Newsgroups: sci.lang
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From: petrich@netcom.com (Loren Petrich)
Subject: Re: Correction of PBS Nova lies
Message-ID: <petrichD2x0D8.C0n@netcom.com>
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <D2qC14.D5s@news.cis.umn.edu> <D2vLoG.Fut@news.cis.umn.edu>
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 1995 15:00:44 GMT
Lines: 74

In article <D2vLoG.Fut@news.cis.umn.edu>,
William E Meuse <meus0001@maroon.tc.umn.edu> wrote:

	[Words for "water" deleted...]

>The "Master Blaster"'s original response (now deleted already on my 
>newsreader) was correct in one point: Akkadian (Also Assyrian) MU, 
>Aramaic MEYEEN (actually a plural) are related 
>and are known as "Semitic" languages. However Mr. Petrich neglected to 
>point out WHY these have the name "Semitic". It is becau, by almost 
>Universal tradition (unchanged until about the turn of the last Century) 
>these peoples have descended from one Siem or Shem, a child of Noh or 
>Noah. ...

	It is about as "universal" as the tradition that the founders of 
Rome had been raised by a wolf. :-) Such stories about legendary 
ancestors are nothing more than mythology, since the descendant 
populations are too genetically diverse [the question of population 
bottlenecks _has_ been seriously considered, and genetic studies offer a 
way to consider that question]

... That noone can come up with any 
>*recorded* words as old as the ones I have given is also not to be 
>doubted.

	That is because there are no intelligible examples of written
language older than about 3000 BCE (Sumeria). There are proposed examples
of symbolism older than that, but whether they represent writing is an
interesting question. 

... (Let's leave peoples armchair *P-words to one side for the 
>moment, shall we? Especially Soviet ones. I never trust their motives.) 

	That's _extrapolation_. _Every_ human society known has had 
spoken language (any exceptions?), so one can extrapolate that people had 
spoken language before they ever had written language. One can also 
extrapolate specific details, in the same way that one can interpolate 
between Latin and the Romance languages (I think that anyone who wants to 
get into historical and comparative linguistics ought to start off with 
Latin/Romance, since there is a _long_ paper trail for these languages).

... Since it is obvious 
>from the Sphinx that the Ancient Egyptians were not Homo Sapiens (just 
>look at it, man!) it follows that their word for Water MA predates all 
>of these others, that we might justifiably call "Nostratic". 

	That's absolute bullshit. The Ancient Egyptians were 100% human. 
Look at some mummies some time :-). And their word for "water" was 
_contemporary_, not _ancestral_ to the other words.

>Incidentally, there are ancient sources which tell us that these 
>Non-Sapiens were actually descendants of Qayel or Cain, the first 
>murderah. ...

	Do you think that that kind of mythological horseshit can be 
taken seriously?

>Just thought you all might like to know the Truth! Be wary of those 
>theorists whose ultimate motive is to escape being judged on their 
>actions, who would use any means and distort anything to persuade us 
>that mankind was not designed to be the way he is and that the whole 
>Universe is really just a grand accident. ...

	[The rest of that irrelevant rant deleted...]

>Cool Runnins, Selam lenante yihun  Ras William I

	Been smoking too much Ganja? :-)

-- 
Loren Petrich, the Master Blaster
petrich@netcom.com                   Happiness is a fast Macintosh
lip@s1.gov                           And a fast train

