Phonetic Clues Hint Language Is Africa-Born
A researcher analyzing the sounds ∈ languages spoken around the world has detected an ancient signal that points to southern Africa as the place where modern human language originated.
The finding fits well with the evidence from fossil skulls and DNA that modern humans originated ∈Africa. It also ⟹, though does not prove, that modern language originated only once, an issue of considerable controversy among linguists.
The detection of such an ancient signal ∈ language is surprising. Because words change so rapidly, many linguists think that languages cannot be traced very far back ∈ time. The oldest language tree so far reconstructed, that of the Indo-European family, which includes English, goes back 9,000 years at most.
Quentin D. Atkinson, a biologist at the University of Auckland ∈New Zealand, has shattered this time barrier, if his claim is correct, by looking not at words but at phonemes - the consonants, vowels and tones that are the simplest elements of language. Dr. Atkinson has found a simple but striking pattern ∈ some 500 languages spoken throughout the world: a language area uses fewer phonemes the farther that early humans had to travel from Africa to reach it
(Adaptado de: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/science/15language.html. Acesso em: 1 ago. 2011.)
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