Re: New analysis suggests our language capacity existed at least 135,000 kya

 Ar an triochadú lá de mí Meitheamh, scríobh Tilde:

 > I have just finished "Life and Adventures of William Buckley", an English
 > convict sent to Australia in 1802. He escaped in 1803 and spent 30 years
 > living with the Aborigines. And then come across this article and paper. It
 > occurs to me that language was present when they arrived in Australia.
 > That's 50 to 65 kya according to estimates I've seen. That strikes me as a
 > reliable minimum

Why was he (or why are you) certain that language was present when they arrived
in Australia? I think it probably was but I don’t know that we can assert that.

https://news.mit.edu/2025/when-did-human-language-emerge-0314

 >
 > It is a deep question, from deep in our history: When did human language as
 > we know it emerge? A new survey of genomic evidence suggests our unique
 > language capacity was present at least 135,000 years ago. Subsequently,
 > language might have entered social use 100,000 years ago.
 >
 > Our species, Homo sapiens, is about 230,000 years old. Estimates of when
 > language originated vary widely, based on different forms of evidence, from
 > fossils to cultural artifacts. The authors of the new analysis took a
 > different approach. They reasoned that since all human languages likely have
 > a common origin — as the researchers strongly think

There’s no strong reason to think this. Cf that sign languages do not have
a common origin and that writing systems do not have a common origin (e.g. the
Cherokee syllabary, developed without knowledge of the details of European
writing systems but with the knowledge of their function.)


--
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How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’
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