Is Arabic the mother of all languages?

Discussion in 'Linguistics' started by Michael, Feb 19, 2008.

  1. zarlok Banned Banned

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    Nope. They are the tollers of that bogus theory's death knell. The proof is in the genes.
     
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  3. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Carl Jung, 1875-1961, Swiss psychiatrist. He was a student of Freud but expanded on Freud's narrow theories and is the primary influence on modern psychology. His contributions include the concept of introversion vs. extroversion, synchronicity and the collective unconscious (including archetypes). The Meyers-Briggs personality profile is an oversimplification of the Jungian paradigm. He emphasized the importance of balance and harmony in our lives and cautioned that we were becoming too focused on science and logic and should appreciate spirituality, which he nonetheless accepted as metaphors. Having identified 23 "archetypes" or instinctive beliefs that dwell inside all of us, called "gods" and "spirits" by various cultures, he was not fond of monotheism and famously pointed out that the wars among the Christian nations were the bloodiest in human history. Today courses in business, sociology, literature and psychology follow Jung's teachings. Only medical schools still teach Freud to future psychiatrists.
    Google "Aborigine gods" and you'll get more than a million hits, with their names and associated legends.
    The "out of Africa" theory is being steadily substantiated by the evidence in our genes. The PBS program "The Journey of Man," which we were all recently assigned as homework, provides rich and detailed evidence that will be difficult to refute. There were two waves of migration out of Africa. The first skirted the (now underwater) coastline of Ice Age South Asia and settled in Australia where (in that desolate era) food was abundant. Genetic markers of their journey survive in South Asia, but they have been overwhelmed by the second wave which ultimately populated all the rest of the globe. Both were migrations of the same tribe, separated by several millennia, so all of us non-Africans have a small pool of common ancestors, who are now represented in Africa solely by the San people.

    Coincidentally, today's Washington Post reported on a DNA study by a completely different team of scientists who reached the same conclusions.

    The out-of-Africa theory is a done deal and will now take its place in the scientific canon.
     
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  5. kmguru Staff Member

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    Normally I take "Change" pretty well due to my family moving around and myself moving around most major countries....but the National Geographic program was a shock to my system until I watched it again. I had long held weird beliefs that needed a rewrite. But my brain managed to put other pieces together as I was exposed to American Indians, Northern Chinese people, People from Cyprus, Hungary, Italy, Mexico, Spain and others.

    I am sure there will people that would have a hard time....change is hard....we definitely live in interesting times....
     
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  7. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    It shouldn't be that big a change. The "out of Africa" theory has been very well established for--what, 25 years or more now? Some of the details were a little muddled but the general outline hasn't changed.

    People who can't stand the idea that we're all Africans for their own irrational reasons will probably still find a way to reject the theory. After all, irrationality always trumps reason. That is one of the world's biggest problems.

    Personally I keep finding more to appreciate about Rastafari. As the Navajo guy said, we really are all brothers.
     
  8. Walter L. Wagner Cosmic Truth Seeker Valued Senior Member

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    Fraggle: I agree that we can trace language back only about 15K years, but aborigines with full physiological equipment for complex language were existent some 40K years ago in Australia and the rest of the world. Their descendants today in Australia are not much different in appearance than were their ancestors, presumably; whereas the descendants in other parts of the globe have changed more significantly into other 'races'. However, we all have tongues and vocal cords for speaking complex language, and that is not simply a single gene change from pre-humans who could not speak. Rather, to go from no ability to make sounds [other than, say, grunts or shouts] to being able to articulate an extreme range of sounds, took many gene shifts, which all humans alive today share. That might be what was missing for neandertal - the ability to speak - though that is debated, and perhaps our pre-human ancestors were speaking languages several hundred thousand years ago.

    At least, we know our ancestors were speaking languages when they spread across the globe, because all of us have essentially the same physiological equipment of vocal cords and tongue to do so. That's why an Australian aborigine can speak the Queen's English flawlessly, or a Caucasian can speak flawless Chinese. We all have the proper equipment for complex language, regardless of our racial ancestry(s).

    However, I concede that that is deductive reasoning, and we do not have the tangible evidence of actual language - rather just the evidence of the ability to have language.

    However, it did not arise by a single gene change - rather like most everything else in evolution, it arose slowly, bit by bit, and I can well imagine that pre-humans were learning to speak two million years ago when they were learning to use tools, too. Those who could speak more complex sounds became leaders, and better reproducers, etc. passing on those gene changes. Eventually, the complexity of our physiology for speech was fully developed, which might well have been the final stage driving our 'out of Africa' sojourn.
     
