Quite a few of these sorts of stories are related in Umberto Eco, _The Search
for a Perfect Language_ (Oxford).
Stephen
"B.M.COOK" wrote:
> > --- Tom Izbicki <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > What about Hebrew? Margaret
> > Harvey, in the English in Rome, cites
> > > Adam
> > > Easton as saying that, had Adam not fell, all of us would be speaking
> > > Hebrew.
> > > Tom Izbicki
>
> I remember reading somewhere - and I have not kept a source that I can
> cite - that James I & VI was anxious to discover scientifically what the
> original speech of humankind might be and so he had two orphaned babies (a
> boy and a girl ?) brought up by two deaf and dumb wet-nurses in complete
> isolation in order to discover what words the children would speak
> spontaneously. It was reported to him that the first words the children
> uttered were "a pretty fair kind of Ebrew." - SOMEONE was being
> theologically correct!!
>
> I also have an even vaguer recollection of someone else trying the same
> experiment in the 19th ? century but they used a nanny-goat instead of the
> wet-nurse and guess what ? the child produced bleating noises ...
>
> Brenda M. Cook.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|