Re: what is etymology? (linguistics and biology)

More on English "language"

The memes at the core of a word are like a gravity
center about which meanings gather and revolve;
language is per definitionem carried by needs and
wishes (- language is the means of getting help,
support and understanding from those we depend
upon in one way or another --- and every means of
getting help, support and understanding may be
called language, on whatever level of life it occurs);
words form in contact with human crafted things;
and they are ruled by physiology. How can we
possibly bring all these aspects together?

Let me ponder the case of clicking L as part of
a hypothetical language of very early hunters who
were stalking game. They used a weapon, say,
a spear (we have 400,000 years old wooden lances
of Homo heidelbergensis, very old weapons indeed).
First one must produce a spear, then one must
learn how to use it properly, only then can one join
a hunting party. In order to give a thrust more punch
one draws the arm that holds the spear backward,
and then pushes or throws it forward with full power,
thus yielding more effect. Successful hunting requires
tactics, reasoning and talking, only then does one go
on a hunt, and the preliminary steps - making a weapon,
learning how to use it properly, thinking out tactics and
bespeaking the strategical moves - all these hold ups
guarantee a successful hunt, which, of course, has the
purpose of stilling hunger and satisfying one of our most
forceful and vital needs.

All these aspects are ingeniously combined in the
clicking L - the tongue doesn't just produce the first
click that comes handy or rather tonguy, emphatic D
or T, no, it curves backward, strokes all along the arc
of the palate, and smacks full power on its wet bed,
producing a satisfyingly loud click, and in the end
the tongue enjoys a juicy meal ...

This must be the reason why the clicking L of the
hypothetical early hunter language when stalking
game was preserved all along to English language.
The English could say tonguage, but no, they
borrowed French langue and say language that got
more smack. The Romans could have said dingua,
but no, they turned it into lingua, more smack.
The same may have happened many times before,
and testifies to the work of the homeotic meme
in the group of memes at the core of a word.

Some stations of the hypothetical homeotic way
toward language: clicking L - Magdalenian LOG
with a clicking L - ancient Greek logos (glossa
from a permutation of log, glo) - English language
and logic.

Next time: a homage to my good alas departed
friend An Elk, with an attempt at reconstructing
her second theory

Regards Franz Gnaedinger www.seshat.ch


A correction, and an apology to Ranijt Mathews

In several previous messages I said agriculture
started in 9000 BP in the Harran plain just south
of Goebekli Tepe. It started earlier at the base of
the Karacadag east of Goebekli Tepe, where the
oldest cultivated grains have been found to date.
Early agriculture and the late phase of Goebekli
Tepe overlapped. The lion pillar building - not
certain whether it was a real building, a roofed one,
and the animals could also be tigers or leopards -
belongs to a later phase, and the relief of a woman
with the round head of a mushroom that reminds
me of certain clouds, and the long hanging labiae,
a case of macronymphilia, but here to understand
as a sign of the rain goddess, I dare say, an
emanation of the early goddess AC-CA or AKA,
earth and sky, surviving in the Indo-European earth
goddess akka, belongs to the latest phase and
marks the transition of the apparently 100 per cent
patriarchal hunter community of Goebeli Tepe and
the Urfa region to the equitable gender model Jan
Hodder found for Chatal Hoeyuek in 6000 BC or
8000 BP (if memory serves), and the female religon
of Old Europe according to Marija Gimbutas, heyday
between 6000 and 3000 BP, clearly going along
with agriculture that must have been a mainly female
invention and achievement.

Ranijt Mathews asked me a couple of very good and
inspiring questions. I have been impatient with him,
for which I apologize. He was right in mentioning dingua
as origin of Latin lingua, and thus he helped me to
further develop my model of a word. Here is the new
step I took. The meme at the center of a word may be
a group of memes, among them a homeotic meme
that keeps a word in its morphospace. The tools of the
homeotic meme are folk etymology and borrowings from
other languages. And the homeotic meme relies on
physiology, especially the mouth and tongue, and on
a neurological network that preserves the values of words
(my attempt at reconstructing Magdalenian one year ago
relied mainly on this network, was done for the most part
subconsciously, the words just popped up, in the right
place, and let me recognize the fine tool of permutation).
I postulate a very early language of clicks that was used
by hunters stalking game, perhaps in the Middle Stone
Age in South Africa, 75,000 years ago, or still earlier
somewhere else in Africa, or even by Homo erectus.
The clicking L and other clicks survive in the language
of the nearly extinguished Xan in South Africa. The
homeotic meme would have preserved the clicking L,
bringing it back several times. Words develop, split up,
drift apart and away, whereupon they are brought back
by the homeotic meme, and if it must use folk etymology
and borrowings. Walde mentions dingua as the origin of
Latin lingua, a case of folk etymology, dingua linked with
ligere, however, he says that lingua can't be deduced from
one single Indo-European word, he mentions many more
words that played or may have played a role, D and T
and L words. I see the homeotic meme act here, taking
an opportunity of restoring the old clicking L, turning
dingua into lingua. Another opportunity occurred when
the English borrowed French langue for language. They
could have used their tongue, and say tonguage, but no,
language got more smack, preserves the old clickling L.

Next time: more about the memes at the base of
English language

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: what is etymology? (linguistics and biology)
    ... one can find an original meaning. ... until now I was always able to tell the meme. ... Language is the means ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: what is etymology? (linguistics and biology)
    ... until now I was always able to tell the meme. ... Language is the means ... 15,000 years ago in the Guyenne, is a further reconstruction. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Leodhasach & Hearasch - Gaelic help please
    ... course our own traditional language is even more neglected than Gaelic is. ... who speak English soon get the gist of it. ... is someone who truly appreciates Scottish culture in that you won't find ...
    (soc.culture.scottish)
  • the tomasites , english and the filipino
    ... And they came to teach English as part of the "policy of attraction" ... a Filipino is deemed illiterate even ... Even a secondary Spanish school like Colegio de San Juan de Letrán ... wrote a textbook to teach the English language as early as 1902. ...
    (soc.culture.filipino)
  • Re: the tomasites , english and the filipino
    ... this change was documented in books written in English or other ... European languages not Tagalog or any other of the Filipino dialects. ... second language, unfortunately it seems that we did not use these ... Even a secondary Spanish school like Colegio de San Juan de Letrán ...
    (soc.culture.filipino)
Quantcast