  9. zarlok Banned Banned

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    Established in the minds of communist and marxist trash who have no compunction for telling the "truth", perhaps.

    What do you mean by "all africans"?
     
    Last edited: Feb 23, 2008
  10. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Huh? Multiple DNA studies have reached the same conclusion. Science doesn't get any better than that. As the thread I just started in Human Science is titled, the "out of Africa" theory is a done deal. Whatever controversy there was is settled. It is ready to be integrated into the scientific canon. Only diehard racists will be grasping at straws, trying desperately to find a weakness in it.
    Those of us who are not from families who have been living in Africa are descended from people who did live in Africa but walked out around 50,000 years ago. Every single one of us.

    They've even found the remnants of the tribe whose ancestors were the migrants, they've identified them by their DNA. They're called the San, or, colloquially, "Bushmen."
     
  11. zarlok Banned Banned

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    Only people who believe that are ignorant morons, hopeful idiots and/or agenda-driven patthological liars of the marxist ilk.

    You have no idea what they found because you don't understand the probabillity theories and assumptions of human genetics.

    Let's see you use your 'canon' to explain why 50,000 years ago humans lived in Australia and did not share any of their DNA with these "bushmen".
     
  12. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    * * * * NOTE FROM THE MODERATOR * * * *

    Zarlok, this it the second time you have made a post that includes a personal insult. I try (not always successfully) not to overreact to insults directed at me personally to avoid an imperious impression, but you are also insulting other members. This is a violation of the rules of SciForums. You have hereby been warned. Do not ever do this again. Any further violations will be handled formally. Inflammatory language of this type, directed at members, will not be tolerated. Keep your discourse scientific and if you have a point to make, make it using the scientific method: empirical observation and reasoning.
    You are simply wrong and apparently have not reviewed any of the research to which URLs have been provided on this website. That is an extremely antiscientific approach to your argument. Since you have violated the scientific method, you are hereby challenged to provide extraordinary evidence for your extraordinary claim, or you will not be allowed to pursue it further on this thread or on any future threads. Any attempt to do so will satisfy the definition of "trolling" in the rules of SciForums and is grounds for being banned.

    The multiple sources cited in this thread and in the parallel thread on the "Out Of Africa" theory in the Human Science subforum all demonstrate conclusively that the Australians (and all other non-African ethnic groups) do in fact have a wealth of genetic markers linking them to the San people of Africa. This evidence is so overwhelming now as to be incontrovertible.

    This is a place of science. If you wish to participate, you must follow the rules of science. If your purpose for being here is to be disruptive and to insult both science and scientists, you are not welcome.

    I am not joking. I will personally initiate the banning process if you do not clean up your act IMMEDIATELY.
     
  13. zarlok Banned Banned

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    Can your personal threats. Show me where I personally insulted someone.

    The data supporting it is flawed and/or debunked. The fossil record supports the multi-regional theory and now DNA has debunked the out of Africa theory iincontravertibly in vitro. You are a flat-worlder in this debate, and that's the very reason you could not answer the question posed, and perhaps the source of your frustration.


    Heh. Sorry, the social scientists masquarading as real scientists will be granted no quarter on my watch, your own ridiculous personal attacks and threats notwithstanding.
     
  14. kmguru Staff Member

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    11,757

    Please provide an access to the data...
     
  15. zarlok Banned Banned

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    This a nice, informative and fairly neutral site that touches on the two DNA related issues that cast grave doubt on the "out of africa" theory. It still yet has a biias for the out of africa theory, however.
    http://home.nc.rr.com/ambiient/site/mtdna.htm

    edit: It's the last two sections of that page, if you think you understand the rest.
     
    Last edited: Feb 23, 2008
  16. Walter L. Wagner Cosmic Truth Seeker Valued Senior Member

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    This is insulting to anyone who wishes to post in any thread, and certainly will not attract someone to the poster's POV.

    I have read the citation you posted, which is an excellent summation by AnneMarie of mitchondrial Eve information.

    It does not, however, support the origin of mitochondrial Eve as being in Africa or anywhere else. What it does tend to show is that all people who are alive today can trace their ancestry to a single woman who lived about 150,000 years ago [m-Eve] somewhere [maybe Africa, maybe the middle East], and about 50,000 years ago her numerous descendants began occupying various regional niches where their descendants are predominant still. Certainly some of her descendants either moved to Africa, or remained in Africa, with the Han clan being descended from one of her descendants of about 50,000 years ago.

