On Fri, 29 Jun 2007 03:36:56 -0000, wrote in
.com:

The Air China pilot certainly didn't meet the english requirement.


Perhaps some Chinese natives aren't evolved enough to speak English:



http://www.newscientist.com/article/...d=FDDOLFCFABIO
Speaking like a Chinese native is in the genes
02 June 2007

Nora Schultz

ENQUIRE in Chinese after the health of someone's mother and you
could well receive an answer about the well-being of their horse.
Subtle pronunciation differences in tonal languages such as
Chinese change the meaning of words, which is one reason why they
are so hard for speakers of non-tonal languages like English to
learn.

Babies of all backgrounds can grow up speaking any language, so
there is no such thing as "a gene for Chinese". There may,
however, be something in our genes that affects how easily we can
learn certain languages. So say Dan Dediu and Robert Ladd of the
University of Edinburgh, UK, who have discovered the first clear
correlation between language and genetic variation.

Using statistical analysis, the pair show that people in parts of
the world where non-tonal languages are spoken are more likely to
carry different, more recently evolved forms of two brain
development genes, ASPM and microcephalin, than people in tonal
regions (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI:
10.1073/pnas.0610848104).

"This is exciting because most genes and language features that
vary at the population level are either not correlated or have a
correlation that can be explained by geography or history," says
Ladd. In ASPM and microcephalin, neither geography nor history can
account for the correlation.

Since both genes have a function in brain development, Dediu and
Ladd propose that they may have subtle effects on the organisation
of the cerebral cortex, including the areas that process language.
Brain anatomy differs between English speakers who are good at
learning tonal languages and those who find it harder, says Ladd
so now he wants to see whether similar learning differences can be
found in carriers of the ASPM and microcephalin variant genes.

A remaining puzzle is the role of natural selection. The newer
gene variants that are common in non-tonal regions must have been
positively selected (New Scientist, 11 March 2006, p 30), but
nobody has been able to show how they might provide a selective
advantage. Dediu and Ladd don't think their proposed linguistic
effect could be the answer. "There is absolutely no reason to
think that non-tonal languages are in any way more fit for purpose
than tonal languages," says Ladd.

Bernard Crespi of Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, in British
Columbia, Canada, has an explanation for the older genes, however.
"Tonal languages may have some similarities to 'motherese' [baby
talk]," which apparently helps infants learn language, he says.

From issue 2606 of New Scientist magazine, 02 June 2007, page 15