Cool indeed.
On Mon, May 6, 2013 at 4:13 PM, Larry C. Lyons <[email protected]>wrote: > > There is a set of words that may be over 15,000 years old and common to > all language groups: > > http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/linguists-identify-15000-year-old-ultraconserved-words/2013/05/06/a02e3a14-b427-11e2-9a98-4be1688d7d84_story.html > > From the article: > *You, hear me! Give this fire to that old man. Pull the black worm off the > bark and give it to the mother. And no spitting in the ashes!* > > Its an odd little speech. But if it were spoken clearly to a band of > hunter-gatherers in the Caucasus 15,000 years ago, theres a good chance > the listeners would know what you were saying. > > Thats because all of the nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs in the four > sentences are words that have descended largely unchanged from a language > that died out as the glaciers were retreating at the end of the last Ice > Age. > > The traditional view is that words cant survive for more than 8,000 to > 9,000 years. Evolution, linguistic weathering and the adoption of > replacements from other languages eventually drives ancient words to > extinction, just like the dinosaurs of the Jurassic era. > > New research, however, suggests a few words survive twice as l > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:363312 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
