Ur – original or primordial
Sprache – speech ( peci )
There is a slow growth in interest amongst linguists, both professional and amateur, in tracing back the roots of modern languages to their primal source. Chief among these efforts are those undertaken by the Santa Fe Institute and the Tower of Babel project. Ursprache refers to the term borrowed from German for this original mother tongue.
The rise in interest can be traced to three main factors. First the easier access to information and data as well as increased ease of collaboration because of the Internet. The expectation that most of the languages around now ( about 6800 ++) will go extinct within the current lifetime because of the rise of globalisation, english, internet etc is making people aware of the need for action; and thirdly the human genome project which is drawing a clearer picture of mankinds family tree is making people more interested in their ancestral heritage.
If any of you are interested in exploring the evolution of language as well as the possible role that Tamil has played in this process, please share it.
If you are, the first question we can look at is when did mankind start using language and why.
cheers
jeevan
quote:
If you are, the first question we can look at is when did mankind start using language and why.
Originally posted by jeevindra – 22 Oct 2007 : 01:49:50 AM
Mr. Jee,
you may start the ball rolling by sharing your findings
good start … keep posting [:)]
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Re: Ursprache Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2007 3:57 pm
jeevindra
Newbie
“fermented honey drink,” O.E. medu, from P.Gmc. *meduz (cf. O.N. mjöðr, Dan. mjød, O.Fris., M.Du. mede, Ger. Met “mead”), from PIE base *medhu- “honey, sweet drink” (cf. Skt. madhu “sweet, sweet drink, wine, honey,” Gk. methy “wine,” O.C.S. medu, Lith. medus “honey,” O.Ir. mid, Welsh medd, Breton mez “mead”).
Ta. ma??u honey, toddy, fermented liquor, sweet juice, drink taken at the time of sexual union, liquor jar, fragrant smell; ma??am toddy. Ma. ma?u sweetness, honey; ma??u nectar. Tu. mi??i sweetness
nice choice of name miss mathu.
When?
No one knows when man started using language, linguists place an arbitrary date of 50KYA, while placing an upper limit for research at 8KYA.
Another way of looking at the question is by studying the earliest presence of the anatomical characteristics needed for speech.
1. Descended Hyoid – we can only have a voice box if the hyoid (a bone in the throat) has descended down from its original perch. This evolutionary change makes breathing and swallowing simultaneously impossible. When this happens people choke. Since we can still speak, our evolution has chosen speech over the ability to smoke while swallowing lunch.
2. Hypoglossal nerve – this is the cranial nerve that controls the tongue. It has to be of a decent size to allow the fine control necessary for different sounds, among other things.
3. Middle ear development – since we expect others to understand the meaning of the sounds we make, the ears have to be tuned to be more sensitive to the frequency range of the human voice. Too low and all we would hear is the sound of blood rushing around in the head.
4. Control of expiration – some monkeys that can vocalise can only do so for one sound per breath. Without the ability to control the rate of air passing from the lungs over the vocal chords, we will not be able to say more than one syllable for each breath. Since this makes the sentence ‘ Your fly is open” require between 7 to 8 cycles of inspiration/expiration, we needed to develop larger intercostal nerves to control our chest (and expiration to a finer level).
5. Asymmetrical brain – the cortex had to be specialised and have the regions that deal with speech and understanding of words. Broca’s / wernickes areas.
there are a few more but i cant remember them now.
To summarise we shared this characteristics with neanderthals and homo sapiens idaltu. If we take the common ancestor for neanderthals/homo sapiens or modern humans/sapiens idaltu as the starting point for speech since th(ese) two are our closest hominid brothers, we come to homo heidelbergensis with a date of 600-250KYA. Do not be too concerned about brain size as both neanderthals and idaltu had bigger brains than us. We are actually the runt of the family.
Another way of looking at a possible starting date for speech is to look at the oldest incidences of common or shared words between language families in relation to genetic branching back in mankinds homeland of africa. Will look at that later.
Why did we start speaking?
We didn’t(probably). We actually wanted to sing(mimic nature?). Either romeo was trying to get juliet to agree for a walk on the moonlit beach (courtship), or because juliet wanted to sing the kids to sleep because romeo was still out with his buddies and there was no food (lullabies). Or maybe because juliet got tired of seeing the neighbours cooking a bigger deer every sunday (nagging). We just don’t know. But seeing that hunting is still a silent sport and you cant find a quiet kitchen when more than one woman is in there, language ( mankinds greatest invention) could actually be the work of womankind. Probably explains why we dont call it fathertongue.
