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Re: [engelang] All languages share a single origin?

012/9/23 John Cowan <cowan@hidden.email> 

Leonardo Castro scripsit:


> Hmmm... If the USA send some astronauts to colonize Mars, wouldn't
> they take with them only a small fraction of Earth's phonemes?

Yes, but that's because Earth has 7000 languages and the astronauts will
only speak a few of them. That's not the same as emigrating from your
home and leaving most of your language's phonemes behind.

As I understand the suggested genetics-language analogy,
the corresponding entities would be

1. individual -> language
2. gene        -> phoneme
3. mutation  -> language changes over time
4. breeding  -> birth of new languages from old ones

For the thesis of the paper to work, it might be necessary
to presume that current languages are fusion of older ones
with fewer phonemes individually.

That is, there must be anything like interchange of phonemes
among languages that are geographically close to each other.
I just don't know if it happens in a significant level.