XPost: alt.usage.english   
   From: HenHanna@devnull.tb   
      
           Do linguists support this Theory (of  mouth pantomime)  ???   
      
   __________________________   
      
   Richard Paget's theory was....   
      
            that spoken language developed when people could no longer use   
   their hands (e.g.,   they were full)   
      
             ...  that the tongues copied the gestures   
      
      
      
    >>>   'Let us take, as an example of our supposed method of word or   
   speech formation, the sign for a simple action, that of lift up or be   
   up, as compared with to lower, or be down. The hand sign for up would   
   obviously be to point up with finger or hand, and we are to suppose that   
   this body pantomime was unconsciously accompanied by a corresponding   
   mouth pantomime.   
      
   Let the reader try the experiment for himself...of raising the tip of   
   his tongue to touch the roof of his mouth, as if pointing up to the sky.   
      
   If, while performing this tongue-gesture, the reader simultaneously   
   grunts, or blows air through his mouth, so that it passes out on either   
   side of the tip of his tongue, he will find that it results in   
   articulating a sound which might be written ULL or OLL in English, or aL   
   in the Latin languages.   
      
   AL (as we shall write it) is therefore a natural gesture-word meaning   
   up. It is satisfactory to find that it does in fact form the root of   
   words meaning up in a great variety of different languages'   
      
                                ---------    Paget, Babel, p 31.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)