From: mls@cbnewsm.cb.att.com (mike.siemon)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Linguistic Evolution / Tower of Babel
Summary: the remarkable Tedster ...
Date: 4 Sep 92 04:20:22 GMT
Organization: AT&T

Y'know, there are times when I *do* think the best explanation
is that Ted is pulling our collective [Leninist?] leg:

In article <2893@fedfil.UUCP>, news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:

> As several have noted, there are a number of insoluble problems with
> the standard theories on language.

You and Annti and who else?  You're not a JW are you?

> The divide between Semetic and Indo-European peoples is very recent;

Depending on just what is meant here, this could be the stopped clock
being right once or twice a day.  If one is to indulge in speculation
with no (current) reasonable empirical testing, I would venture that
the separation of Semitic and IE languages is within the last 10,000
years.  Quite recent, in fact.

> there is no real racial difference.  To try to explain the total lack
> of relationships between Semetic and Indo-European languages within
> the confines of standard theories is futile.  You just don't have the 
> TIME you need.  

Ted seems unable to spell "Semitic" -- this is not at the level of
nonsense he usually sustains, so I wonder what is wrong?  Again, I
have to ask, WHAT "total lack of relationships?"  There is a great
deal of overlap between Semitic syntax and IE categories.  What is
to explain?   Ted is apparently making this up on the fly. 

As to "race" [pace my disagreement with Matthew Wiener] -- one of the
more or less firm correlations of ethnicity and genetic boundaries I
am aware of is the Ashkenazic Jewish "isogene" (coinage meant to be
parallel to isogloss) in which Tay-Sachs disease is present at a level
statistically significantly different between Jewish populations and
the non-Jewish surrounding European groups.  I do *not* think that
this differentiation holds for *other* Jewish populations vis a vis
the European non-Jews.  That is part of what I mean by saying that
"race" is incoherent -- despite Matthew's urging of this as a higher
taxonomic term above ethnos.

> There is the further observation, totally valid, that all available 
> evidence indicates that all known forms of language have devolved into
> simpler rather than more complex forms during the entire period of time

As I said to Andreas: bullshit.  There is ZERO such evidence.  If one
counts *Indo-European* languages (and the criteria of what counts as
seprate languages for this are a bit obscure :-)) then one *may* come
to the conclusion that in Europe, *inflectional morphology* has, for
*most* languages tended to reduction over the historical record.  So?

Any claim that this is some kind of universal tendency had better be
able to deal with cases of *incipient* inflectional morphology (in
some South Asian groups, for example), and with the fact that American
students don't seem able to cope with, that languages have OTHER kinds
of structures besides the inflectional ones that cause morons like Ted
so much difficulty.

I will refrain from laughing through Ted's animal-telepathy shit.
-- 
Michael L. Siemon			"I know of nothing -- I suspect
					not even death -- that is so fixed
mls@usl.com				in the present tense as love."
standard disclaimer					-- Jess Anderson
Newsgroups: talk.origins