Skeletons in the closet

[Abramelin]

9 minutes ago, Mario Dantas said:

At least, Finland is very old, comparing to other European nations:

The parts that were above sea level during and right after the end of the last ice age that is. Whatever part of Finland was not covered in ice, were mainly islands.

Then Finland, together with much of the Scandinavian plate, started to rise because of isostatic rebound (or whatever it is called nowadays).

 

Edited December 26, 2022 by Abramelin

[Alchopwn]

On 12/24/2022 at 12:36 AM, Abramelin said:

Thanks for showing up, Alchopwn.

First the link:

LINK.

Maybe this works for you.

Btw., you were that other linguist I have been looking for for months! All I remembered was that your username started with an -A-.

Ok. The link is to a site that kind of lightheartedly deals with linguistics, but it is based on theories published by Theo Vennemann (German) and Robert Mailhammer (Australian).

I have saved many links, and if needed I will post them (links to downloadable papers).

Straight up, we need to ask the purpose of the article.  This is not a paper written for a discussion between linguists.  This is a paper written as part of what is a book about history of the English language.  This book's purpose is to inform a non-linguist about what the author has learned about the Historical Linguistics of English.  It's a book about what some linguists have managed to learn about the development of English as a language.  They are making some equivocal claims about how sounds shift, and while they are attempting to make a case about how these shifts occur between time periods and language groups, the fact is we can't hear native speakers from those periods so we can't say for certain that the ideas presented are correct, even if they are based on writing from the time such as runic inscriptions (where they exist).  In this sense the article is imperfect.  On the other hand, it was far more easy and interesting to read than many works on Linguistics have encountered and even inflicted on my long suffering (or was that "long snoring") students .  I'm sure you can walk away from having read this book with a batter knowledge of the history of English and with a bit of linguistics knowledge as well.  If it made you interested in linguistics, then it has more than done its job imo.

[Mario Dantas]

On 12/26/2022 at 12:49 AM, Kenemet said:

It's not true.  I've seen folks do this before - breaking up words into English words and playing with them.  That's not how it works.

Uhm.... no.  Just... no.

I see that a real linguist has stepped it, but I'll just add that you don't determine the parentage of a language by looking at word lists that you think sound alike.  

Ok, firstly let me apologize, English is not my mother tongue, and perhaps i should not be talking about things that just aren't my concern, so to speak...

I know very little about the saga, but it seems that a logic exists...

Again, under the sound system, the word WELL or health, has the hidden word Hel, in it, and means whole, or complete according tp the saga:

Quote

1.

in good health; free or recovered from illness.

"I don't feel very well"

 

Isn't this odd? Words like whole and well and health might be close relatives, as their common denominator is the three (or four) letter word Hel(l)?

Also

Quote

A well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water.

And therefore a hole and a well can be related too, as according to the saga, Hel was situated at a lower place...

 

 

[Mario Dantas]

22 hours ago, Abramelin said:

The parts that were above sea level during and right after the end of the last ice age that is. Whatever part of Finland was not covered in ice, were mainly islands.

Then Finland, together with much of the Scandinavian plate, started to rise because of isostatic rebound (or whatever it is called nowadays).

 

The saga tells that after the Ragnarok, All* the Land Ice  (or Atlantis) was rather a new state of things (as a consequence of the event) which supposedly restarted mankind.

The whole planet was somehow under a lot of ice, according to the saga.

* Notice that the word all, meaning everything, does again resemble and means the word (hel), whole, complete.

But the isostatic rebounds you mentioned could have been witnessed in real time, and not in millions of years...

There must have been great conflagrations (for lack of a better word) upon the planet. If the saga is true then the water "invasion" that occurred at the end of the Pleistocene could be it.

But i don't want to derail this thread or anything, its just that i thought you should know about it. I guess it is not an easy subject. But who knows that this story has some truth in it?

Did you know that it is said that the sun (oden) apparently evolved around an axis that was stationed in a place on earth called Hel, where the north pole once was situated and that the sun described a ring above the horizon?

The saga says that oden is ring, oden is everything, and oden is the sun.

