…and this is a 
And here's one for the linguists!
Category: Creationism
Posted on: January 1, 2008 1:40 PM, by PZ Myers
If you've ever been curious about the intelligent design of language, here's a new one for you: Edenics.
Here you will discover that ALL human words contain forms of the Edenic roots within them. These proto-Semitic or early Biblical Hebrew words were programmed into our common ancestors, Adam and Eve, before the language dispersion, or babble at the Tower of Babel -- which kickstarted multi-national human history.
Oh, joy. They're after all of our sciences.
Comments
These guys seem to forget that at least 7 languages predate this supposed Tower of Babel, and that any linguistic rule conceived is violated by at least one language.
Posted by: JDP | January 1, 2008 1:54 PM
Don't be silly. The only science creationists dispute is evolution. Well, and astronomy. And geology. And archeology. And history. And paleontology. And meteorology. Even chemistry and physics, since they try to argue the basis of radiometric dating.
And now linguistics. But that's it. Other than that, creationists are A-OK with science.
Posted by: Stephen | January 1, 2008 1:54 PM
Tupac often vacillated between edenics and modernized versions of the Hebrew language.
Posted by: danley | January 1, 2008 2:05 PM
ALL words? Even "Fuckarooney"?!?
Posted by: Amenhotep | January 1, 2008 2:16 PM
Here's the perfect moment to mention Q_pheevr's delightful overview of the pseudoscientific Wrathful Dispersion Theory -- is it just Babelism in disguise?
Is anyone else missing their Technorati tags?
Posted by: Monado, FCD | January 1, 2008 2:22 PM
Let me get this straight. Are they saying that in 6 000 years, languages as different as Mandarin, Basque, Swahili, & Greek evolved from a common ancestor? Jumpin' Jeezus, there's that goddam evolution word! How'd that get allowed?
Posted by: Richard Harris | January 1, 2008 2:23 PM
All your sciences are belong to us.
--Your friendly neighborhood creationist
Posted by: Ric | January 1, 2008 2:24 PM
Ah, I geddit, all these languages were intelligently designed.
Posted by: Richard Harris | January 1, 2008 2:29 PM
Richard Harris... If I understand Wrathful Dispersion theory correctly, languages didn't "evolve," they were created ex nihilo and put into the mouths of the Babel builders as they scattered across the world. It seems in addition to decorating beetles and butterfly wings as a hobby, Jehovah had a knack for code-building.
"...which kickstarted multi-national human history..."
...Even after, say, the separate nation of Egypt had built pyramids prior to Noah's flood, which predated the Tower of Babel.
Posted by: Grumpy | January 1, 2008 2:31 PM
They're still trying that, huh? I thought that went by the wayside in the 1980's.
Posted by: Moses | January 1, 2008 2:40 PM
I just read a bit into this. Seems a bit bible-code-ish.
from http://edenics.homestead.com/JP_Op_Ed.htm:
"Many foreign words become familiar. Most require simple letter shifts or reversals..."
Okay. I'll just fire up my anagram generator and do some skience here!
Posted by: Henwli | January 1, 2008 2:42 PM
Now that we know the real source of the word "paradise" (from the Avestan pairidaezan for walled garden) all those Indo-European linguists won't have to waste so much time trying to find the location of the Urheimat.
Posted by: SJN | January 1, 2008 2:43 PM
Come off it, Grumpy, Wrathful Dispersion Theory is just Babelism. The Disperser is not identified as God, but it's gotta be the same one that does the Intelligent Designing. I mean, the cock-ups in any language's grammar (such as irregular verbs) parallels the cock-ups in human physiology, such as the prostate gland's positioning.
Posted by: Richard Harris | January 1, 2008 2:46 PM
I thought the Wrathful Dispersion thing was a joke like the Spaghetti Monster and all that. I guess not! Wonderful...
Posted by: 386sx | January 1, 2008 3:02 PM
You think you've got it bad!? A spider's esophagus runs through its brain! If its brain were to expand it would starve to death! (Luckily for us...)
I read it in a book of Isaac Asimov's essays, so it must be true.
Posted by: Monado | January 1, 2008 3:04 PM
I followed an interesting link the other day and ended up here. The following snippet:
seems to support the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, at least in the special case of mathematical language.I also (in a quite unrelated part of the same discussion) found a way here, which made me think of the principles behind Newspeak.
