Message-----
> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu
> [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of Dick Fischer
> Sent: Sunday, July 04, 2004 1:09 PM
> To: asa@calvin.edu
> Subject: Re: Human speech 350,000 years ago?

> Glenn wrote:
>
> > Why? Because I am more interested in truth than propaganda.
> I would
> > be delighted to bring up things that contradict my
> viewpoint. I try
> > to behave a bit better than most apologists.
>
> I see. Is this what you would call an ad hominem defense?

Dick, I didn't say you were one of those kind of apologists. But of
course, if you wish to claim to be one, that is your business.

> I lived in the UK for five years actually. There was no
> place that I traveled, Wales, Scotland, Isle of Man, that my
> coarse American accent wasn't understood. But you are
> missing (or avoiding) the point. The example of Chinese
> versus Japanese is valid. We have two populations derived
> from common stock biologically separated geographically for a
> mere 15,000 years tops. Had any kind of language developed
> even as late as Hugh Ross suggests at 60,000 years ago, then
> 45,000 years of language development should have produced
> something that would have survived the separation. Yet there
> are no commonalities whatever.

Did you not read what I wrote? The Japanese are related to the Koreans
and Japanese is an Altaic language, not a Sino-Tibetan language. Why is
it that so many Christians simply ignore data? And for your information
anatomically modern man has been living in China since at least 67,000
years ago.

"The earliest evidence of modern humans in Europe is found between 35
and 40 kya; in China, perhaps as early as 67 kya at Liujiang; in
Australia, 55 kya or earlier; in America, at the earliest 35 kya (but
according to many, only later, 15-20 kya. An important gap in the
record, from 100 kya to 50 kya yields no information of events in most
of Asia regarding a.m.h." ~ L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Paoli Menozzi and
Alberto Piazzi, The History and Geography of Human Genes, (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 64

There are commonalities among all the world's languages, but I obviously
you didn't bother to educate yourself about them by taking a look at
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/babel.htm. I will pull a bit of that page.

The first finger held up is a widespread symbol for 1 or first. It also
represents the digits of the hand. So the word for finger, first, one,
etc with a dik or tik sound is quite widespread. Linguists look at
sounds and how they change and then compare cognates from different
languages looking for a pattern. This is illustrated by the following
data regarding African languages:

Language sound meaning
Fur tek one
Maba tek (tuk) one
Nera dekk-u one
Dinka tok one
Berta diikoni one
Mangetu t'e one
Kwama seek-o one t changed to s
Bari to one
Jur tok one
Twampa de? one
Komo de one

Grimm's law (yeah the guy who compiled the fairy tales) says that when
languages evolve, sounds change in a predictable fashion. With digit
meaning finger one finds d->t and d->z so continuing the list, this
sound for first/one is laid out here.

Tik, Finger/One

Niger-Kordofanian family
Fulup qsik~sex finger (~ separates variant
pronunciations)
Nalu te finger
Gur dike one
Gwa dogbo one
Fon dokpa one
Ewe deka one
Tonga tiho finger
Chopi t'ho finger
Ki-Bira zika finger
Ba-Kiokwa zigu finger

Afro-Asiatic family of North Africa
Oromo toko one
West Gurage tegu only one
 Yaaku tegei hand
Saho ti one
Bilin tu one
Tsamai dokko one
Nefusa tukod finger
Hausa tak only one
Gisiga tekoy one
Gidder te-teka one
Logone tku first

Eurasiatic family
Indoeuropean branch
Indoeuropean root deik
Latin dig-itus finger
Latin indeks forefinger
English toe toe
Old English tahe toe
Latin Decem 10

Uralic branch
Votyak odik one
Zyrian otik one

Turkic branch
Chuvash tek only, just
Uighur tek only merely
Chagatai tek only, single
Turkish tek only
Turkish teken one by one
Korean tayki one, thing
Old Korean tek 10
Ainu tek hand
Ainu atiki five
Japanese te hand
Chuckchi-
Kamchatkan itygin paw-foot

Eskimo-Aleut
Upik tik-iq index finger
Inupiaq tik-iq index finger
Inupiaq Tikkuagpaa he points to it
Attu tik-laq middle finger
Attu atgu finger
Attu tagataq one

Dene-Caucasian
Rai tik(-pu) one
Nung thi one
Tibetan (g-)tsig one

Yeniseian branch
Ket tek finger
Punpokol tok finger
Kott tog-an finger

Na-Dene branch
Haida ta with the fingers
Tlingit t-eeq finger
Tlingit Tek one
Eyak tikhi one
Sarsi tlik one
Kutchin (i-)Tag one
Hupa ta? One
Navajo ta? One

Austric family
Austroasiatic branch
Kharia ti? Hand
Riang ti? Hand
Wa tai? Hand
Khmer tai hand
Vietnamese tay hand

