"The root meaning of some modern words could well go back to interesting facets of the daily life of our remote ancestors.
If in very ancient times man was a kind of world traveler there
ought to be some linguistic relics lying around to support such a view of the past.
If we live on a young earth, there ought to be some evidences in languages of intractions among peoples before the great separation occurred at Babel.
If earliest man was as sophisticated as modern man, there is no reason to accept the notion that the alphabet was a relatively recent discovery made many thousands of years after cruder forms of speech had been developed, e.g., a syllabic system.
If the old appearance of the earth is due to the consequence of a number of catastrophic events, some such memories ought to be concealed in some words which have come down to us. In much of the above, place names ought to be of particular value in shedding light on many aspects of the ancient past.
It is essential that anyone who works with various Indo-European languages must be acquainted with Grimm's Law, which shows the orderly changes which many words have undergone from time to time and from language to language.
Knowledge of Grimm's Law helps one to see and understand why father, pater, and Vater are three forms of the same word, as are brother, frater, and Bruder.
Yet very dissimilar appearing words may be derived one from the other. When one studies examples, the concept of consonant structure becomes clearer:
The word Philistine is precisely the same as the word Palestine, Copt is another way of spelling Egypt, Massilia is Marseille, Neapolis is Naples, Megiddo is Armageddon, Iskanda is Alexander. Ecuador is the word equator. We can understand that Venezuela means "Little Venice", when we know that the discoverer found a village erected on piles on the shore of the Gulf of Maracaibo in 1499 which reminded him of Venice (Wadler, 1948, p. 109-111).
For generations we have been lulled with the story that writing began with pictographs in Mesopotamia and Egypt. Much later the Phoenicians somehow came up with an alphabet which was very widely spread and copied. Yet contrary to popular and scholarly views and assumptions, there is good evidence that most of the alphabetic signs are older than hieroglyphs.
The alphabet was not derived from hieroglyphs or pictograms (Moran, 1969, p. 4-11).
It is certainly relevant to this discussion to note that no society is known at any point in history which did not have a fully developed language (Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th ed., Macrop., 19:1033). Neither in language nor in the alphabet are there any reasons to believe in any sequence of simple to complex as required by an evolutionary model. Certainly there has been much change, but not in a simple to complex sequence, and this is a very significant observation.
Gordon concluded that at least some early alphabets served three functions simultaneously:
1- arithmetic,
2- calendric, and
3- phonetic.
Thus, depending on the context, the letter "a" stood for the number value of "1," the first day of a month, or the phonetic sound we associate with it. Only the last function is fully utilized in our culture today, although we do make minor use of the alphabet in placing things in order from A to Z.
This three-way use of each letter in ancient times provided an infinite store of possibilities for memory devices to remember and transmit the culture orally.
According to Moran (1969, p. 13, 28), religion is the only imaginable organizing principle behind the alphabet.
Although some kinds of worship may well have sprung up independently, e.g.,
--sun worship,
--the slaughter of a bull at the time of the spring equinox on both the altars of Ur and in the Valley of the Man in China
shows common roots in a common culture.
*The 12 signs of the zodiac (the twelve constellations), the 12 months known throughout the ancient world of Europe, Asia, and North Africa point to a common source.
*The 52-year cycle was used both in the Orient and in pre-Columbian American cultures with 13 days of houses in a quarter.
Lunar and solar calendars were brought into correspondence by the cycle of 52.
*The 52-card deck with 13 cards to a suit faithfully reproduces ancient calendrical knowledge. Even the Joker serves a calendrical function for leap years. The twelve signs of the solar zodiac may be in some way derived from the lunar zodiac of 27-28 signs. The relationship of the two is very unclear, but many of the same stars are involved in both sets of signs.
From this well of astronomical knowledge, the alphabet was drawn.
Gustavus Seyffarth, a 19th century scholar and rival of Champollion on the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics, served for a time in the 1850's on the faculty of Concordia Theological Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri.
He understood two things clearly in our context which he expressed in his many writings.
--He was one of the first to grasp the idea that much actual history was concealed in myth and legend.
--Further he realized the overwhelming importance of the heavens in the life and culture of ancient man.
Although Seyffarth is wrong in some of his conclusions, and though some of his work is necessarily conjectural, his voluminous works deserve careful study and reworking. He saw the connection between the alphabet and the skies about 150 years before this principle was rediscovered by Moran and Kelley.
Seyffarth states:
If in very ancient times man was a kind of world traveler there
If we live on a young earth, there ought to be some evidences in languages of intractions among peoples before the great separation occurred at Babel.
If earliest man was as sophisticated as modern man, there is no reason to accept the notion that the alphabet was a relatively recent discovery made many thousands of years after cruder forms of speech had been developed, e.g., a syllabic system.
If the old appearance of the earth is due to the consequence of a number of catastrophic events, some such memories ought to be concealed in some words which have come down to us. In much of the above, place names ought to be of particular value in shedding light on many aspects of the ancient past.
... language has unusual potential
in relating back to our remote past.
Scholars have noted that we can follow the path of Alexander the Great as he conquered the known world of his day by observing the place names that still exist all the way from Macedonia to India. These place names capture moments of history 2300 years ago. We are beginning to realize that place names go back farther still. It is essential that anyone who works with various Indo-European languages must be acquainted with Grimm's Law, which shows the orderly changes which many words have undergone from time to time and from language to language.