Not only it is the shape of a ring, but described a ring across the sky:

The day arc of the Sun, every hour, during the summer solstice as seen on the celestial dome, from the pole. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_path

If you notice under lower tropical latitudes on cannot observe a ring or sun path anymore:

 

But to resume, regarding oden and the word everything, they even go on to say that oden is ever (for ever and ever) re (again and again) thing (anything). The actual recycling of life on the planet.

Edited December 27, 2022 by Mario Dantas
spacing

[Mario Dantas]

Woau! I just read my own words and feel lousy. I think i am going to rest my case.

Quote

heliocentric

adjective

adjective: heliocentric

having or representing the sun as the centre, as in the accepted astronomical model of the solar system.

The name Helios, according to the saga, does not come from Latin, nor from the Greek, but from the root language, in antiquity:

Quote

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Helios (/ˈhiːliəs, -ɒs/; Ancient Greek: Ἥλιος pronounced [hɛ̌ːlios], lit. 'Sun'; Homeric Greek: Ἠέλιος) is the god and personification of the Sun (Solar deity). His name is also Latinized as Helius, and he is often given the epithets Hyperion ("the one above") and Phaethon ("the shining").^[a] Helios is often depicted in art with a radiant crown and driving a horse-drawn chariot through the sky.

The word hel is related to oden (the sun), because the axis of earth rotation was facing the sun (very similar as happens today at the north pole). although according to the saga, the sun was likeçy at a higher point because, it is said that the further you moved away from the center (in hel), the lower the ring became until it starts to sink in the horizon.

 

[Kenemet]

15 hours ago, Mario Dantas said:

Ok, firstly let me apologize, English is not my mother tongue, and perhaps i should not be talking about things that just aren't my concern, so to speak...

I know very little about the saga, but it seems that a logic exists...

Again, under the sound system, the word WELL or health, has the hidden word Hel, in it, and means whole, or complete according tp the saga:

Isn't this odd? Words like whole and well and health might be close relatives, as their common denominator is the three (or four) letter word Hel(l)?

Also

And therefore a hole and a well can be related too, as according to the saga, Hel was situated at a lower place...

This is the approach often used by people who don't know linguistics.  However, it's not correct and relies on "spelling" and "sound" to make a point and ignores the root and construction of the word as well as when it appears in the timeline of the language.  It also presumes some sort of common... MODERN... relationship.

Like "wurst" and "worst" sounding the same, so you could (falsely) say that "wurst" is absolutely the very worst way you could prepare any meat.

Or "polish" (our word to shine something) and "Polish" (the people from Poland) means that everyone from Poland is shiny.

Word meanings and pronunciation also shift over time, such as the word "awful."  Today it means 'horrible' but a century ago it meant "inspiring awe".  This "sound system" only assumes the modern meanings and spellings.

[Abramelin]

On 9/10/2022 at 7:44 PM, Abramelin said:

Either the Phoenicians didn't leave much if any genetic legacy, or it was another Semitic speaking people.

 

I still think the relatively large concentration of Phoenician coins found on the former Isle of Thanet is a thing to ponder.

I hope the admins will forgive me for posting the next quote in 2 threads at the same time. One reason I post it in thìs thread too is to circumnavigate around a couple of pages with utter bs., and because it is on topic.

Note, the idea that people from south-west Iberia and/or north Africa could have directly visited Britain in the pre-Roman era has recently received some very significant support from the isotopic analysis of teeth from a Late Bronze Age to Middle Iron Age cemetery at Cliffs End Farm, Thanet, Kent. This analysis indicates that around 20% of those who were buried in that cemetery had actually been brought up in south-west Iberia or north Africa before moving to Kent. Needless to say, this is a conclusion of considerable interest, both in terms of the support it offers for the reality of long-distance direct maritime movement between Britain and Iberia/Africa in the first millennium BC and, potentially, for the importance of Thanet in this regard.

https://www.caitlingreen.org/2015/04/thanet-tanit-and-the-phoenicians.html?m=1

 

[Abramelin]

2 hours ago, Abramelin said:

I hope the admins will forgive me for posting the next quote in 2 threads at the same time. One reason I post it in thìs thread too is to circumnavigate around a couple of pages with utter bs., and because it is on topic.

