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To: SunkenCiv

GGG Ping.


2 posted on 09/23/2005 4:46:40 PM PDT by blam
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To: blam
To study tongues from the Pleistocene, the period between 1.8 million and 10,000 years ago, Michael Dunn and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics developed a computer program that analyzes language based on how words relate to one another.

A computer program...that seals it.

Betwixt 1.8 million and 10,000 year ago...that nails it down.

Psycholinguistics...correction, pycho linguists.

Nothing can be definitively known about the sound of Attic Greek (500-300 B.C.), a mere 2500 years ago for which we have both literary and introspective evidence, and we're to believe that an automated method will reveal what we can already guess--languages can have structural similarities because we, as humans, have a inherent capacity for language, independent of their vocabularies. Further, we were told languages evolve from highly inflected to word order languages, and experts are WAG'ing that this process oscilates between some speculated extremes.

This is not science. But such often appears in "Science" magazine.

6 posted on 09/23/2005 5:13:59 PM PDT by nonsporting
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