Origin of Language Continued

On Origin of Human Language : Supernatural, Not Evolutionary · Origin of Language Continued

III

Costas Tsintavis

20h ago

Sorry to bother again, but explaining one word that one does not know with another equaly unknown does not clear things up.

“He = God”. What is God?
“Gave innate knowledge = didn’t teach but gave Adam the knowledge without a learning process at the moment of creating him” Please elaborate on the procedure
“Allowed Adam to make choices = about a limited part of the vocabulary, not included in the knowledge Adam already had” Allowing a limited part of the vocabulary = Why only a part? & which knowlege Adam had already & how?
Sincerely,

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

God, the one eternal being in three persons.
Procedure = God’s acts of will are ipso facto allmighty in God’s creation.
A being with no language cannot proceed to invent language. The part that Adam did not need to already know before getting to the task = all knowledge of Hebrew except nouns denoting animals as well as those manmade objects that would be named even later & by God’s almighty act of giving him that knowledge.

Costas Tsintavis

7m ago

Hello again,

I am trying to behave like a “scientist”, so examination of ALL data before accepting or rejecting them is sine qua non. Therefore when one is claiming the existence of X, one MUST provide evidence for the existence, otherwise anyone, person or group, will declare the existence of anything anytime without use.

Exception to the rule is of course one’s dialog with himself or people that just accept the statement, for any reason, without inquiry.

In all other cases as in a Public Forum, the initial rule prevails.

Therefore, you “must” provide evidence of the existence of this “eternal being” and then describe it precisely.

Looking forward to a reply with Evidence.

Sincerely

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

It so happens, unless you are willing to pretend men always existed from eternity, you have to accept there is a God who gave us language.

For very clear linguistic reasons it is impossible to have human language descending from animal sounds.

// phoneme (*repetitions) = sentence //

does not equal
// phoneme + phoneme + … = morpheme
morpheme + morpheme + … = sentence //

Purely practical messages like “don’t worry, I’m fine” or “help!” do not equal a communication spectrum that can define and discuss notions.

There is no possible transition from one to the other.

Your format for science is faulty, since you pretend an explanation cannot be accepted until existence or occurrence of explaining notion be a proven fact, while one of the things that can actually so prove is, that it is the sole possible explanation of something we cannot doubt.

Costas Tsintavis

16h ago

Hello again,

Phrase #1: It so happens, unless you are willing to pretend men always existed from eternity, you have to accept there is a God who gave us language.

Following your way of thinking: If something – men or object – exist, only two options are valid, according to your statement:

1) That “Something” either always existed

2) There Must be a “god”

I am confident that any logical thinking person would instantly disagree with your statement! Are you? Please remember 2 key sentences:

1) The discussion is about logical sentences & not about belief without logic. The later is of no interest to me and in this case I will prefer to start debating the existence past & the future of the Church of “Underground Kebab Goddess”

2) I am not trying to change your beliefs. After all “I totally disapprove your beliefs, but I will defend to the end your right to express it”

Phrase #2: For very clear linguistic reasons it is impossible to have human language descending from animal sounds.

As an amateur linguist, as stated in your title, I am also confident that they taught you the notion of language evolution, at the University you attended. English is very different from the language spoken 200 years ago and English did not exist 2000 years ago… So according to your line there is no other possibility…but a “god” gave innate knowledge to the first Britton!

Furthermore, if there was an innate gift of knowledge, from this thing called “god” to Adam, without a learning process, why did you & I had schooling? Why children need to be taught how to speak if this eternal “thing” referred as “god” gave it or induce it to Adam? Why not to his descendants? A very vindictive eternal being!

Phrase #3: Your format for science is faulty, since you pretend an explanation cannot be accepted until existence or occurrence of explaining notion be a proven fact, while one of the things that can actually so prove is, that it is the sole possible explanation of something we cannot doubt.

Last but not least the famous S-word in the discussion that adds weight to the user. Ok! We will be scientific! Beware … Extremely “Heavy” word on unaccustomed shoulders. It should not to be used lightly without, apparently, prior knowledge and/or use of scientific methodology.

