Re: what is etymology? (linguistics and biology)

way behind, part 3

Google company: rating got no place in the sciences.
All that counts are better arguments.

Killrating mob of sci.lang: you are not born for the sciences,
you got no arguments, no ideas, not even a voice. How
strange, members of a linguistic forum and lack a voice.

Young readers with an open mind and a wish to achieve
something in the science of language called linguistics:
I write for you, whether you find my messages now, or later
on in Google's archive. Learn as much as you can, but learn
the right things. If you just follow courses at university you
cram your mind with concepts that will be outdated within ten
or twenty years. Learn outside academe as well, from real
life. Learn about language, not just about linguistics. Follow
your own inclinations, get a structured knowledge via ideas,
notions and projects of your own, challenge yourself by
always going a little too far, thus you acquire the precious
ability called apperception. Think on your own, which is never
easy. You will encounter all kinds of problems. You may go
astray and work in vain for all your life. And if you succeed
in the scientific sense, you have almost certainly to cope
with envy, derision, and slander. But the joy and immense
pleasure of making a scientific discovery weighs more
and carries you on through all kinds of hardship. First they
will ignore you, then they will killrate you, then they will steal
your ideas, and then they will regard them as obvious and
self-evident. No, they are fruits of your work, but your work
will almost always be denigrated. Frustrations are inevitable.
Turn them into personal freedom. If you get another no no no,
nay nay nay, njet njet njet - No nay njet number 27, No nay
njet number 216, No nay njet number 423 ... - tell yourself:
why should I go on following their guidelines? they don't care
anyway, so I can as well throw another of their prejudices
overboard ... Don't believe them when they claim to have
reached the top of the mesa. The mountain grows while
we are climbing. There is always more to find and discover.
When Leeuwenhoek gazed through a microscope he saw
a new dimension of life: microbes. There is a mathematical
cosmos below the level of ancient Greek geometry. And
there are all forms of language below the level of modern
human language. Keep your mind open. Go for experiments.
What can be said by just humming? try with your girlfriend.
fun guaranteed. What can be said by using just words of
one or two or three letters or phonemes? this game led me
to the four laws of Magdalenian. Invent further restrictions
and look how to get around them. Playing in a learned way
is how discoveries are made. Look around in other fields.
Biology will teach you the basics of language. Remember
my definition from 1974/75: 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 ... Theories
are theories, no facts or the truth. Don't succumb to the
present doctrines, and, for example, the logic of the binary
computer. Neural computing, genuine neural networks, not
just simulated ones on binary computers, are only a question
of time and will release a revolution, also in linguistics, a key
science of the 21st century, just wait some more decades.
Anticipate the future. You will probably be alone, with the
mob against you, but time will be on your side, and the
essence of time is becoming, devenir in French, to come
into being. You will have to stand alone, to work all on your
own, by yourself, and you will need plenty of time. Multiply
your time by engaging yourselve in cases with a future.

Wishing you luck

Franz Gnaedinger www.seshat.ch

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way behind, part 2

Peter T. Daniels, (co-)editor of The World's Writing System,
absolute top poster in sci.lang, informal moderator to this
unmoderated forum, by rights a Usenet professor (oui, ceci
est un compliment), believes that A) animals got no language,
and B) early language could not possibly be discerned from
a modern language. This means that language arose with
humans and was the same from begin, in principle from the
first day onward. So there was no language, say, on March
20, 149 527 BP, and there was language on March 21,
149 527 BP, all of a sudden, in fully developed form.

I favor an evolutionary understanding of language. Here again
my definition from 1974/75. 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 ... Human language evolved
from animal language, triggered by the use of artificial things.
Early words were short, of one, then two, then three letters
or phonemes (Roman letters were basically phonemes of
the Latin tongue; I use 'letter' in the same sense). Many
early words were of an onomatopoetic origin, then they
were turned around and given related meanings according
to my four laws of Magdalenian:

1) inverse forms are directly related
2) permutations yield words around the same meme
3) S-words are comparatives of D-words
4) important words have lateral associations

By and by, the verbal morphospace (a loan from biology)
was filled up, and so permutation groups come into focus
on the time level of Magdalenian and Azilian, roughly from
15 000 till 10 000 BP.

