Nine months of intensive Fuzhounese lessons got me only so far in listening comprehension of the local chitchat in Longyan. Once I opened my mouth and needed to communicate predominantly in the national dialect of Mandarin (with a smattering of simple Fuzhounese), phenotype be damned—my foreignness was marked.

What ultimately doomed these early glottogonist speculations was that they all took on the impossible task of arguing for a single origin of all aspects of language.

Father Ted: The cliffs were gone? How could they just disappear? Dougal: Erosion.

Well, I answered, at first with uncertainty, then with inspiration, he would do splendidly to lead your cotillon, if you think of having one. / So you do not dance, Mr. Crocker? / I was somewhat set back by her perspicuity.