Darwin-L Message Log 4:57 (December 1993)

Academic Discussion on the History and Theory of the Historical Sciences

This is one message from the Archives of Darwin-L (1993–1997), a professional discussion group on the history and theory of the historical sciences.

Note: Additional publications on evolution and the historical sciences by the Darwin-L list owner are available on SSRN.

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<4:57>From peter@usenix.org  Wed Dec 15 09:20:07 1993

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 93 07:23:17 PST
From: peter@usenix.org (Peter H. Salus)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Precursors

John,

Your citations from Leibniz are precisely why Jones'
utterance was so remarkable: having the Lord's Prayer in
each language" and "differ in vocabulary, though not necessarily in
structure," and "ancient people who may have been
between the two," do not reflect a common ancestor which
no longer exists.  Nor do vague generalizations about
Chinese, Amerindian, and African (by which, incidentally,
Leibniz must have meant super-Saharan, ie Arabic and Berber)
have much to do with specific statements about Sanskrit,
Greek and Latin inflections, the "Gothick" (by which
Jones meant Germanic), and the Celtic.

Peter H. Salus

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