#24098: The Commissar — 05/05  at  10:01 PM
That post reminded me of the King James Only Movement, which I mentionsd in my trackbacked post.

#24099: — 05/05  at  10:05 PM
If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for me!

Are these those silly people who believe the the King James Version of the Bible is the One True Word of God? Pity Jack Chick seems to have taken down his tract on the subject -- it was a whopper. It showed an incredible detachment from reality -- even for Jack Chick.

Confirmation word: Family. We atheist's favorite food.

#24100: John Wilkins — 05/05  at  10:11 PM
Are you sure that's not a satirical post? It certainly looks like it to me. Or am I just becoming jaded?

#24101: PZ Myers — 05/05  at  10:20 PM
Satirizing creationists is always a dangerous game, but someone has got to do it.

#24102: — 05/05  at  10:20 PM
It is absolutely a satirical post. The folks at LL have definite opinions on pseudoscience.

D'A

#24103: — 05/05  at  10:20 PM
John Wilkins has got a point. Indeed if it is not satire, than it is complete B.S.

The YECs do NOT think that the English Language was created 500 years ago. And Kansas Board of Education has NEVER given any time to such a belief.

Now there is a minority of fundamentalists who think that the King James Version is the perfect divinely inspired translation of the Bible into English. But most fundamentalists don't go that far even if they are fans of the KJV.

--
Anti-spam: Replace "user" with "harlequin2"

#24108: — 05/05  at  10:46 PM
Religious people are like Adam Sandler: fun to have around sometimes, as long as you don't get too much of it.

#24109: — 05/05  at  10:48 PM
I would remind people of Russell's Undecidability Theorem: it is impossible to distinguish between creationists, and satires of creationists.

#24114: Jeff Fecke — 05/05  at  11:43 PM
Frankly, nobody disputes micro language evolution--we see slang coming into language all the time. But macro language evolution is just too much for anyone to believe. Latin turning into Spanish? How could that be? Mexico is thousands of miles from Rome!

Trackback: Madrassas in Kansas Tracked on: The Politburo Diktat (216.193.202.220) at 2005 05 05 22:03:24
NYT: Kansas Begins Creationism Hearings In the first of three daylong hearings characterized here as the direct descendant of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, a parade of Ph.D.'s testified today about the flaws they find in Darwin's theory of evolution, transforming a small auditorium into a forum on one of the most controversial questions in education and politics: How to teach about the origin of life? The hearings by the Kansas State Board of Education-...

#24116: Enigma — 05/06  at  12:18 AM
A satire, right? Please tell me it's a satire. There really is no such thing as linguistic creationism, right?

#24117: — 05/06  at  01:10 AM
Satire it is.

#24118: Virge — 05/06  at  01:19 AM
Enigma,
You may be interested to hear about British Israelism

The key idea of British-Israelism, also referred to as Anglo-Israelism, is that Great Britain is the geographical home of the lost tribes of Israel. The immediate implication of this belief is that it identifies the present day Anglo-Saxon people as God's Chosen People.

British-Israelites assert that many of the geographic names in Europe are Israeli by origin. British-Israelites suggest that Danube , Denmark , and Danzig are areas through whichthe tribe of Dan migrated ( Williams ). David Williamsalso writes, "By removing the letter "I" from Isaac, [British- Israelism] derives the word "saac" which combines with the word "son" to form "Saxon",i.e. "British" ( Williams ).

Knowing what people can swallow, it wouldn't surprise me if linguistic creationism had its share of followers.

#24120: Alon Levy — 05/06  at  02:27 AM
There's no linguistic creationism in the West; the Language Log post is quite obviously satirical.

Jeff, the analogy of apes turning into humans is not Latin turning into Spanish, but Italian (or French) turning into Spanish. The correct mockery should be "Italian turning into Spanish?"

#24121: — 05/06  at  02:41 AM
Well, you suckered me. It's a pretty sad comment on the level of intelligence I credit to homo saps nowadays that I swallowed this.

#24123: Alon Levy — 05/06  at  02:54 AM
Swallowed what - the satire?

#24126: — 05/06  at  03:22 AM
You are silly, Alon. I was was naturally excluding my august self from my low opinion of my cospecifics.

#24127: — 05/06  at  03:58 AM
It's a spoof? Pity, Language Log Plaza sounds like a cool place to visit....

#24128: Mrs Tilton — 05/06  at  04:11 AM
Let me just echo the suspicions of satire. Though there are doubtless people stupid enough to believe in 'linguistic creationism' (for ye have the stupid with you always), this story surely originates from the Onion (or else from somebody the Onion should think about hiring).

There is, in fact (as some have noted above), a strain of literalist Christian fundamentalism that holds the King James Version to be divinely inspired (i.e., the translation itself, not merely the books it translates). We can all enjoy a good laugh at such people; but I will not stand for any bashing of the KJV. Though I am very far from a fundamentalist, or even orthodox, Christian, I am a big fan of the KJV (and was so even when I was an atheist, for that matter). The language is a bit dated, sure, and as many have pointed out (including Alon Levy on this very website), the translators made a few howlers. Still, anybody (whether religious or not) with a love for the English language ought to revere the translators' achievement. The late Hunter Thompson was not, so far as I know, famed for piety; yet he knew, and loved, the KJV.

#24130: Virge — 05/06  at  04:55 AM
Oh, come now, Mrs Tilton. Just a "suspicion of satire?"

The entry was posted by Geoffrey K. Pullum, and I see no reason not to give him full credit for his creative writing. It's a delightful parody of the ID Creationists arguments and political tactics. I loved the line:

Historical evidence of such processes of change has been refuted, he claims: "There are gaps in the literary record that the linguistic evolutionists have never explained."

#24131: Virge — 05/06  at  05:04 AM
Pfft. I think I was in a punctuated disequilibrium when I previewed my last post.

#24132: Mrs Tilton — 05/06  at  05:13 AM
Looking at the nature and relative position of our two gravatars above there, Virge, I'd show a little more respect if I were you.

But seriously. Though I know nothing about Pullum, his name rang a faint bell, so I have just googled him and find that he is the author a book, The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax, that I came very close to buying two days ago while waiting for a train. (For reasons I cannot begin to understand -- I am an antifan of science fiction -- I chose Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? instead.) Having poked about in the Google results a bit, I would say that my suspicions have now stiffened into something approaching certainty. Good man yerself, Pullum, and next time it'll certainly be your book I grab.

His quip on 'linguistic gaps', BTW, reminds me of a comment I saw here on Pharyngula on the occasion of an exciting palaeontological find: 'Discovery opens two new gaps in fossil record!'

Trackback: Signs Of Intelligence In English Language? Tracked on: Black Arts Diary (209.68.1.41) at 2005 05 06 05:16:22
In a world where some people still believe the earth to be flat, the moon landings to be faked, or Hitler to be alive and well and living under the permafrost, humouring a minority of crackpots who believe that the...

#24133: — 05/06  at  05:19 AM
According to Herodotus, the Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt once took a new born baby for a linguistic experiment: they ordered that none should be allowed to speak in his presence. By age fourteen, when the priests were finally allowed to talk to the boy, they found he could only understand Egyptian, which formed undubitable proof that Egyptian was the first and oldest language on Earth.

#24135: That Girl — 05/06  at  05:45 AM
The saddest (and funniest) thing I ever saw was a Texas man being interviewed about illegal immigrants. The reporter pointed out that many Mexicans were Christian, as was the man. The man replied "But they only speak Mexican. If God meant Mexicans to be Christians he wouldn't have written the Bible in English."