cladking Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have great doubt that language is primarily
> cumulative.

I consider it a parallel to DNA, accumulating/permutating and storing junk.
It started with a few recognizable non-symbolic sounds that became symbolic.

> It seems far more plausible and recent evidence
> seems to
> suggest that it was a mutation some 40 or 50,000
> years ago
> which made speech possible. Man has a large
> portion of
> his brain dedicated to making and understanding
> language.
> When this appeared language should have been hard
> on its
> heels.

Perhaps. I think it gradually grew from calls, clicks, hums, gestures and tool engineering.

> Ideas expressible in one language are always
> expressible
> in another and one would think this would apply
> even to the
> earliest languages.

I would think so, but not sure.

> It would hardly be surprising if most languages
> even have
> a similar number of words dictated by the ability
> of the
> mind to remember them.
>
> ____________
> Time don't fly, it bounds and leaps.

I think English has a lot more words than most languages have.