(UEL - 2012)The New York TimesPhonetic Clues Hint

(UEL - 2012)

The New York Times

Phonetic Clues Hint Language is Africa-Born

A researcher analyzing the sounds in languages spoken around the world has detected an ancient signal that points to southern Africa as the place where modern human language originated.

The finding fits well with the evidence from fossil skulls and DNA that modern humans originated in Africa. It also implies, though does not prove, that modern language originated only once, an issue of considerable controversy among linguists.

The detection of such an ancient signal in language is surprising. Because words change so rapidly, many linguists think that family, which includes English, goes back 9,000 years at most.

Quentin D. Atkinson, a biologist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, has shattered this time barrier, if his claim is correct, by looking not at words but as phonemes – the consonants, vowels and tone that are the simplest elements of language. Dr. Atkinson has found a simple but striking pattern in some 500 languages spoken throughout the world: a language area uses fewer phonemes the farther that early humans had to travel from Africa to reach it.

(Adaptado de: <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/science/15language.html>. Acesso em: 1 ago. 2011.)

Na frase: "It also implies, though does not prove, that modern language originated only once, an issue of considerable controversy among linguists." (2º parágrafo), though indica