Knowledge of Grimm's Law helps one to see and understand why father, pater, and Vater are three forms of the same word, as are brother, frater, and Bruder.
Yet very dissimilar appearing words may be derived one from the other. When one studies examples, the concept of consonant structure becomes clearer:
The word Philistine is precisely the same as the word Palestine, Copt is another way of spelling Egypt, Massilia is Marseille, Neapolis is Naples, Megiddo is Armageddon, Iskanda is Alexander. Ecuador is the word equator. We can understand that Venezuela means "Little Venice", when we know that the discoverer found a village erected on piles on the shore of the Gulf of Maracaibo in 1499 which reminded him of Venice (Wadler, 1948, p. 109-111).
For generations we have been lulled with the story that writing began with pictographs in Mesopotamia and Egypt. Much later the Phoenicians somehow came up with an alphabet which was very widely spread and copied. Yet contrary to popular and scholarly views and assumptions, there is good evidence that most of the alphabetic signs are older than hieroglyphs.
The alphabet was not derived from hieroglyphs or pictograms (Moran, 1969, p. 4-11).
It is certainly relevant to this discussion to note that no society is known at any point in history which did not have a fully developed language (Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th ed., Macrop., 19:1033). Neither in language nor in the alphabet are there any reasons to believe in any sequence of simple to complex as required by an evolutionary model. Certainly there has been much change, but not in a simple to complex sequence, and this is a very significant observation.
Gordon concluded that at least some early alphabets served three functions simultaneously:
1- arithmetic,
2- calendric, and
3- phonetic.
Thus, depending on the context, the letter "a" stood for the number value of "1," the first day of a month, or the phonetic sound we associate with it. Only the last function is fully utilized in our culture today, although we do make minor use of the alphabet in placing things in order from A to Z.
This three-way use of each letter in ancient times provided an infinite store of possibilities for memory devices to remember and transmit the culture orally.
According to Moran (1969, p. 13, 28), religion is the only imaginable organizing principle behind the alphabet.
Although some kinds of worship may well have sprung up independently, e.g.,
--sun worship,
--the slaughter of a bull at the time of the spring equinox on both the altars of Ur and in the Valley of the Man in China
shows common roots in a common culture.
*The 12 signs of the zodiac (the twelve constellations), the 12 months known throughout the ancient world of Europe, Asia, and North Africa point to a common source.
*The 52-year cycle was used both in the Orient and in pre-Columbian American cultures with 13 days of houses in a quarter.
*The 52-card deck with 13 cards to a suit faithfully reproduces ancient calendrical knowledge. Even the Joker serves a calendrical function for leap years. The twelve signs of the solar zodiac may be in some way derived from the lunar zodiac of 27-28 signs. The relationship of the two is very unclear, but many of the same stars are involved in both sets of signs.
From this well of astronomical knowledge, the alphabet was drawn.
Gustavus Seyffarth, a 19th century scholar and rival of Champollion on the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics, served for a time in the 1850's on the faculty of Concordia Theological Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri.
He understood two things clearly in our context which he expressed in his many writings.
--He was one of the first to grasp the idea that much actual history was concealed in myth and legend.
--Further he realized the overwhelming importance of the heavens in the life and culture of ancient man.
Although Seyffarth is wrong in some of his conclusions, and though some of his work is necessarily conjectural, his voluminous works deserve careful study and reworking. He saw the connection between the alphabet and the skies about 150 years before this principle was rediscovered by Moran and Kelley.
Seyffarth states:
"It is said and believed that our alphabet was invented by Cadmus in 1500 B.C., but this cannot be considered a historical fact. In the New Testament we read of a book that was written by Enoch 900 years prior to the Deluge. Pliny said that man always had literature. The Vedas and Avesta tell us that prior to the Deluge sacred books existed and that, in consequence of their loss,
the human race became so wicked that the Creator resolved to destroy it."
An idea explored by both Seyffarth and Wadler much later focuses on the peculiar placement of the vowels in the alphabet. There is no logical sense in their location in our present alphabet, nor in any other alphabet where they are included: Abcd Efgh Ijklmn Opqrst Uv(W)x(Y)z. Wadler noted that the ancients associated the vowels as follows with the "7" planets: ao-Sun. i-Moon, a-Mars, e-Mercury, o-Jupiter, aw-Venus, oo-Saturn (Wadler, 1948. p. 103). Thus the intriguing notion has arisen that vowels and unneeded letters in some ancient alphabets may represent the position of the planets among the houses of the lunar zodiac, that is, the consonants, at a critical point in human history. Perhaps one reason Seyffarth's discussions have not been studied seriously is the common belief that any use of the concept of the zodiac involves astrology. In the ancient world there was no necessary connection. The above discussion is in no way connected with what we understand today as astrology.
Job 38:31 "Can you bind the sweet influences of Pleiades...?" The Pleiades is a cluster of stars in the constellation Taurus. The ancients counted seven visible stars, and they called them the Seven Sisters. Today we count six. These modest little specks in the sky are hardly noticed today. In ancient times they were of great importance, which is a story in itself. The word comes from the Greek meaning, "I navigate." The Greeks began the navigation season in May when the Pleiades rose, and finished when they set (Kolosimo, 1971, p. 54)."
Erich A. von Fange/SpadingUpAncientWords