>>kelley wrote:
>>
>>> ritual is bound up with language and is
>>>
>>There you go again. My point is that ritual _preceded_ language,
>>probably by several hundred thousand years.
>>
>
> How do you know that? Define "ritual".
>
i think carrol cox pointed to infants developing ritualistic behaviour (thats my term, i forget what he used) before language. further, animals which do not have/use language the way we do seem to exhibit many ritualistic practices. there is other evidence but none of all this is hard evidence of course. and then, there is also the complement of your question: define language.
--ravi