Lynn Margulis explained the eukariotic cell (the cells of
our body) as an early symbiosis of bacteria. In a similar
way a connection of early words yielded our long words:

SA TYR NOS --- mind (nos) of the one who overcomes,
in the double sense of rule and give (tyr) from above (sa),
origin of Saturnus, Saturn, ruler of a golden age ...

AC EON NOS --- mind (nos) of the shore (eon) land (ac),
origin of Okeanos, the spirit of the horizon on sea, origin
of our ocean ...

Peter T. Daniels repeatedly complained that Magdalenian
resembles no other language. Thank God. If it resembled
a modern language I had failed right from begin.
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way behind, part 1

Linguistics will become a key science of the 21st century
(an old prediction of mine), however, for the time being,
it is behind, sci.lang even way behind other sciences.

Google installed a new interface which I find hard to
navigate; an Indian poster floods this forum; and the
killrating campaign against me goes on, the number
of my ratings was 2,822 this morning, mostly killratings.
First of all: rating has no place in the sciences. Second:
the high number of killratings contrasts with the lacking
arguments of my adversaries. This discrepancy is ever
increasing: a strong wish to get rid of my ideas, but no
arguments to cope with me - which means my ideas
are strong. Thanks for this indirect compliment.

The cherished belief in sci.lang says that you must learn
the International Alfabet IPA, the laws of phine-tuned fonetic
shiphts (I swap f's and ph's, for the English and Americans
can't discern between them), plus the laws and terminology
of traditional grammar, and voilà, you are a scientist.

No, it does not work that way. There is more to linguistics
or rather language than that. In my new series of messages
I shall give my advice to young open-minded readers who
feel a wish to achieve something in the science of language.-
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Appendix to the glossary of the new Magdalenian words,
part 16, another very old word

TON --- sound, to make oneself heard

PAS TON --- he who gets everywhere in a river plain (pas)
and makes himself heard (ton); possible origin of Poseidon,
once the river god, also creator of the horse, and shaker
of the earth

Hypothetical TON would have survived in many forms,
consider for example Jupiter Tonans, the thundering god.
German Ton means sound, while Tonne means barrel,
French tonne English tun, perhaps from a Celtic word tunna.
Mark Twain, in Huckleberry Finn, compares the sound of
empty barrels rolling and bouncing down a long cellar stair
with thunder: " (...) and now you'd hear the thunder let go
with an awful crash and then go rumbling, grumbling,
tumbling down the sky towards the under side of the world,
like rolling empty barrels downstairs, where it's long stairs
and they bounce a good deal, you know."

The origin of barrels were hollow or hollowed tree trunks,
which, in all probability, also served as early drums.

Ît seems that empty vessels have been connected with
sound. German Ton also means clay. Vessels of clay or
terracotta (burned clay) can produce a variety of sounds,
from a happy clatter to a sort of bell-like ringing. Sanskrit
sunya means empty, void. As far as I know the Brahmans
believe that the world began as sound - an empty vessel
resounding? In the Wallis, the valley of the Upper Rhone
in southwestern Switzerland, was famous for their water
channels, allegedly 20,000 kilometers in the Middle Ages,
hewn into rock, made of boards. carved from fir trunks,
etc. In French they are called bisse(s), in German Suone.
The latter may be a loan from Italy, suono for sound,
s(u)onare for to sound (the builders of the Suone were
mostly foreign architects and engineers, and there was
a connection to the Aosta valley in nothwestern Italy):
perhaps referring to the sound a hollowed fir trunk made
when it was produced? or when water flowed in it? or
may it be that the Suone were used as kind of drums in
a communication system? toc toc (pause) toc toc (pause)
toc toc ... someone please come help us (for example) ?
-

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