On a more serious note, mull on the fact that poetry (language as song) is the highest form of expression possible.
Bottom line, no one is sure why we started to use language, maybe it is nothing more than natural evolution from being bored around the campfire.
What next? Africa? introduction to linguistics? genetic family tree vs language family tree? Or enough is enough. Pray tell, i dont have much time.
cheers
jeevan
Re: Ursprache Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2007 4:30 pm
Bowie
Hero Member
Hi jeevindra,
I find the topic interesting even though the subject is quite alien to me. I am assuming your approach to the topic is more scientific than spiritual. Spiritual meaning: brought down by god (not from the Christianity angel i.e. the tower of Babel and so fourth, but the Hindu angel). Where lord Ganesh, Saraswathi and Lord Murga thought the language to mankind. What is your take on that?
How the need for the creation of such epics as Ramayana and Mahabratham arose? The language used on such texts was beyond what mankind is capable now. How this process of such high utilization of language got started in India?
Re: Ursprache Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2007 5:39 pm
jeevindra
Newbie
Hi Bowie,
There are 4 questions that dictate our world view.
1. Why are we here?
2. What is our purpose/goal?
3. How do we achieve this purpose?
4. what stands in our way of achieving this?
Religion plays a huge role in helping us address this questions, and no doubt the peace of mind and sense of security that we obtain by sharing the same world view with our nearest and dearest makes the answers that religion provides mark the boundary within which we are comfortable.
My take on the role of religion in answering this question is that it is as important as the role of anthropology or genetics, in that it gives clues on where to find the answers. The drawback of using only religion as an answer is the loss of objectivity, and that no one view can be accepted by all.
The tower of Babel refers to a time when all of mankind spoke one language, which might not be far from the truth. The idea of language being taught by Lord Ganesha/Muruga or Devi Saraswathi, or of Tamil and Agastya can be viewed as the homage we give to our teachers. The same argument can be used for Sumerian/Annunaki~Nefilim or Olmec/ Quetzlcoatl. The reference in many ancient civilisations to teachers from elsewhere is extremely important but not the end of the argument, it is a link in the chain.
Most of us, when asked, will say that Shakespeare is the greatest writer ever in the english language, even if we have never read or sat for any of his plays. But during his day, his audience were the peasants first and the nobility second. Homer’s Illiad and Ulysses still hold the highest rank in Greek literature. Mankind has regressed as far as taste and ability go when it comes to language. The Mahabaratha and Ramayana are works of astounding creativity and beauty. The easiest answer I can give is that mankind today is of the fourth/iron/brass/kali yuga/fifth age, so he is in effect going through devolution ( as opposed to evolving higher). But is this good enough an answer?
Back to the question of worldview. Progress is only possible when we make the attempt to leave the comfort of dogma and walk into no man’s land. The only way to achieve this is by the scientific method. If the answer that we end up with proves that the origin of language is from God then we accept that.
Why should the scientific method be better? Because Man is not the only creature that uses language. The Blue whale has dialects according to which part of the globe it swims in, and some biologists point to a date of 20MYA as when cetaceans developed language, it is hard to explain that from a religious perspective.
Bottom line, my take is that religion is a later development to language. Chances are that organised religion assimilated the prehistory before its rise as part of its world view.
cheers
jeevan
Re: Ursprache Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 12:23 am
Phuchandy
Hero Member
Dear Jeevan,
Interesting…I have been quietly spending some time on this matter myself…I doubt there would be anyone interested in the matter of liguistics or anthroplogy to be exact and its origins to or from mankind, let alone see someone new posting and opening up a thread on the subject let alone in MinV.
But please do share your details with regards to the subject in discussion.
Thank you.
Regards,
Phuchandy
Re: Ursprache Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 12:17 am
jeevindra
Newbie
Hi Phuchandy,
Glad to hear that you enjoy digging into history as well.
Lets jump to the lady that is the great, great, great…x 6000 or thereabouts… grandmother of all the people living today. mt EVE. She is not an Eve in the biblical sense but because the descendants of the other ladies that lived alongside her about 150KYA are no longer around to enjoy Astro like we do.
