news:bvm289$trc8b$1@ID-212110.news.uni-berlin.de...
> Piorokrat wrote:
>
> > news:sblb101kdfsqj3uuji1p2jrfs1j96v3hlu@4ax.com...
>
> >> In <buuke4$o53$0@pita.alt.net>, "Uncle Davey"
> >> <noway@jose.com> wrote:
>
> >>>> How tall would the Tower of Babel have been if it had
> >>>> been completed? (Note: I recommend you use the
> >>>> archaeological record to justify your answer.)
>
> >>> This is a mere irrelevance. Kindly posit a common ancestor
> >>> of Indo European and Finno-Ugric.
>
> >> And thus we see the Uncle Davey method of argumentation in
> >> all its glory: He must assign others arguments to defend
> >> (whether they assert them or not), but he himself need never
> >> defend anything.
>
> > Nice try, Jack, but I'm afraid unless you can show me what the
> > common ancestor between Finno-Ugric and INdo-European, then
> > evolution doesn't apply to the origins of these language
> > families.
>
> Rubbish. Our inability to reconstruct a common ancestor of FU
> and IE, or even to prove that one existed, does not imply that
> they had none. You carefully avoid mentioning the other
> possibility, favored by most historical linguists, that the
> families have diverged beyond the reach of current techniques.
You see, I find that less likely than the scenario that I gave in my essay
at the beginning of this language discussion.
Why should they have done so?
What time period are we talking about?
Why can't we even get at a common vocabulary of even 100 words?
> You also confuse monogenesis with evolution. Evolution of
> language is a demonstrable fact; it's especially clear within IE,
> thanks to the existence of a relatively long written record.
> Monogenesis is not demonstrable (unless you're a nutcase like
> Ruhlen), though I suspect that a majority of linguists think it
> likely.
>
> [...]
>
> Brian
>
This is where we are, then. The majority of linguists believing firmly in
monogenesis without a shred of evidence or even a conceivable appearance for
such a language in artlang form (I've tried, and failed, to produce one).
Why do they believe in monogenesis? because the only alternative that is in
line with the way evolution views the world, namely polygenesis, is beyond
the pale of their credulity, and rightly so.
But please don't blame me for being unscientific when I believe things
without objective evidence when, as you say, almost every linguist does the
same.
Uncle Davey
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