[Arkcon]

To question #1, I dunno, human civilizations were very isolated when formal agriculture allowed the first villages to form. Example, technology found in villages in the Tigris valley was more advanced, than villages found in Turkey that were settled later. So its plausable (to me anyway) why languages are so different.

Question #2, well that's just the Hellen Keller story isn't it. Some glimmer of insight has to occur in the human mind after lots of pattern repetition.

As an aside on point #2, I remember a children's book, and the topic of intelligence of all humans was used to describe a bell curve. Thing was, the bell curve was skewed. Slightly more people fall under the "E=mc^2" heading than fall under the "2+2=5" heading. And I've always wondered if that was true, and why. Maybe the sample is biased, we don't count the really "stupid" because we label that "learning disability" and count it out. Or maybe there are more smart than dumb people. That is, pretty much the definition of human -- not the strongest, or fastest, but finding patterns and making inferences is what we all are designed to do, its what we all want to do, deep down inside.

Consider that the next time someone ticks you off because they did something dumb.