1) “My Format of Science is faulty”? Why not! I am not the eternal being I am a mere mortal learning from my mistakes, so let us find the culprit. You provide the “sole explanation” rejecting all others on …belief! I am faulty & this is Iron Clad Science!

2) Stating the solution is “possible”? Sure, it is possible but I would rather go with Kebab & a Goddess rather than a vindictive racist “god”. It has a patriarchic sound? Do you agree? Why on Earth a he ‘god” and not a she “goddess”? Why not both at the top of the Universe? A racist eternal being! I am faulty & this is Iron Clad Science!

3) “We cannot doubt”. Why? Sounds like “I believe therefore it is the only way & any other suggestions are unacceptable”. I am faulty & this is Iron Clad Science!

4) Using 1 & 2, correct me if I am wrong, the words you are trying to describe, without spelling them are “Theory” & «LNC” in a clumsy – forgive me – way

Excuse me if I abused of your kind heart & your free time, I will end on a simple request. I will like to make amends, by following a University course on “Science” and/or “Scientific Method”, to correct my faulty approach, after off course you provide a valid link of a university level course that you studied. Preferably a Top 10 Institution on Earth.

Sincerely,

P.S: Answers without “hard data” & university courses links will remove all intellectual interest from the discussion & sound the bell for the next one

“the Day The Underground Kebab Goddess appeared searing in front of me“

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

_"Following your way of thinking: If something – men or object – exist, only two options are valid, according to your statement: 1) That 'Something' either always existed 2) There Must be a 'god' "_

I am referring to the kind of thing, that if once it didn't exist, it couldn't come into existence. Existing objects are one such class. Whether or not there ever was a time when no object existing today yet existed, there must at least have been other objects that did exist. I have long added spirit and epistemic consciousness to this - but it is simpler to point out qualities in language.

My point is language always existed and could not have come into existance. Not meaning any given language existing today, but language. There is no way in which it could emerge from non-linguistic factors.

_"1) The discussion is about logical sentences & not about belief without logic. The later is of no interest to me and in this case I will prefer to start debating the existence past & the future of the Church of “Underground Kebab Goddess”"_

How about you learn to identify logic in someone as culturally different from you as a believer. I was not referring to belief, I was referring to logic.

_"2) I am not trying to change your beliefs. After all “I totally disapprove your beliefs, but I will defend to the end your right to express it”"_

Exactly same observation applies.

Phrase #2: For very clear linguistic reasons it is impossible to have human language descending from animal sounds.

_"As an amateur linguist, as stated in your title, I am also confident that they taught you the notion of language evolution, at the University you attended. English is very different from the language spoken 200 years ago and English did not exist 2000 years ago… So according to your line there is no other possibility…but a “god” gave innate knowledge to the first Britton!"_

A side note, English is not the native language of the Brits, it was promoted by immigrants from 5th C. AD. Welsh is native British and so was Cornish. It is also not very different from 200 years ago, but it is very different from 1200 years ago.

Be clear on exactly what changed between "ealc thara tha gehierth thas min word ande tha gewyrcth" and "Every one therefore that heareth these my words, and doth them,". I'll not go through all, just examplify.

1) two phoneme changes between "min" and "my" : dropping final n, great vowel shift, long i to aï. Phoneme changes to phoneme.

2) "ealc thara tha" to "each of them who" involves dropping genitive plural morpheme "-ra" in favour of "of" and the masculine plural "tha" of "that" in favour of either neutre singular or the alternative word "who". Morpheme changes to morpheme.

3) "tha gewyrcth" has subordinate clause word order "verb final" (also known from German), while "doth them" has subordinate clause word order "verb, then object". Syntagm changes to syntagm. One part of this is eliminating some morphemes that were endings, and replace them with prepositions or word order.

You do not find, not in English, not in Anglo-Saxon, not in Proto-Germanic if that existed, but I think it did, any case where one of the levels P+P=M, M+M=S is confounded into the animal version P=M=S.

