If only it were possible to view the evolution of language

in compressed actual time, that would truly be one of the greatest stories ever told. Unfortunately, language leaves no traces in DNA, or does it? Conversely, language is itself like the DNA of culture, mutating and multiplying, giving rise to new offspring in a way almost spookily more than analogous. Sounds themselves seem more indigenous and racially significant, language being the far-ranging conqueror capable of crossing borders and subduing the weak, whether linguistically or militarily. From whatever source primordial language emerged, they have multiplied and divided to the point that any return to uniligualism is unlikely, in spite of English’s smart-ass lure, despite extreme Mandarin conservatism.

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