I graduate tomorrow!! (page 8)

Realist

Hello LEO,

congrats on the exam!

about the hominids...ability to vocalize words arose 200.000 years ago - interesting! ...so that would mean homo sapiens neandertalensis etc. also were perhaps able to speak. as far as i know (i am not an expert on human evolution) it is still not ruled out that todays human races derived from a branch of homo sapiens that mixed with neandertals in europe and other homo species in asia etc. In this case one could assume that some of todays languages are indeed completely unrelated.
On the other hand, if there was a bottle neck effect at some point in the past with only a view humans surviving then one could assume all languages were derived from whatever this group of people spoke (if this was one group). are you familiar with the 7 woman founded europe hypothesis based on the mitochondrial DNA analysis?

::Mufwene also argues that since idiolects continue to develop and change throughout a person's lifespan, a linguistic species is rather like a Lamarckian species.

should a human lifespan be of no consequence here? we are talking about the development of word X for instance. Does word X change in a more or less random pattern (something like mutations in the pronounciation of the word)? in this case the development of individual words just like that of individual genes should follow more according to a darwinian pattern than a lamarcian (who suggested for instance that giraffs stretch their necks to reach higher leaves in the tree and then pass this stretched neck onto their offspring) pattern.
to me it seems the development of languages and their exchange of words should follow the pattern of gene exchange and evolution in bacteria.

in any case, hope you can take a nice vacation now that the exam is over!

best,

realist