Her kids can be divided into two branches first, based on the group that the mitochondrial DNA falls into, called haplogroups. L0 and L1.
L0 are the bushmen mainly and some other tribes. We call them the Khoisan and they are more famous for talking with clicks and acting in movies called Gods Must Be Crazy 1,2 and 3. Dont watch 3, its a waste of time. 1 and 2 are really funny.
L1 has six more branches – L2 to L7. They all stay put in Africa…until 65KYA a branch from L3, called M decides to keep walking past the Arabian peninsula into the fertile crescent/north India and become what we know today as Indians. Indians without the Dravidian/Aryan/ fair/ dark/ moustached whatever nonsense.
L3 has another branch called N that comes about around 40KYA and becomes the Europeans. But there is a problem. Australian Aborigines are also N, and since they have more in common with Indians then anyone else, N has been asked to shut up and just accept the fact that it comes from M. Plus all of N’s languages are from M as well.
There are many theories about M and N but this one fits the best.
All the rest of mankind outside Africa come from M and N. No problems there.
Why did M decide to leave Africa?
Toba event, 70KYA, about 800 times more violent than Pinatubo, drives mankind to near extinction, and starts an Ice Age that only started thawing 15 KYA. M wanted to find better accomodation. The old equator was further north than current, so the route out of Africa was in the thermal belt.
what language did M speak?
About 10,000 ~ 100,000 humans left. M’s language is Ursprache for everyone outside Africa.
How can we figure out Ursprache, if it still exists?
1. It will be old, cant be dated conclusively.
2. It will be linked with all the ancient civilisations. Sumerian, Harappan, Egyptian, meso America…
3. Its will have relationships with the African languages… Munda etc
4. The early solo travellers of humanity will have links to it. Australian Aborigines, Ainu etc.
5. Languages that linguists have to classify as isolates (orphans with no genetic relationship with other languages) because their classification is wrong but they refuse to admit it, will be related to it, and the similarities will be so obvious that (http://www.zompist.com/chance.htm) articles like this that argue based on totally wrong maths (linguists are really bad with numbers) are used to defend it. And I am serious about the math being totally wrong, yet this article is quoted very often.
6. There will be unexplained similarities between it or its close relatives with languages from supposedly totally unrelated families, that that list of words will be called false cognates.
7. Since language is only one part of its culture, expect its gods;early script;astronomy;engineering knowledge; architecture; traditions;place names; games; calendars; myths; cartography …. pop up globally.
8. While other civilisations will refer to a mysterious land from where their teachers/gods/ancestors came, and call it Punt/Atlantis whatever Ursprache will say, Damn! pity that place sank. Time to move again people!!
9. Because it is old, its vocabulary will be absurdly rich, and have like 64 different words for hair and 48 different words for water. But if I was being loose with the definition, the number will be 3 digits for both.
10. Its current guardians will spend more effort talking about how they will give their lives/die for it, than spearhead the research so that humanity gets closer to its common heritage, rather than further away day by day. Or maybe they are just waiting for some vellai karan to pin a note on the notice board so they can say ” Of course!! Yathum Ure/ Kal Thondri…” and wait for the next vellai karan to come with another note.
I am just pissed off because I have to stop spending all my time doing this.
Anyway, I got triggered into this because of two things about a year ago.
First, I was looking up the source for the words money/cash etc and got surprised.
Second, being a non believer in Keynesian economics, and a half believer of Rothbard, and that only on Sundays, I preferred economic cycles. Ended up in Kondratieff’ work, found out that the Mayans and Tamils had used that way way back and was hooked. That cycle is more popular in the Chinese version now ; 12 animals x 5 elements.
Bottom line. Love Tamil. If you already do, then learn as much about is as possible. If you have done that, share it.
This language holds the key to the puzzle that is humanity and history, it deserves a lot better than people like me looking into it.
cheers
Re: Ursprache Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 2:12 pm
Bowie
Hero Member
Did you say Tamil holds the key to the puzzle that is humanity and history?
How about sharing the roots of Tamil from your perceptive.
Re: Ursprache Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 3:15 pm
pesum
Hero Member
Thank you Jeevan saar for pointing out that the Tamil language holds the key to the puzlze of humanity and history.
