Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>]

On 19/04/2007 03:50, Isaac Fried wrote:

> ... Language was  
> created by utterly "primitive" people, and was developed by consensus  
> by still utterly simple minded, yet supremely practical, people  
> (unless you believe in its divine origin). ...

Isaac, you seem to assume here the old but generally discredited idea 
(put forward originally by people who also tended to think that we 
Aryans are less primitive than you Semites, a theory I utterly reject) 
that "primitive" people in ancient times were less intelligent than 
modern people. I don't think there is any evidence for this at least 
since the emergence of Homo sapiens. So, unless you want to claim that 
Hebrew was originally spoken by Neanderthals or other pre-sapiens 
species of Homo, then you should not assume that any human language is 
simple.

--
Peter Kirk
E-mail:  peter AT qaya.org
Blog:    http://www.qaya.org/blog/
Website: http://www.qaya.org/