Daic branch
Li dlian finger
Northern Li tlean,then finger
Loi then,cian finger
Tasmanian motook forefinger
SE tasmanian togue hand
Boven Mbian tek fingernail
Digul tuk fingernail

Amerind languages
North American Amerind Family
Nootka taka only
Mohawk tsi?er Finger
Sierra Miwok tika? Index finger
Wintun tiq-eles ten
Nisenan tok- hand
Mixe to?k, tuk one
Sayula tu?k one
Tzeltal tukal alone
Quiche tik'ex carry in the hand
Karok tik finger,hand
Achumawi wa-tuci finger
Washo tsek finger
Yana 'tgi- alone
East Pomo bi'yatsukai finger
Arraarra teeh'k hand
Pehtsik tiki-vash hand
Akwa'ala asit-dek one
Nahua tiikia?a one
Pima bajo cic one
Tarahumara sika hand
Mazatec cika?a alone
Mangue tike one

South America Amerind family
Chibcha ytiquyn finger
Chibcha Acik by ones
Borunca etsik one
Guatuso dooki one
Shiriana ithak hand
Ulua tinka-mak finger
Paez teec one
Cahuapana itekla finger,hand
Jebero itokla finger,hand
Qawashqar takso one
Siona tekua one
Siona teg-li five
Canichana eutixle finger
Yupua di(x)ka arm
Uasona dikaga arm
Upano tikitik one
Aguaruna tikij one
Murato tici hand
Uru ti one
Chipaya zek one
Itene taka one
Guamo dixi finger
Katembri tika toe
Yuracare tece thumb
Kukura tikua finger
Accaqwai tigina one
Ocaina dikabu arm
Mataco otejji one
Tagnani etegueno finger
Sensi (nawis)-tikoe one(finger)
Cavinena eme-toko hand
Botocudo (po-)cik one(finger)
Botocudo jik alone
~Merritt Ruhlen, The Origin of Language, (New York: John Wiley and Sons,
1994), p.115-119

In Mandarin, the word for finger shouzhi. Shou is 'hand'. Zhi is the
word used with everything surrounding the finger. Fingernail is zhi jia,
finger print is zhi wen yin. Given Grimm's law, a zhi sound fits into
the family of connection to connect Japanese te with the mandarin zhi.

Other zhi's have the connotation of one or only. Zhi means only; zhi
means one of a pair. So, Dick, there are connections.

>
> What you came back with is simply obscuration like this:
>
> >Ever hear of Doric or Orcadian? How about Gaelic, Welsh
> and English? Multpile migrations
> > into the island caused this set of circumstances. Your objection is
> > moot because you think that everyone who lives next to each
> other must
> > have the same language or even be related.
>
> Are there no commonalties in the languages you enumerated?

Dick, I am going to shout now. THE JAPANESE WERE DESCENDED FROM THE
KOREANS, NOT THE CHINESE. Shouting is over now. I think you are getting
deaf.

>
> > Do you believe in pre-evolution of features?
>
> "Pre-evolution" escapes me. What is that?
>
> >The evolution of all the
> > hardware for language, but it remains unused until Dick
> Fischer thinks
> >it should be used? What about villages and probable
> religious sites
> >made 400 kyr ago? You believe that mere animals who couldn't
> >communicate made them?
>
> See. I give you a specific example and you counter with
> speculation. Calling mounds of dirt and piles of rocks
> "religious" is a stretch you have to admit. Are sand castles
> made by three year-olds religious? And how much verbal
> communication is required to build them?

One can't make a horse drink when you give him the bucket.

> > Language studies do link the Japanese and Koreans:
>
> Yes, just as Spanish is related to Italian.

I am going to shout again. BUT NOT TO CHINESE

> Glenn, the Korean language IS related to Japanese!

And you keep saying that Japanese SHOULD be connected to Mandarin quite
closely. There are connections, but they are very very distant.

> Irrelevant facts simply muddy the water. Did you ever read
> Lubenow's book "Bones of Contention," a title he purloined
> from a legitimate book on paleoanthropology? With pure
> drivel, Lubenow tries to convince his innocent audience that
> all the hominids in the fossil record somehow lived
> contemporaneously. Extraneous material, no matter how
> elegant, is still extraneous.

Sorry, Dick you are driveling again. Please wipe your chin.

>
> If you wish to agrue that the entirety of Genesis history
> prior to the flood happenened over 350,000 years ago you
> would need more than the mere possibility ot spoken language.
> You would need evidence of farming and raising livestock,
> relics of stringed musical instruments, and tools made from
> bronze and iron. Got any?

No, but then if the flood was anthropologically universal, it would take
millions of years before technology revived. I believe what we see is
the revival of technology
Received on Sun Jul 4 22:35:29 2004