Pls advise what kind of Tamil books will give us some enlightenment in this topic. Would appreciate if you could kindly advise the title of these books. [:)]
Re: Ursprache Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 5:56 pm
Phuchandy
Hero Member
What makes you come up with a deduction like that? Anything in particular that you would like to elaborate?
Re: Ursprache Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 6:13 pm
jeevindra
Newbie
http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~tcrndfu … eprint.pdf
http://search.artifice.com/forums/topic-10090.html
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/200700 … _sys.shtml
http://www.clc.sun.ac.za/KEYNOTES%20%20 … ngtson.pdf
http://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.dhttp://par … s/P114.PDF
http://evolutsioon.ut.ee/publications/Metspalu2004.pdf
http://www.verbix.com/documents/etruscan-dravidian.htm
http://www.livingtongues.org/docs/Drav_Mund_IJDL.pdf
Start with these links as a primer.
For research into comparative linguistics you can start with this list below.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishl … O4M393S2QF
I have saved most of my research into my hardrive, and my first try to paste the links got erased because i forgot to open another tab [:(!] . open file, retrace link, copy, paste, ad nauseam.
Anyway, I dont know of any tamil books yet, maybe I should write one….
As for my perspective on the origins of tamil, go to my previous post and replace “it” and Ursprache with Tamil in the list. Will add another two.
1. Rate of change. Average ROC of a language is 1 word out of 5 every millenia. Tamil is glacial, which is why 8 year old kids can read the Tirukkural.
2. The entire family will be classified as an orphan family. Origin unknown.
But to make it simple, here’s the summary.
Africa > origin of man > birthplace of language > roots of Tamil > early speakers walked out > all other languages. All that has to be done is fill in the blanks.
cheers
Re: Ursprache Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 10:26 am
jeevindra
Newbie
http://www.infitt.org/ti2002/papers/71ARASEN.PDF
forgot about this paper. its in Tamil, decent intro into the subject.
cheers
Re: Ursprache Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 11:00 pm
pesum
Hero Member
Thank you Jeevan. Will print out the above URL page and see what the writer has got to say about the Tamil language.
Re: Ursprache Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 11:04 pm
pesum
Hero Member
Re: Ursprache Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2007 1:02 am
Paandian
Administrator
Damn… i feel like i know nothing. Please do not stop sharing guys. I’m reading every single word on this topic and visiting every single link from this topic.
Tq jeevindra saab.
jeevindra
Newbie
We Need To Free Ourselves from
British Archaeological Frauds
The reason I’m mentioning this, is that this Sumerian language comes from the same language family as that of the ancient Dravidian culture of the Indus Valley, of Harappa and Mohenjodaryo, which preceded the arrival of the Indo-Aryans, the speakers of what became Sanskrit, into India from the central Asian plateau. And the whole thesis is, that at a time which I can’t date, but certainly well before 4000 B.C.E. , there was a single, ocean-going culture, which preceded the shared culture of the Indus Valley and Sumerian riparian (river-side) cities. A maritime culture, which went from Sumatra, as the terminus of the current which leads from south of Ceylon eastward, which spread across the Indian Ocean area, as far as the east coast of Africa. And there was one unified culture speaking one unified language many millennia ago; a maritime culture which had outposts in various locations. This was very much older than the supposed “origin” of civilization in oligarchic Mesopotamia. All of which is wholly antithetical, heretical actually, to the accepted canon of British archaeological authorities.
by Tony Papert
THE PRIMARY CLASSICAL LANGUAGE OF THE WORLD
There is no other language in the whole world as Tamil, that has suffered so much damage by natural and human agencies, and has been done so much injustice by malignant foreigners and native dupes.
The general belief that all arts and sciences are progressively advancing with the passage of time, is falsified in the case of philology, owing to the fundamental blunder of locating the original home of the Tamilians in the Mediterranean region, and taking Sanskrit, a post-Vedic semi-artificial composite literary dialect, the Indian Esperanto, so to speak, for the prototype of the Indo-European Form of Speech.
Katpadi Extension,
G. Devaneyan.
21-3-1966
Introduction to
Real Roots of German, Greek, Latin & English
Mini Word Origin Directory
Language is not easily corrupted like human genes or prejudicious perceptions. So historians and geneticists depend upon linguists to a great extent to trace the origin and movements of people. So it is logical to state that bad advice from ignorant linguists about origin of language is responsible for incorrect ancient history.
