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To: BrandtMichaels
If humans evolved, then so did language. Because all available evidence indicates that language did not evolve, then humans probably did not evolve.

Languages don't evolve? What a silly thing to say. This, for instance, is English, specifically West Saxon, although there is also a Northumbrian version:

Nu sculon herigean heofonrices weard,
meotodes meahte and his modgeþanc,
weorc wuldorfæder, swa he wundra gehwæs,
ece drihten, or onstealde.
He ærest sceop eorðan bearnum
heofon to hrofe, halig scyppend;
þa middangeard moncynnes weard,
ece drihten, æfter teode
firum foldan, frea ælmihtig.

And, this is also English. As a matter of fact, it's the same poem:

Now let me praise the keeper of Heaven's kingdom,
the might of the Creator, and his thought,
the work of the Father of glory, how each of wonders
the Eternal Lord established in the beginning.
He first created for the sons of men
Heaven as a roof, the holy Creator,
then Middle-earth the keeper of mankind,
the Eternal Lord, afterwards made,
the earth for men, the Almighty Lord.

I would have used a selection from Beowulf, but I thought you might enjoy Caedmon's Hymn more. Now, what were you saying about how languages don't evolve?

1,228 posted on 05/04/2006 7:47:34 AM PDT by Chiapet (I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me)
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To: Chiapet

"Languages don't evolve? What a silly thing to say."

Yes, but they are still language. They haven't evolved over time into some radically new entity. They can have different characteristics but they are still of the same original base type.


1,232 posted on 05/04/2006 8:29:50 AM PDT by webstersII
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To: Chiapet

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe...


1,266 posted on 05/04/2006 12:25:16 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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