[An odd response to a perfectly reasonable analogy between common ancestory and the evolution of language]
You can crawl back up the slimehole that you came from- FSTDT.
33 comments
Someone suggested that language and species evolve somewhat similarly- changes occur over time, something that works stays, things that don't, don't, and you wind up with very localised variations based on different influences.
Nothing troll-like about it, really.
Yes, language, like organisms, evolves. I don't think that "natural selection" is really the mechanism behind language change, however. I suppose the "So if evolution is true why don't apes give birth to humans????" argument would be like assuming that one day, a Latin-speaking person (or entire community of same) spontaneously and completely switched to speaking modern French. Obviously that doesn't make sense, and hopefully that would serve to illustrate how evolution doesn't work by an animal spontaneously birthing something completely different, but is a continuous series of more gradual changes. But as Yahweh pointed out, if you believe in the Tower of Babel story...
Too bad that, just like with biological evolution, language evolution has been observed.
YES!!!!!! I got quoted. It took forever! That was the exact intent of this quote, to get quoted here. Why do you think I used such harsh language and I referred to ya'll???
BTW, I'm a GUY! I'm not a girl.
>>The analogy was roughly the evolution of language, in the sense that we have French and English which are both derivatives of Latin.<<
Isn't English a Germanic language? (But with piles of everything else thrown in.) Spanish/French/Italian would work, though.
Robin Dunbar wrote a fascinating book called "Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language" -- referring to the development of even the basic human phenomenon of language, rather than either micro- or macroevolution of languages per se. The book makes for some excellent reading.
~David D.G.
Teenager -
English gets its Latin influences primarily through French, due to the Norman conquest of England in 1066. There are probably some Latin roots that are older than that - due to Romanization of some of the Germanic tribes - but that influence (if any) is quite minimal, and certainly subordinated to the French-sourced influence.
There are, however, some Latin place-names that remain in use: London (from Londinium), York (derived from Eboracorum), any place ending in -chester (from "castrum," meaning "camp," or more specifically "army camp."
>>>>>>>>>>Teenager -
English gets its Latin influences primarily through French, due to the Norman conquest of England in 1066. There are probably some Latin roots that are older than that - due to Romanization of some of the Germanic tribes - but that influence (if any) is quite minimal, and certainly subordinated to the French-sourced influence.
There are, however, some Latin place-names that remain in use: London (from Londinium), York (derived from Eboracorum), any place ending in -chester (from "castrum," meaning "camp," or more specifically "army camp."
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Correct.
@Elia: I think Teenager was posting poe-ish crap to get posted here, based on his last comment in this thread. So yeah.
I could be wrong and he could be nuts though. That's the whole point of Poe's Law. Who knows?
We all ought to give teenager some slack. After all, we know language doesn't "evolve", that's silly. The proof is the fact we all still speak Elizebethan English, and, . . . uh . . .
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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