You do not propose any process by which that could happen, that the latter gave rise to the former, animal to human. It's like claiming changes in dog anatomy between Chihuahuas and Great Danes is an argument for vertebrates descending from invertebrates.

"Furthermore, if there was an innate gift of knowledge, from this thing called “god” to Adam, without a learning process, why did you & I had schooling? Why children need to be taught how to speak if this eternal “thing” referred as “god” gave it or induce it to Adam? Why not to his descendants? A very vindictive eternal being!"

Not the least. Cain, Abel, Seth and all the rest of Adam's children had Eve and Adam teach them. Adam couldn't have. If he had had that, he would not have been Adam. And if he had learnt any animal communication with P=M=S, he could not have changed it to P+P=M, M+M=S. That's not how observed language changes work.

"Last but not least the famous S-word in the discussion that adds weight to the user. Ok! We will be scientific! Beware … Extremely “Heavy” word on unaccustomed shoulders. It should not to be used lightly without, apparently, prior knowledge and/or use of scientific methodology.""

University courses are very well placed for amateur linguists. Latin, 4 terms, Ancient Greek, 2 1/2 terms. German, 1 term. Polish, 1/2 term plus a week. Lithuanian 1 term. Plus 1/2 term each of Lithuanian and All Three Baltic Cultural history.

You did not answer as to how you prove anything not directly observed either than by its being the sole possible explanation for something observed.

As far as explanations are concerned, Kebab goddess is same explanation, in a very much less documented version.

Costas Tsintavis

19h ago

Hello,

At last! In the last paragraph of your statement, there is hope that you understand and must admit & welcome it as a positive point in this discussion!

“As far as explanations are concerned, Kebab goddess is same explanation, in a very much less documented version”

So the few thousand year old “god” and a moments invention “Kebab Goddess” have the same explanation but less documentation!

Finally, as promised the discussion ends, since I read about a “list” of - Unknown / No Name - University courses but - as always - I do not see any links. Good Luck in your journey!

Sincerely,

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

You are very free to limit your discussions to people with university degrees backing them up with links.

It’s a tactic to avoid people without such or with less than cordial links to their alma mater.

Or will these links do?

Latin | Lunds universitet (80 p = 4 terms back then)
Grekiska (antik och bysantinsk) (50 p = 2 1/2 terms back then)
Tyska (20 p = 1 term back then)
Lithuanian (20 p, no link since no longer given on university)
Ny professor i polska (not to actual course, but to a professor in the area, 11 p)
From where you can also ask about 10 p Lithuanian cultural history, 10 p Baltic countries cultural history.

I do not think you understand the meaning of my equation as to explanation.

Yes, any god or goddess pre-existing before mankind would do as far as this explanation is concerned, while on the other hand, evolution won’t.

However, your seems made up on the spot, while I refer to one given in Adam’s autobiographic account of day 6, in Genesis 2 and a few more theophanies along the story of Genesis.

Annunaki are less documented than that, since pre-Flood king list gives a succession of kings, not a genealogy from which one may glean early parts are autobiographical. But at least there is some kind of claim to cultural continuity from creation days, except that it is less well argued as to documentation, since not a genealogy.

Yours is definitely totally undocumented.

B U T even totally undocumented beats an explanation that simply cannot have any kind of chance to work.

Costas Tsintavis

4m ago

Have a Nice Day!

XIV

Domenico Altavilla

18h ago

1) If you had written “I argue ...”, “I believe ...”, “I think ….”, you would have had, since “personal opinion”, all rights not to “demonstrate” it. But you have written ... “He gave them innate knowledge of the initial spoken language, and he allowed Adam to make choices about vocaulary, namely name the beast kinds.” …, that is, you have expressed as a “fact” what you have “inferred” from some your “reasoning” (in other words, you have reversed the logical steps “fact → deduction” - “deduction → fact”). No, sir, that’s not how it works. It is a “dogmatic statement”, wich gives me the “rigth” to ask you to “prove” it. All of your answers are “abstractions” that don’t prove the fundamental claim.

