tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2808406058173173703.post1801429469539180790..comments2023-06-28T05:54:47.372-04:00Comments on Music 000001: 259. The Baseline Scenarios -- 35: The Migrants -- CultureDocGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17359004200002936544noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2808406058173173703.post-1053085668513006142009-12-20T15:16:22.718-05:002009-12-20T15:16:22.718-05:00Interesting feature and interesting question.
Lo...Interesting feature and interesting question. <br /><br />Looks to me like the HBP could have got a simple tonal language, maybe with dialectal tendencies (even neighbors have dialects often) to full tonality. The tonal persistence is particularly strong at the Eastern Eurasian branch, more than in Africa maybe, specially if we consider that includes virtually all China and has offshoots in America. <br /><br />Tonality in "the mother of all languages" makes some sense because guttural expression, like that found in other hominids, is dependent on tones rather than phonemes. This might also be argued for clicks, which are common among the "fossil" groups that have kept their own languages (Bushmen, Hadza, Sandawe, even one Afroasiatic language has them (believed to be a substratum remnant) - but the intensity of use of such sounds may have varied. <br /><br />All very tentative anyhow. <br /><br />Loss (or gain) of tonality in any case may well have happened in direct relation with musical evolution. <br /><br />It seems obvious that, in any case, the founding parents of the South/West Eurasian population had already lost any tonality. Instead the trait seems to have prevailed in more cases in the East. <br /><br />Founder effects (or independent re-evolution) seem to happen at several spots: New Guinea and various American spots. <br /><br />Nice to think about this.Majuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12369840391933337204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2808406058173173703.post-53930003947207518852009-12-19T22:28:30.557-05:002009-12-19T22:28:30.557-05:00There are more things in heaven and earth, German,...There are more things in heaven and earth, German,<br />Than are dreamt of in Blevin's philosophy.<br /><br />Trust me. ;-)DocGhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17359004200002936544noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2808406058173173703.post-83906718792945896022009-12-19T19:33:15.445-05:002009-12-19T19:33:15.445-05:00Blevins in her Evolutionary Phonology (2004) elabo...Blevins in her Evolutionary Phonology (2004) elaborates on a general consensus among linguists that recurrent sound patterns in world languages are results of parallel evolution. Get used to it, Victor: independent innovation is a common cause of cultural and linguistic similarities. It's not because people don't follow "Occam's razor" but because they observe those parallel changes take place in languages all the time. But it should good news for you: tonal language don't need to be found along the "southern" route.<br /><br />On the other hand, clicks, which fall outside of the range of "natural" sound patterns, are considered to have evolved only once (or twice, if one counts artificial Damin language in Australia) in human history and then spread around Africa by diffusion.German Dziebelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10703679732205862495noreply@blogger.com