Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ    Attic   

Re: Neanderthal and PIE

From:ROGER MILLS <rfmilly@...>
Date:Monday, October 13, 2008, 14:49
Mark Reed wrote:
>As far as the Neanderthal lang, what if you posit that Neanderthals >transmit language to their children more faithfully than their >Cro-Magnon successors? Perhaps due to their creative skills lying in >a different area, the teaching process is more direct and thorough. >Then P-I-E could have been spoken as Neanderthalese for untold >centuries, changing much more slowly than modern human langs, before >being picked up and subjected to relatively rapid generational change >by H. sapiens.
What if, by some freak of evolutionary development, the Neanderthal language was transmitted _genetically_? That might mean that it would be difficult for non-Neanderthals to learn it, thus, early modern humans would have learnt it imperfectly.............


Lars Finsen <lars.finsen@...>
Noelle Morris <rhamantus@...>