2) … “I was answering your objection that you pretended to have proven evolution of language (of human language as such, not of a specific language).” … I never pretended to prove anything, on the contrary, that you prove your claims.

3) … “Prior to the Flood (and if we replace this wording which flaunts YEC with “carbon dated 45 000 BC” scientists will agree) Homo sapiens sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis lived side by side. Same as with Denisovans.” … “Homo Neanderthalensis” and “Homo Sapiens sapiens” may well have lived partially in the same period, but that doesn’t mean they are separate biological branches, each with different ancestors from the other (animal, for the first, god for the second, if you don’t agree that they are the results of evolution; but what about the “written” language of neanderthal man you have asserted he had?).

4) … “32 is like 22 Hebrew consonants + 10 vowels ...”. It is also like 1+31, 2+30, 3+29, …. 33-1, 34-2, …. 16x2, ….128:4 ….(everyone can find the meanings he wants in anything, if the meaning is not defined a priori).

5) … “all shared a fully human language which cannot be shown to have evolved from bestial communications ...”, neither that it has been imprinted by a god into someone named “Adam” and “Eve”.

(NOTE: Your “theory” about the Y-chromosome is “exactly” what may have appened in evolution. Also, it means that “Homo Neanderthalensis” and “Homo Sapiens sapiens” were “inter-fertile”, therefore no separate biological branches; that is, god could have imprinted the “original structured language” into neanderthal man, while homo sapiens inherited it by evolution; or were “Adam” a neanderthal man and “Eve” a homo sapiens woman?)

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

"no, sir, that’s not how it works. It is a “dogmatic statement”, wich gives me the “rigth” to ask you to “prove” it."

Bait and switch, you dishonest man - or are you just forgetful? I said "basic superiority" is not a dogmatic statement, but a very obvious descriptive statement. Just as stating a dolphin has superior senses to a coral is a very obvious descriptive sentence.

"All of your answers are “abstractions” that don’t prove the fundamental claim.""

Oh, they do. Because if they didn't, you could outline a way in which:

// phoneme*repetition = sentence //

becomes

// phoneme + phoneme + ... = morpheme

morpheme + morpheme + ... = sentence. //

You can't, because you didn't.

"I never pretended to prove anything, on the contrary, that you prove your claims."

Any objection saying any claim of your own would have to go from your previous words then. It was such a thing I answered. Not a mere question about my proofs.

"“Homo Neanderthalensis” and “Homo Sapiens sapiens” may well have lived partially in the same period, but that doesn’t mean they are separate biological branches, each with different ancestors from the other"

I did not claim they were, but I claim Neanderthals are not ancestral to sapiens sapiens. And that is commonplace opinion of modern evolution believers too.

"It is also like 1+31, 2+30, 3+29, …. 33-1, 34-2, …. 16x2, ….128:4 ….(everyone can find the meanings he wants in anything, if the meaning is not defined a priori)"

1 + 31, 2 + 30, 3 + 29 - all of them fit the idea of alphabetic writing, perhaps an alphabet plus some extra signs. The ones involving minus or division are irrelevant, and as for 16*2 I think 16 letters times upper and lower case is less likely.

The point is 32 signs is the right size of repertoir for alphabetic writing. Very exactly the right size. Not things a linguist could miss. Coincidence? Maybe. But a very funny one if so.

"neither that it has been imprinted by a god into someone named “Adam” and “Eve”."

You basically have only two options : man is from eternity and ten million years ago someone was transmitting language to us as he had received it from someone ten million years earlier (with appropriate numbers of intermediates) or man is not from eternity and mankind received language from someone Who is. God fits the bill.

"Also, it means that “Homo Neanderthalensis” and “Homo Sapiens sapiens” were “inter-fertile”, therefore no separate biological branches; "

How about checking what I actually contradicted you on? Our exchange is here:

On Origin of Human Language : Supernatural, Not Evolutionary
https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2021/03/on-origin-of-human-language.html

Scroll down to XIV. Under that numeral, you get what you said March 6.