Languages

[Fake Messiah]

I can read old English just fine.  It's certainly not distinct like Russian.

LOL! You certainly can not read Old English like the Canterbury Tales. You have to be an expert. For instance in the TBBT tv show Amy was translating Canterbury Tales for the rest of them.

But I was talking about the English language from the time of Shakespeare which is very similar to today's English but only superficially because it is filled with words that have lost or changed meaning, not to mention grammar and structure.

Here is a bit from King Lear

The best and soundest of his time hath been but rash; then must we look to receive from his age, not alone the imperfections of long-engraffed condition, but therewithal the unruly waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with them.

What does engraffed mean? How about therewithal?

Or take the lines that come afterward

Such unconstant starts are we like to have from him as this of Kent’s banishment.

There is further compliment of leave-taking between France and him. Pray you, let’s hit together.

It means “starts” like shocks, with the banishment being an example, I guess. “There is further compliment of leave-taking”? What compliment? What are they all going to “hit” together? And this is only three ordinary lines.

That is why in 1955, Alfred Harbage described the mood of most audiences at Shakespeare performances as “reverently unreceptive,” “gratified that they have come, and gratified that they now may go.”

[Angrboda]

I thought you were gay?

More like bi, with a preference for guys. But I still like girls. And I bet one of those humble African chicks would make a great partner.

That doesn't exactly explain why you're motivated to say you would seek a Swahili chick instead of a Swahili dude. It -- your sexuality -- smacks of literary invention. I'm getting a definite catfish vibe.

[Ahriman]

More like bi, with a preference for guys. But I still like girls. And I bet one of those humble African chicks would make a great partner.

That doesn't exactly explain why you're motivated to say you would seek a Swahili chick instead of a Swahili dude.  It -- your sexuality -- smacks of literary invention.  I'm getting a definite catfish vibe.

Guys are for sex, girls are for relationships.

[Angrboda]

That doesn't exactly explain why you're motivated to say you would seek a Swahili chick instead of a Swahili dude.  It -- your sexuality -- smacks of literary invention.  I'm getting a definite catfish vibe.

Guys are for sex, girls are for relationships.

Yeah. Not helping yourself.

[Mister Agenda]

Atheist? So any explanation on any topic that is not taken from the Bible as an explanation, but let's say is based on observation, is to you automatically atheist.

Let me break it down for you.  The atheist has to explain how thousands of (DISTINCT) languages could have "evolved" or come about naturally in such a short period of time without a god intervening - such as in the Tower of Babel.  When I said "hard-pressed" I was being kind, in reality if one was truly open-minded to a deity did something, linguistic origin would be high on the list of the supernatural reasons as the only way we see what we see today.  It's why in a world that seeks to show God doesn't exist, language origin is avoided and you don't hear about it much.  You can't just try the old throw billions and billions of years at it to explain what we see today - recorded language only goes back a few thousand years, but it goes from nothing to an explosion of distinct languages.  Like what was shown in that computer model that placed a sort of origin of Indo-European language in Turkey a few thousand years ago.

You say 'the atheist' like some people say 'the Jew'. Speaking of linguistics, it's 'atheists' and 'Jews'.

Why do atheists have to explain an unproven and unlikely claim about languages evolving in a short time rather than a long time? Anatomically modern humans physically capable of all the vocalizations we can make today begin to appear in the fossil record with remains dating as early as 200,000 years ago; and they likely were preceded by hominids who already had primitive, or at least more vocally limited, languages.

None of this is because of anyone seeking to show God doesn't exist. The evidence could have pointed to a recent origin for languages, it just doesn't. Just because members of a rural tribe visited a city and heard lots of languages and came up with a magical explanation for how there came to be so many languages doesn't mean we should limit ourselves in the same way.

Others have pointed out the issue of conflating recorded language with spoken language. Believe it or not, the Sumerians had a language before they invented cuneiform to record it. Writing things down was such a good idea that other people started doing it to. It was writing that exploded, not languages.

[Ahriman]

I tried learning Korean but that was too hard, everyone says the Korean alphabet is easy but I didn't find it all that easy, plus the way you're supposed to put the letters together to form coherent words and sentences was too much for my brain to handle.

[tjdisc]

Let me break it down for you.  The atheist has to explain how thousands of (DISTINCT) languages could have "evolved" or come about naturally in such a short period of time without a god intervening - such as in the Tower of Babel. 

Wrong. Only those who believe in a short Biblical timeline have the problem of explaining how the various languages evolved so quickly. Those of us who have studied a little and know that humans have been around a couple hundred thousand years do not have the narrow time-constraint that your faith imposes upon your thinking.

I haven’t imposed a historical record that only includes a few thousand years of recorded distinct languages. That’s all there are in truth and reality. Sorry if that defeats your beliefs but that’s on you to reconcile

[The Grand Nudger]

Were pretty sure that people could talk before they started physically recording info. Just as kids, today, learn to speak from listening before they're intentionally taught to write. The earliest evidenced date for recording information in a written form is somewhere around 20kya. Mating cycles for species depicted in cave paintings.

Personally, I like to think that the tower of babel is a fable about the difficulties of communication in a polyglot empire. It could be entirely made up as a just so story...but, if so, not for a lack of inspiring source material.

[tjdisc]

“The evidence could have pointed to a recent origin for languages, it just doesn't.”

Actually it does but it just requires a very basic level of intellectual honesty in assessing the historical record.

[Angrboda]

Oh look, yet another religious person using poisoning the well in their argument.