One of the most interesting stories of last week came from research by linguists suggesting that some words have descended largely unchanged since the end of the last Ice Age. This research – from Mark Pagel, an evolutionary theorist at the University of Reading in the UK, and colleagues – describes a method for discovering ancient language super families The research uses cognates – that is, two words with a common origin – and statistical analysis of existing languages. It led the Washington Post to describe a sentence that might be translated into any one of hundreds of modern languages and still be at least partially understood by hunter-gatherers in Asia some 15,000 years ago. That is:
You, hear me! Give this fire to that old man. Pull the black worm off the bark and give it to the mother. And no spitting in the ashes!
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