    It also tends to show that Mungo man, a fully anatomically modern human, predates the Aborigines of Australia, who apparently moved into Australia after he did, as they are not his descendants, and apparently his descendants are now extinct, likely killed off by subsequent migration to Australia [as humans are want to do].

    As to the title of this thread, the AnneMarie article does tend to support the contention I posted that people [m-Eve and her clan] were equipped with vocal cords and tongues for speaking 150,000 years ago, and certainly had language back then, and that language as a "technological tool" almost certainly goes back many hundreds of thousands of years before then, being developed with ever more sophisticated sounds, as the vocal cords and tongue, as well as the brain, evolved to make more complex sounds.
     
  17. kmguru Staff Member

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    Yes, I read the page. There is no 180 degree turn that is projected. The only confusion is that the Mungo man does not follow Eve's family. So what? The page says that Eve was not the only human. It is speculated that other groups may have died in some catastrophe or survived for a short time. May be Mungo group was that separate group from Africa!

    The Mungo Man definitely has questions...the age was carbon dated from 40,000 to 68,000 years. Carbon dating is difficult in that range. The accuracy of the sample can be debated (as per the page). All it says that we may have to go way back. However that alone does not prove the multi-regional theory.

    As to Molecular Clocks, the page admits that changes are not linear and sometimes the clock resets...Imagine a clock that speeds up or slows down due to temperature variations. It would be difficult to accurately tag an event with real time and even the time itself since one does not know the formula of that non-linearity.

    Unless we find proof of several population groups since Australia was connected to Africa - for the present, it is Science Fiction. May be we can find legendary Atlantis and solve the mystery....For now, Out-of-Africa it is....
     
  18. kmguru Staff Member

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    From the link provided by zarlok, see the bold part...does that ring a bell?

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    Dr. Wallace has also analyzed several modern populations in Africa in search of areas displaying mtDNA closest to that of Eve. The tests have identified the Vasikela Kung, who reside in the northwestern part of the Kalahari Desert of southern Africa, and the Biaka pygmies from Central Africa as populations having DNA most closely resembling the ancestral sequence. The relative isolation of these two groups of people could explain the apparent antiquity of their mitochondrial sequences.
     
  19. zarlok Banned Banned

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    The only confusion is that the Mungo man does not follow Eve's family. So what?

    So everything. If you don't understand the imortance, you simply do not undertand.
     
  20. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Okay Zarlok, I'm going to give you a free pass this time. You provided evidence for your assertion. However, this is only going to happen this ONE TIME. In the future, you will refrain from the insulting and inflammatory language or steps will be taken to ban you. There will be no more warnings.

    As to your request. . . .
    . . . . Walter did exactly that in his post. A personal insult does not have to be directed at just one single person. You have personally insulted an entire large class of our members, probably the majority. That is a violation of the rules. No more of this language will be tolerated. Any further posts of this type will be deleted.
     
  21. zarlok Banned Banned

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    Are you going to ban yourself first?

     
  22. Walter L. Wagner Cosmic Truth Seeker Valued Senior Member

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    Here's an interesting true story about racial discrimination [i.e. about being able to discern, or discriminate, racial differences; not about prejudice]:

    Quite a few years ago [circa 1985], a friend and I were strolling through the Zoo in Jakarta. We were tourists to the area, but off the beaten path for tourists. All of the other Zoo patrons were local residents.

    Physiologically [racially], we were quite different from the local folk, primarily in stature and skin coloration, and we stuck out like tourists are want to do. However, the local folk were accustomed to seeing tourists like us, and paid us no heed as they went about touring the Zoo on their day off.

    As we approached the Monkey island, the many monkeys were busy making loud noises [jibbering]. Lots of local folk were strolling by too, and the monkeys paid them no heed.

    As we got close to the monkeys, the monkeys suddenly stopped jibbering, and all started staring at us. They continued to stare, turning their heads, as we walked on by. Once we were past, we heard the monkeys resume jibbering and going about their business.

    Now, that's what I call racial discrimination - i.e. being able to discriminate that my friend and I were of a different racial extract than the local populace, one quite unfamiliar to the monkeys.
     
  23. kmguru Staff Member

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    Moral of the story: Discrimination is good, Prejudice is bad - right? A lot of people do not know the difference....

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