DDeden Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> > 10 million years? That predates
> Sahelanthropus
> > tchadensis, the earliest known hominid -- the
> time
> > of the gorilla-like Chororapithecus
> abyssinicus.
>
> Right, just after the orangs split away, before
> the gorillas split.

Mmmmmmkayyyyyyyyyyyyyy....


> > You determined this from the molars? Or
> > jawbones?
>
> Combination of vertical posture,

But hominids didn't become obligate bipeds until around 5 million years go. You say you've traced linguistic history 5 million years beyond that. I'm questioning how you know what sounds they made, particularly since the fossil material often does not include full skulls or full skeletons.

> early H erectus midface projection,
> enlargement of the nose, hyoid
> relocation, descent of the larynx, enlargement of
> the paranasal sinuses, swimming and diving rather
> than tree climbing, backfloating of mother with
> child learning breath hold, lullabye origin (hum
> tone only), loss of laryngeal air sac, probability
> that teeth were not in place in infancy, improved
> bilabial control, improved manual dexterity but
> poorer foot dexterity

You're stating that you can track language back to 10 million years, but the features you're talking about don't develop that far back. For example, vertical posture in the hominid lineage doesn't develop until around 5 million years ago with Ardepithecus. H. erectus doesn't develop until around 1.5 million years ago.

You're saying that we speak a language derived from sounds and gestures when we were small monkey-like creatures 10 million years ago? And you know what these sounds and gestures were?

It also sounds like you're trying to use some of the "aquatic ape" ideas... but those were discredited quite some time ago with the finding of more fossil material. That concept suffered from cherry picked examples and unfounded hypotheses which speculated about body forms... forms that do not acutally show up in the fossil record. This site gives a good review of why the theory failed to meet the tests:
[www.aquaticape.org]

I'm also curious about what fossil references you use to make the statements:
* enlargement of the nose (since the nose structures in hominids actually decrease over time)
* hyoid relocation (I don't know of any hyoid fragments remaining from 10my or even 5my, your claimed date for the origin of your studies of language.)
* enlarging paranasal sinuses ... which fossils in the 10my-4my are providing this data and does this take sexual dimorphism into account? (ref: "Anatomy of the nasal cavity and paranasal sinuses in Aegyptopithecus and early Miocene African catarrhines" James B. Rossie, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Volume 126, Issue 3 , Pages 250 - 267)
* swimming and diving rather than brachiation -- again, which fossil material is being used to prove this and what particular structures indicate swimming and diving? As far as I know, the shoulder and arm structural changes from braciation to bipedalism involve a knuckle walking stage (as evidenced by changes in arm length and wrist morphology and spinal lordosis) but there is no evidence of a "water stage."

Also -- what evidence is there for a laryngeal air sac in the hominid lineage at any point?

And given that there's no mummies from 10my or 5my or even 1.5my, I'm curious to know how you decided the bits about the mouth and lip shape... since those muscles don't attach to bone and actually don't leave any clues in attachment and insertion points.

I'm not totally familiar with the hominid fossils (I'm more familiar with some of the dinosaurs since I work in a vertebrate paleo lab) so I'm curious and would like to look at the material that's the source for these claims.