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Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

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  • From: "JAMES CHRISTIAN READ" <JCR128 AT student.anglia.ac.uk>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] BO and BO)
  • Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 06:56:18 +0100

BR: I've not sure why you would expect to see such evidence.
Humans had been around for hundreds of thousands of years
before they started to commit their languages to writing.
If you look at apes, then at humans, some such evolution
must of occurred. By the time you get to the Hebrew speakers
they are only a heartbeat in time away from us. While some
sort of evolution must be continuing I would not be surprized
if its so small that it is undetectable if you are just looking
at the period between writers of the Hebrew text and ourselves.

Of course, if you're young earth creationist all bets are off ;-)

JCR: The problem with what you have just said is that
it is based on so many unverifiable assumptions. You
assume that:

i) Humans evolved from another more primative species
ii) You assume that humans and apes have a common
ancestor and that therefore the language of apes can
be considered as valid evidence

There is no data supporting your assumptions, just a
scientific model which has largely gained acceptance by
the scientific community.

The scientific data, for example the thermodynamic
principle of Gibb's free energy and subsequent
feasibility of chemical reactions, proves beyond a
shadow of a doubt that spontaneous life creating
reactions could not have occurred and by extension
calls into question any theories that man evolved from
primates. Of course, this goes way beyond the
linguistic scope of this list but if you interested in
hearing the chemical proofs then send me an email off
list and I'll be happy to explain them to you.

Suffice to say that because of these scientific reasons
I find it difficult to accept your assumptions as
linguistic proofs.

Anyway, let's entertain your assumptions and assume
that they are right to see if they hold up. In order
for such a model to be workable we would need to be
able to observe a human child (whose linguistic
abilities are already far more complex than the primate
stages you suggest) has the ability to learn a limited
range of meaningful single syllable utterances and by
process of combination to make more complex words from
them. I am trying to be open minded about this but
I have very strong reasons for doubting the feasibility
of such an experiment.

Children learn language through cognitive mechanisms
and by associating words to objects and situations.
There is no plausible cognitive model that could enable
a child to understand the elements that Isaac Fried
is suggesting to therefore be able to use them to
construct more complex concepts. However, the real
elements of language 'objects and actions' are
tangible to a child in its early phases of cognitive
development and form a plausible and testable
linguistic framework which is supported by the data of
over 6 million living languages.

It is quite clear that Isaac has not, until now,
considered the psycholinguistic implications of his
claims or the cognitive mechanisms of linguistic
representation in the formulation of his theory. In
order for small primate children to learn and utilise
the elements he is suggesting they would have to have
had a cognitive system far different from humans,
apes and for that matter any living animal on the
planet who all use objects as the basis of their
cognitive understanding.

James Christian Read - BSc Computer Science
http://www.lamie.org/hebrew - thesis1: concept driven machine translation
using the Aleppo codex
http://www.lamie.org/lad-sim.doc - thesis2: language acquisition simulation


























































































































cognitive understanding.

James Christian Read - BSc Computer Science
http://www.lamie.org/hebrew - thesis1: concept driven machine translation
using the Aleppo codex
http://www.lamie.org/lad-sim.doc - thesis2: language acquisition simulation



















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