Note, the idea that people from south-west Iberia and/or north Africa could have directly visited Britain in the pre-Roman era has recently received some very significant support from the isotopic analysis of teeth from a Late Bronze Age to Middle Iron Age cemetery at Cliffs End Farm, Thanet, Kent. This analysis indicates that around 20% of those who were buried in that cemetery had actually been brought up in south-west Iberia or north Africa before moving to Kent. Needless to say, this is a conclusion of considerable interest, both in terms of the support it offers for the reality of long-distance direct maritime movement between Britain and Iberia/Africa in the first millennium BC and, potentially, for the importance of Thanet in this regard.

https://www.caitlingreen.org/2015/04/thanet-tanit-and-the-phoenicians.html?m=1

 

https://www.wessexarch.co.uk/news/living-island

Strontium- and oxygen-isotope analyses revealed evidence for migrations from the Western Mediterranean and ‘Scandinavia’; locals from Kent were also represented in the assemblage. These long distances are made all the more remarkable as they were undertaken when some of the individuals were between the ages of three and twelve. These individuals were dated to the Late Bronze Age, Early and Middle Iron Age suggesting that the importance of the Cliffs End site persisted.

[Mario Dantas]

18 hours ago, Kenemet said:

This is the approach often used by people who don't know linguistics.  However, it's not correct and relies on "spelling" and "sound" to make a point and ignores the root and construction of the word as well as when it appears in the timeline of the language.  It also presumes some sort of common... MODERN... relationship.

Like "wurst" and "worst" sounding the same, so you could (falsely) say that "wurst" is absolutely the very worst way you could prepare any meat.

Or "polish" (our word to shine something) and "Polish" (the people from Poland) means that everyone from Poland is shiny.

Word meanings and pronunciation also shift over time, such as the word "awful."  Today it means 'horrible' but a century ago it meant "inspiring awe".  This "sound system" only assumes the modern meanings and spellings.

You got a point there, as i said i am not an expert, but if you ask me, and under the logic of the saga, awful would mean something full of "awe" (sound O), and referring to both in the same way (horrible or inspiring awe, as you put it). The word "awe" is perhaps the very sound of an exclamation Ohh! Being full of exclamations would mean that many people felt the same way, somehting extreme in some fashion.

One can say that a person is awfully beautiful, but as i said i rest my case.

[Abramelin]

2 hours ago, Mario Dantas said:

You got a point there, as i said i am not an expert, but if you ask me, and under the logic of the saga, awful would mean something full of "awe" (sound O), and referring to both in the same way (horrible or inspiring awe, as you put it). The word "awe" is perhaps the very sound of an exclamation Ohh! Being full of exclamations would mean that many people felt the same way, somehting extreme in some fashion.

One can say that a person is awfully beautiful, but as i said i rest my case.

I really hope you will start your own thread about the "Bok Saga", Mario.

What you are posting is about "lego linguistics", and that's not what I was after when I started this thread. If you feel an urge to do so anyway, then rekindle the "Oera Linda Book" thread; there were several specialists in lego-linguistics overthere.

I am already glad a linguist showed up in this thread.

Please don't scare him off.

[Kenemet]

7 hours ago, Mario Dantas said:

You got a point there, as i said i am not an expert, but if you ask me, and under the logic of the saga, awful would mean something full of "awe" (sound O), and referring to both in the same way (horrible or inspiring awe, as you put it). The word "awe" is perhaps the very sound of an exclamation Ohh! Being full of exclamations would mean that many people felt the same way, somehting extreme in some fashion.

One can say that a person is awfully beautiful, but as i said i rest my case.

Except that it's a PIE root and its ancestry is (provably) Greek: https://www.etymonline.com/word/awful

And that's why his version of "linguistics" is garbage.

 

Yes, in English (and other languages) you can mangle words like that.  But it doesn't make the exploration true.

[Kenemet]

On 12/27/2022 at 12:42 AM, Mario Dantas said:

I know very little about the saga, but it seems that a logic exists...

Again, under the sound system, the word WELL or health, has the hidden word Hel, in it, and means whole, or complete according tp the saga:

Isn't this odd? Words like whole and well and health might be close relatives, as their common denominator is the three (or four) letter word Hel(l)?

Also

And therefore a hole and a well can be related too, as according to the saga, Hel was situated at a lower place...

