(January 12, 2023 at 7:12 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote:(January 12, 2023 at 3:42 pm)tjdisc Wrote: Language - linguistic origin. Where did languages come from? Only been around (recorded) for a few thousand years, but I daresay the atheist is hard-pressed to come up with a theory which would explain where and how so many distinct languages came about in such a short period of time. I seem to remember a computer model study which plotted recorded (Indo-European) languages "evolved" and spread. The model plot seemed to show that the language plot had an origin (before spreading out over time) in Turkey - but they didn't really grasp the significance of that (being conducted at a secular university). It took some theist researchers to realize that the location depicted in the computer model appeared to line up to to location many bible scholars placed to be near the Tower of Babel. I'll have to see if I can dig that up.
There is a legitimate field of linguistic study called glottochronology. It analyzes how the rate of change in basic and derived vocabulary, and grammatical structure, is affected by time, influence of nearby languages and prevailing social conditions, and uses that to estimate how long ago different languages may have diverged from eachother in development. I think no one except young earth creationist morons thinks all lunaguages diverged only a few thousand years ago.
Atheists are not hard pressed. Linguists believe some of languages spoken today diverged from others at least 60-70,000 years ago, some may have diverged as early as 200,000 years ago.
They "believe" - that's neat, kinda like me "believing" in invisible sky fairies. But they're a little short of physical proof past a few thousand years don't ya think?
