That headline from NewScientist.com's feed sure caught my eye today. Is there anything a parasite can't do?
Unfortunately(?), after reading the article, I found out the situation was much less dramatic than I first imagined. The idea being that humans in tropical areas tended to stay in their own villages instead of taking the risk of making contact with different groups. (Contact often had undesirable side effects, such as death from foreign viruses or unfriendly parasites). Since the eco-system in the tropics could provide enough resources, villages didn't feel the need to get to know their neighbors' parasites or their language.
Farther away from the equator, humans had to risk the interaction, due to the scarcity of resources. This led to larger language groups.
So, if you speak an endangered (or extinct) language, you may feel compelled to curse a few parasites, but it's not as though they are kicking back in a comfy neuron-chair in your brain, laughing wickedly at all the embarrassing things they make you say....
Not according to my resident parasites anyway....
No comments:
Post a Comment