Confronting Friends and Family

[Hovik]

The Ararat range spans a massive area complete with the basins required for the flood of Biblical proportions (you only need ONE basin by the way). Thus the area which flooded, although we don't know the exact area, could have indeed flooded as the Bible states and had the Ark end up upon one of the Mountains

It's very unlikely that a flood could be massive enough to cover the entire Eufrate or Tigri basin. A local, more limited flood is not as unlikely (and probably a massive flood in the area is the origin for the Ark myth), but the idea of the Ark ending up one of the Ararat mountains is just a legend.

Even the shortest mountains are several hundreds meters above the sea level. A flood that massive is not only quite unlikely, it should have also left a huge amount of geological evidence.Which nobody found.

Never mind the fact that Ararat isn't sitting in a basin. It's sitting in the middle of a huge highland.

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You seem to be under the impression that this is all something I've just made up.

What gives you that idea? I said you and others like five times. I know you're not the only person who assigns these traits to language.

Linguistics has a very precise definition of language because language is a uniquely human capability for a number of reasons. All animals have a communication system of some sort, but only the human communication system is markedly different in that it allows us to precisely and, much more importantly, generatively convey meaning.

You realize that the reason it is uniquely human to you is because linguists use a different definition. That was a bit circular.

Are you seriously telling me that the definition of what constitutes a language that's used by scientists whose job it is to define language are using a definition that's somehow less viable because it doesn't match what the layman would call a language? That's like saying astronomers who define what constitutes a planet are using a "different definition" when they say Pluto's not a planet. It doesn't meet the criteria of a planet even though the layman definition of a planet might include it.

I mean, let's just borrow the quick definition from Wikipedia. The very first thing on the page about language reads: "Language is the human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, and a language is any example of such a system of complex communication." The "complex" part is notable because it refers to the specific type and degree of complexity found in human communication (namely its ability to generate infinite novel utterances from a finite set of units) that isn't found in any other system of communication.