Re: Some European river names


Holly wrote:

Franz, I wanted to add this to my response. I thought it was apropos.
http://www.santafe.edu/~johnson/articles.nostratic.html

"IN their archeological digs through the strata of human language,
linguists have long been fascinated by the seeming similarities between
the English words "fist," "finger" and "five." The motif is repeated by
the Dutch, who say "vuist," "vinger" and "vijf," and the Germans, who
say "faust," "finger" and "funf." Traces of the pattern can even be
found as far away as the Slavic languages like Russian.

I think there are two Magdalenian roots, namely PAS
for all, every, and DIG for finger. The PAS ideogram
is the number five as given on the dice, meaning
everywhere: here, in the south and north, east and west.
Then also for all the fingers of the hand, PAS fist. PAS
became ancient Greek pas, neutrum pan, for all, each,
everything, also penta for five. Magdalenian words have
interesting inverse forms, in the case of PAS we get
SAP, root of seven in many languages. Take the four
directions S N E W and add the three levels of height:
where you stand, i.e. on the ground, the depths of the
earth beneath your feet, and the height of the heavenly
vault above you, and you obtain seven places, hence
SAP seven Sieben septem sept sette ... also Latin
sapere for to know, Greek sophiae for knowledge
of the world, wisdom, philosophy, also Latin sapina
for the fir tree - rootet in the ground, marking a place
on earth, straightly growing into the sky, indicating
the cardinal directions with branches ... DIG is my
Magdalenian word for finger, to touch, also the word
for one, still present in digital. (Inverse GID may be
the word for to get and give.)

Conceivably, sometime in the distant past, before these languages split
from the mother tongue, there was a close connection among the words
for a hand and its fingers and the number five. But did the
mathematical abstraction come from the word for fist, or, as some
linguists have proposed, was it the other way around? The answer could
provide a window into the development of the ancient mind.

There is a some 230,000 years old mollusc shell
from Hungary showing an incised cross, interpreted
by Marie E.P. Koenig as the sign of the four cardinal
directions, a symbol of the world, earth and sky at
the same time. When you consider the center and
the four end points of the crossing lines you get
five points, and so I think this figure came first,
and it was considered a fine correspondence that
we got five fingers, four about equal ones, and the
thumb, the same pattern 4 plus 1 as in the case
of the four cardinal directions plus the one center.

In a paper now being prepared for publication in a book next year, Dr.
Alexis Manaster Ramer, a linguist at Wayne State University in Detroit,
argues that the mystery may now be solved: fist came before five. But
more important than his conclusion is the method by which it was
derived."

Sorry for disagreeing here.

You may also be interested in the excavation of the
Blombos Cave in South Africa, led by Christopher
Henshilwood (you will easily google his website).
Henshilwood says that modern behavior already
occurred in the Middle Stone Age, 75,000 years ago,
and those people must have had a fully developed
language. I guess a language based on many clicks,
as they are still found in the language of the bush
people, nearly extinct now, but to my relief Nelson
Mandela is engaged in helping them, and he also
supports the excavation of the Blombos Cave.

As for the onomatopoetic origin of words (a question
of yours in the first message): I will say more on it in
my tomorrow's message "Magdalenian traces in Minoan"
(in my long etymological thread).

Wishing you a nice Sunday

Franz Gnaedinger

.

Relevant Pages

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