"We do know some natural facts about language. Communication barriers tend to result in new languages. For example, people who are separated for many generations become mutually incomprehensible. There is a competing tendency for minority languages to simply disappear in the vicinity of a majority language. This is principally because most key social opportunities will be offered to speakers of the majority language.
On the other hand, there are no "primitive" languages, in the way that we can speak of "primitive" technology (knapped stone vs. high grade steel). It is possible to translate the Bible into any language, despite its ancient origin and the complexity of its tangled multi-kingdom histories and theological arguments.
Humans learn to talk and animals don't. Not all the argumentation or insult available to the chattering classes has ever changed this.
Also, we are informed that "learning to talk is in the genes," due to the identification of the ROBO2 gene, related to the number of words spoken by children in the early stages of language development. Further, researchers have shown that when mice were genetically engineered to express the human version of a gene, Foxp2, they ran mazes much faster than other mice. ("The key finding was therefore that the humanized Foxp2 gene makes it easier to turn mindful actions into behavioral routines.")
Yet the mice still had nothing to say." EN&V
On the other hand, there are no "primitive" languages, in the way that we can speak of "primitive" technology (knapped stone vs. high grade steel). It is possible to translate the Bible into any language, despite its ancient origin and the complexity of its tangled multi-kingdom histories and theological arguments.Humans learn to talk and animals don't. Not all the argumentation or insult available to the chattering classes has ever changed this.
Also, we are informed that "learning to talk is in the genes," due to the identification of the ROBO2 gene, related to the number of words spoken by children in the early stages of language development. Further, researchers have shown that when mice were genetically engineered to express the human version of a gene, Foxp2, they ran mazes much faster than other mice. ("The key finding was therefore that the humanized Foxp2 gene makes it easier to turn mindful actions into behavioral routines.")
Yet the mice still had nothing to say." EN&V
And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language,
that they may not understand one another's speech.
Genesis 11:1,7