By that "logic" (to show you how bad it really is), the words helm, hello, Helen, helot, shell, help, helminthologist, platyhelmenthes (one of my favorites), epithelium, shelf, tortoiseshell, bachelor, helicopter, bombshell, unhelpful, whelk, helium, bushel, and mohel are all related.

Now, I can force a relationship and ignore the actual linguistics ("epithelium means the whole skin" and "bombshell makes a whole big hole in the ground" and "helminthologists study the whole worm family" so they are all related)

And so forth.

OR I can say "helminthologist/platyhelmenthes are kit bashed modern words that combine Greek and English roots using modern Latin (which is true) and that 'shelf' is Germanic and that 'mohel' is Hebrew and bushel is Old French, and point to documents that support this.  THIS version makes a lot more sense.

[Piney]

22 hours ago, Abramelin said:

I hope the admins will forgive me for posting the next quote in 2 threads at the same time. One reason I post it in thìs thread too is to circumnavigate around a couple of pages with utter bs., and because it is on topic.

Note, the idea that people from south-west Iberia and/or north Africa could have directly visited Britain in the pre-Roman era has recently received some very significant support from the isotopic analysis of teeth from a Late Bronze Age to Middle Iron Age cemetery at Cliffs End Farm, Thanet, Kent. This analysis indicates that around 20% of those who were buried in that cemetery had actually been brought up in south-west Iberia or north Africa before moving to Kent. Needless to say, this is a conclusion of considerable interest, both in terms of the support it offers for the reality of long-distance direct maritime movement between Britain and Iberia/Africa in the first millennium BC and, potentially, for the importance of Thanet in this regard.

https://www.caitlingreen.org/2015/04/thanet-tanit-and-the-phoenicians.html?m=1

 

I was just reading how the last wave of Celts in the British Isles came from Iberia prior to the Romans taking Gaul. The Milesians? (sic).

Then there was movement between Gaul and Britain possibly  because of the Roman invasions. 

Edited December 29, 2022 by Piney
brain fart

[Abramelin]

1 hour ago, Piney said:

I was just reading how the last wave of Celts in the British Isles came from Iberia prior to the Romans taking Gaul. The Milesians? (sic).

Then there was movement between Gaul and Britain possibly  because of the Roman invasions. 

And I have found a bit more about those bone analyses:

Strontium- and oxygen-isotope analyses revealed evidence for migrations from the Western Mediterranean and ‘Scandinavia’; locals from Kent were also represented in the assemblage. These long distances are made all the more remarkable as they were undertaken when some of the individuals were between the ages of three and twelve. These individuals were dated to the Late Bronze Age, Early and Middle Iron Age suggesting that the importance of the Cliffs End site persisted.

https://www.wessexarch.co.uk/news/living-island

 

[Abramelin]

8 hours ago, Piney said:

On 12/28/2022 at 3:48 PM, Abramelin said:

I was just reading how the last wave of Celts in the British Isles came from Iberia prior to the Romans taking Gaul. The Milesians? (sic).

That appears to confirm Irish legends.

But it doesn't tell us what language these Milesians may have spoken.

It could have been Celtiberian, it could have been a creole language based on Phoenician and whatever language the original Iberians used.

[Kenemet]

6 hours ago, Abramelin said:

And I have found a bit more about those bone analyses:

Strontium- and oxygen-isotope analyses revealed evidence for migrations from the Western Mediterranean and ‘Scandinavia’; locals from Kent were also represented in the assemblage. These long distances are made all the more remarkable as they were undertaken when some of the individuals were between the ages of three and twelve. These individuals were dated to the Late Bronze Age, Early and Middle Iron Age suggesting that the importance of the Cliffs End site persisted.

https://www.wessexarch.co.uk/news/living-island

 

I will have to do further research, but this may be too old to have much of an impact on the English language.

It's also a numbers game.  One point of contact (or even a few points of contact) isn't likely to have any impact on a language.   To get into the language, a word has to be useful and unique (Schadenfreude is one that's not English but has been adopted, for example.  Or sushi.)  Family words can become regional words but this is not common.

And sometimes people just make up a word... for example, I'm driving along and I'm going to move to another lane... I often say "I'm going to oozle over there".  It doesn't come from anything though it may resemble a kit bash between "weasel and "ooze".

 

[Abramelin]

6 minutes ago, Kenemet said:

I will have to do further research, but this may be too old to have much of an impact on the English language.

