Following Pali text is found in Patisambhidamagga Atthakatha.
It is roughly translated as follows.
Is there any basis for this statement in EBT.
Or
Is it not the intended meaning of the commentary.
"it is said, “Beings grasp at words.” For example, in childhood, parents lay their children down on a bed or a couch and engage in various activities while speaking to them. The children, understanding those words as spoken by their parents, repeat those activities. As time passes, they come to understand all words. If a child hears the mother’s words first, he will speak the mother’s language. If he hears the father’s words first, he will speak the father’s language. If he does not hear both, he will speak the language of Magadha.
Similarly, even one who has been reborn in a distant village or a great forest, without anyone else speaking to him, will speak the language of Magadha according to his own disposition."
This is a kind of Buddhist fundamentalism, closely related to the nationalism we see on the rise in a large number of countries. Nothing good comes out of these silly claims, except a false sense of pride and false sense of allegiance to the Dhamma. It is delusion leading to further delusion, eventually issuing in war.
No, there is not. The EBTs see language as a convention that enables communication.
That is the intended meaning of the commentary.
The translation misses some interesting details, however. It specifies that the mother is Tamil, while the father is from Andhaka, i.e. Andhra Pradesh. So the child might either speak Tamil or “Andhaka”. I’m not really sure what the dialect of Andha was, but it’s interesting that it was seen as different than Magadhan.
Also another detail, it doesn’t say “in a distant village”, but “where there is no village” (agāmake), perhaps thinking of cases of children raised by wild animals.
The first human beings born in this plane from brahma plane (according to the Agganna Sutta) had to speak some language. What could be that language?
Given that all the Indo-European languages are descending from an Indian Language (according to the modern researches), doesn’t this position seem hard to be refuted?
I have difficulty believing that this is a serious question, but FWIW, feral children typically struggle to learn any language at all, so no, they don’t speak Magadhi.
I mean, I’m sure you know this, but for others who may be reading this thread, it’s obviously not true.
We can’t do this. It’s unethical. Universal language is an old question in linguistics that fascinated people in the 19th and first half of the 20th century. Noam Chomsky’s generative grammar is probably the most famous product of this line of thinking, but I do believe he stepped away from it and moved toward sociolinguistics.
There’s a big difference between the faithful and the unfaithful (in any religion). The faithful only reject what can be proven as incorrect. The unfaithful don’t have boundaries.
The aliens who came to this human plane at the beginning of this eon (mentioned in Agganna sutta).
They had to speak in a certain language, hadn’t they?
The idiots, as you say, in any religion, are the ones who believe anything they are told without thinking, who allow themselves to be manipulated by politicians and fundamentalists, who unquestioningly accept absurdities while demanding unequivical proofs of those who have struggled to free themselves from ignorance.
The real faitful are faithful to the buddhas call to learning, wisdom and the eradication of ignorance, not the weaponosation of ignorance in the futhurance of xenophobic cults.
Still they had had to talk verbally one day (at least after some generations), since they were the ones who evolved into modern people. That language, whatever it might be, is the root language.
Ok, let’s suppose they are idiots. Then who are the ones who don’t believe anything they are told without thinking?
