First objection: The depth of language change

A. The shape of words changes so much over time that the question is why any one of them would stay recognizable in any language after 150,000 years. Recall Proto-Indo-European *snusos becoming nu in Albanian. Languages also substitute new roots for old ones to express meanings: Spanish, Russian, and Greek are all Indo-European but use different roots for bread (pan, xleb, psomi’).

B. Algonquian is a family of Native American languages, including Cree and Cheyenne spoken in Montana and Oklahoma. Proto-Algonquian words have been recovered through comparative reconstruction; the word for winter, for example, was peponwi. But the word in Cheyenne that has developed from this root is aa’ —because of gradual changes over just 1,500 years.

winter from Proto-Algonquian to Cheyenne: