NINE – EVOLUTIONARY MODEL OF LANGUAGE

By Joseph Kezele, M.D.

In the last issue we discussed the origin of languages and some features that distinguish them. The biblical account at the tower of Babel readily explains their supernatural origin. We also discussed how languages can be genuinely grouped into families, but that these hundreds of language families cannot be connected with each other to form a single tree of all languages.

This is a fundamental failure for the evolutionary model for the origin of languages. That model is based on the supposed evolutionary model of life progressing from the original one-celled organism through a myriad of intermediary forms such as the invertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles and mammals, until man finally emerges from the primates. This evolution is assumed to have occurred in isolated groups by random, chance events with no purpose, plan or intelligent input, with all physical processes having proceeded at a uniform rate.

Applying the biological evolutionary model to languages, the following concepts are expected to have occurred in the past:

1. Change in grammar has been in the direction of increasing complexity
2. Sound shifts are random, not consistent
3. Languages change uniformly through time
4. Change in a language occurs within isolation
5. Random chance mutations to add information—vocabulary

Let’s examine each assumption one by one. Change in grammar has been in the direction of increasing complexity. The English language is probably the one of the finest examples of all the Indo-European languages of the untruth of this assumption. As mentioned in the previous issue, the reconstructed Proto Indo-European language had eight cases. Each case is a different use of nouns and their accompanying adjectives in a sentence.

For example, John took Luke’s book from Peter and said “Paul, in Rome I will give the book on that table with a note written with this pen to Mark.”

John - the subject of the sentence. Nominative case. book - what the verb acted upon, the direct object. Accusative case. Luke’s - the possessive form of Luke. Genitive case. Paul – to whom the quoted sentence is addressed. Vocative case. in Rome – location of an object, person or place. Locative case. to Mark - the person to whom the book is given, the indirect object. Dative case. with this pen – the means by which the note was written. Instrumental case. on that table – position of an object. Prepositional case. from Peter - separation or motion away from something. Ablative case.

Today, Czech and Latin use seven of these cases—but not the same ones—Russian six, and German four. English is a great example of simplification. It has combined all but the Genitive (possessive case) and Dative (indirect object) into the Nominative (subject) form.

The Genitive case has been reduced to the possessive pronouns – mine, ours, yours, its, his, hers, theirs and whose – and the ‘s construction, as in “Luke’s”. “Thy” and “thine”, known only to readers of the King James Bible and singers of older hymns, are the archaic possessive forms of the singular and plural forms of “thee” and “thou”. “Thee” and “thou” are the familiar form of addressing a person, which have been supplanted by “you”, which was then the formal form for the second person (I being the first person and they the third person).

The Dative case has been even more severely reduced to these pronouns – me, us, him, her, them and whom. In my lifetime the use of the word “whom” has all but ceased, and it probably will disappear in the next generation. Since English has eliminated so many forms of the cases, it must compensate in some manner in order to maintain the meaning of the sentence. It does so by making the order of the words, called syntax, critically important. Changing the order changes the meaning. Try it with the sample sentence above.

It should be quite clear that changes in grammar have been in the direction of increasing simplicity, not complexity. In other words, devolution has occurred and is still occurring today.

The remaining four points will be addressed in the next issue.