Tamil sounds are the closest to the ancient sounds (especially those of the Munda and the Santali) once spoken throughout the sub-continent of India. A few words of these ancient languages will be found in this book. The Munda and Santali sounds existed in northeast India about 50,000 years ago. These sounds traveled to Europe with the Neanderthals and the Cro-Magnons. This is attested to by the very strong links to euskara, the language of the Basque people who settled in the northern section of the Pyrenees Mountains about 30,000 years ago.
The Massive Linguistic Ignorance
PEOPLES AND LANGUAGES IN PRE-ISLAMIC INDUS VALLEY
Beginning from Sir John Marshall, who was the first to suggest that the language of the Indus Civilization was Dravidian 17, most scholars have taken the ‘Dravidian hypothesis’ seriously. Piero Meriggi, a scholar who contributed towards the decipherment of the Hittite hieroglyphs, opined that Brahvi, the Dravidian language spoken even now in part of Balochistan, must be the original Harappan language 18. However, Brahvi has changed so much and become so Balochified, as Elfenbein points out 19, that it cannot give clear evidence of any sort in this case. Another scholar, the Spanish Jesuit Henry Heras, ‘turned more than 1,800 Indus texts into “Proto-Dravidian” sentences’ 20 but his decipherment and linguistic theories were not accepted. Later Soviet scholars headed by Yurij V. Knorozov, carried on a very rigorous computer analysis of sign distribution in the Indus texts coming to the conclusion that it belonged to the Dravidian language family 21. However, Kamil Zvelebil, also a Russian scholar came to the conclusion that ‘the Dravidian affinity of the Proto-Indian language remains only a very attractive and quite plausible hypothesis.22 Indeed, the plausibility of the hypothesis is such that many people, such as Iravatham Mahadevan, a scholar of old Tamil epigraphy, have used it to offer readings of the Indus script 23. F.C.Southworth and D.Mc Alpin used the Dravidian roots to reconstruct the language of the Indus Valley.24 Walter A. Fairservis, another specialist in this area, stated with considerable certainty that ‘the Harappan language was basically an early Dravidian language’.25 Even Parpola, after much careful and detailed sifting of the evidence, opines ‘that the Harappan language is most likely to have belonged to the Dravidian family’.26
–Dr. Tariq Rahman, Fulbright Visiting Fellow
AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL LANGUAGES: CONSONANT – SALIENT PHONOLOGIES AND THE “PLACE OF ARTICULATION IMPERATIVE”
distinction and a minimal fricative contrast (but six or seven vowels). Perhaps most similar to Australian languages are the Dravidian languages of southern India. Tamil, for example, has five places of articulation in a single series of stops, paralleled by a series of nasals, and no fricatives (thus approaching the Australian proportion of sonorants to obstruents of 70% to 30%)
Andrew Butcher
Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, School of Medicine
Flinders University, Adelaide
“I beg my reader to look at the ruins of the ancient cities of India: Agra, Delhi, Oude, Mundore, etc., which have many of them been much larger than London, the last for instance, 37 miles in circumference, built in the oldest style of architecture in the world, the Cyclopean, and I think he must at once see the absurdity of the little Jewish mountain tribe (the “Lost Tribes”) being the founders of such a mass of cities. We must also consider that we have almost all the places of India in Western Syria…I think no one can help seeing that these circumstances are to be accounted for in no other way than by the supposition that there was in very ancient times one universal superstition, which was carried all over the world by emigrating tribes, and that they were originally from Upper India.” (Vol. I; p. 432.)
Anacalypsis – Godfrey Higgins (1772-1833), archeologist, politician, humanitarian, social reformer, and author.
The significant number of such global cognates leads some linguists to conclude that all the world’s languages ultimately belong to a single language family. This speculation about a further level of the family tree of language, which ties Nostratic with all other language families into what is called Proto-World. Genetic evidence suggests that the first humans migrated from the Horn of Africa into Yemen, and some research has speculated that early human migrations might have been caused by climatic change along with other factors. This could have happened as long as 50,000 years ago – people coming out of Africa at that time could have spoken a language that we could now call Proto-World. Historical Linguistics – Vol 26.2002 pp 85-96
I am afraid that the constraints that time and resources are placing on me, will cause my visits here to be rare. Do not worry, if you make the effort to learn, the knowledge will be there.
adieu