It's also a numbers game.  One point of contact (or even a few points of contact) isn't likely to have any impact on a language.   To get into the language, a word has to be useful and unique (Schadenfreude is one that's not English but has been adopted, for example.  Or sushi.)  Family words can become regional words but this is not common.

And sometimes people just make up a word... for example, I'm driving along and I'm going to move to another lane... I often say "I'm going to oozle over there".  It doesn't come from anything though it may resemble a kit bash between "weasel and "ooze".

 

You never read Vennemann's "Germanica Semitica", right?

Or Mailhammer's "The Germanic Strong Verbs: Foundations and Development of a New System" ?

Edited December 29, 2022 by Abramelin

[Abramelin]

19 hours ago, Kenemet said:

I will have to do further research, but this may be too old to have much of an impact on the English language.

 

On 12/29/2022 at 3:19 PM, Abramelin said:

These individuals were dated to the Late Bronze Age, Early and Middle Iron Age suggesting that the importance of the Cliffs End site persisted.

Which period is too old? The Middle Iron Age?

And why, do you think?

[Kenemet]

On 12/29/2022 at 4:20 PM, Abramelin said:

You never read Vennemann's "Germanica Semitica", right?

Or Mailhammer's "The Germanic Strong Verbs: Foundations and Development of a New System" ?

No, I haven't.  My interest in linguistics is ...as a side topic to many things that I'm interested in.  However, as a cultural anthropologist, I don't see a lot of strong contact between the Middle East and Germany at that time.  Not like the Norse and the English (as an example) where frequent invasions and trade meant that adults would be trying to learn each other's languages.

And sadly, I am not fluent in languages other than English.  I can parse out some stuff and use Google Translate but I'm not anywhere near fluent.

I've been listening to a book (admittedly fluffy and for public consumption) on linguistics and English but I'd need to knuckle down and actually get involved with formal studies to comment coherently on those.

 

[Kenemet]

On 12/30/2022 at 11:41 AM, Abramelin said:

Which period is too old? The Middle Iron Age?

And why, do you think?

I think it's "too old" because of the way that language has changed so much since the Middle Ages, when the world became so much more interconnected.

[Abramelin]

On 1/3/2023 at 12:46 AM, Kenemet said:

I think it's "too old" because of the way that language has changed so much since the Middle Ages, when the world became so much more interconnected.

I'm not a linguist, but I think linguists will not agree with you.

For instance:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_language

[Golden Duck]

On 12/28/2022 at 8:33 AM, Kenemet said:

Like "wurst" and "worst" sounding the same, so you could (falsely) say that "wurst" is absolutely the very worst way you could prepare any meat.

As an poor example of etymology, I thought "brat" and "brät" was the worst.

[Kenemet]

5 hours ago, Golden Duck said:

As an poor example of etymology, I thought "brat" and "brät" was the worst.

No, they're the wurst.  The absolute wurst.

[flashman7870]

On 12/29/2022 at 8:04 AM, Piney said:

I was just reading how the last wave of Celts in the British Isles came from Iberia prior to the Romans taking Gaul. The Milesians? (sic).

Then there was movement between Gaul and Britain possibly  because of the Roman invasions. 

This is something that's attested too a lot in folklore it seems like (most prominently the Book of Invasions, but there are others), though I'm not sure if there is actually any hard evidence for such a movement. 

On 12/29/2022 at 4:32 PM, Abramelin said:

That appears to confirm Irish legends.

But it doesn't tell us what language these Milesians may have spoken.

It could have been Celtiberian, it could have been a creole language based on Phoenician and whatever language the original Iberians used.

Is there any evidence anywhere the Phoenicians tread of a true Phoenician creole or pidgin in any of the areas they settled? But then, I suppose such a language is very unlikely to have had a literary history - inscriptions would either be in Phoenician in areas where Phoenician control was strong, or the aboriginal language where it was weak. Any opportunity for Phoenician creole to rise to the level of a written language would have been stamped out rather quickly as the Romans moved in.

 

[Abramelin]

11 hours ago, flashman7870 said:

Any opportunity for Phoenician creole to rise to the level of a written language would have been stamped out rather quickly as the Romans moved in.

History proves you wrong:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punic_language