The way certain phrases are constructed and used (such as "binge drinking" and "illegal immigrants") takes advantage of the way that, in English, we put the adjective before the noun and we put the given name before the family name. When we hear a family name (such as "Dawkins") alone, we unconsciously associate a given name (such as "Richard") with it; and by the same token, people unconsciously insert adjectives in front of bare nouns. The end effect is that we come to see any drinking as binge-drinking, and any immigrant as an illegal immigrant.
Posted by: AJS | January 1, 2008 3:05 PM
Guess those people don't speak Hebrew.
Posted by: HadasS | January 1, 2008 3:08 PM
From that site:
"I congratulate you for investigating for yourself if language is an engineered miracle or merely the evolved gesturing of chimps."
Here in a single sentence is everything that annoys me about creationists. Aside from the utter misunderstanding of human evolution (chimps -> humans), the notion that being an evolved species (as opposed to a "miraculously engineered" one) somehow diminishes the awesome grandeur of life.
Once you have even a basic understanding of evolution and the mechanism of natural selection, I don't see how one can AVOID seeing all life as sacred. I remember when I was in my teens I read something Carl Sagan wrote, saying something along the lines that every living thing is part of an unbroken chain of life that extends back billions of years, all the way back to the very first replicating life form on the planet. I had never really considered it that way before, but the more I thought about it, the more ENORMOUS it seemed.
In fact, the idea that some sort of god poofed us into existence to live for a short time on earth where things frequently suck major ass (as though it's some sort of waiting room we have to sit in before we die and get on with the Good Stuff That Lasts Forever) makes life seem far more pointless and trivial. For me at least, the knowledge that this life is most likely the only one I get is what makes me struggle to make the next day better than the last. If I thought I was going to end up in Celestial Disneyland at the end of it all, I don't think I'd care about much of anything.
Posted by: Steven Pinker's Awesome Hair | January 1, 2008 3:13 PM
Wow.
You know when folk are believing some weird shit when it's getting harder and harder to distinguish real from parody.
And I'm sorry, but Carl Wieland is being
a dickstupid if he really can't see that the initial step -- animal grunts and gestures giving way to more complex words -- could have happened several times in parallel among disparate, geographically-isolated tribes. If not everybody was ever speaking the same language to begin with (and there's no reason to assume they would have been), then there was no need for any dispersion effect. I honestly don't see how anybody that monumentally stupid could so much as manage to breathe, so I'm tempted to say he must be deliberately beingfull of shitdisingenuous.Posted by: AJS | January 1, 2008 3:37 PM
Sounds like someone read Snow Crash with a little too much credulity...
This is close kin to another absurdity of Biblical literalism that occurred to me recently, the problem of technological development. According to the Bible, early humans went from naked, illiterate hunter-gatherers to agricultural city-dwellers in a single generation (Genesis 4:17).
The biological, geological, astronomical etc. ridiculousness of young earth creationism is well documented, but I've never seen anyone point out how anthropologically preposterous it is to claim that four people managed to come up with technologies from fire and the wheel to agriculture and architecture.
Posted by: Sideways | January 1, 2008 3:39 PM
Okay...so what about written language?
Are the symbols representing "proto-Semitic or early Biblical Hebrew words" also the foundation for say...written Korean?
Sigh.
Posted by: ahunt | January 1, 2008 3:47 PM
Were it not for Edenists, our monkeys would be glummer, having considerably less to snicker about.
Posted by: Kevin Hayden | January 1, 2008 4:00 PM
Okay, I got it now. God is ultimately responsible for Welsh spellings, and that makes God the Devil Himself.
Posted by: WTFWJD | January 1, 2008 4:05 PM
Which written Korean?
For a while, the Korean civilization simply borrowed from written Chinese.
Posted by: Stanton | January 1, 2008 4:06 PM
I mean, the cock-ups in any language's grammar (such as irregular verbs) parallels the cock-ups in human physiology, such as the prostate gland's positioning.
Wrong. Irregular verbs are a result of The Fall, just like T-Rexes switching from their coconut diet to meat eating.
Posted by: Arden Chatfield | January 1, 2008 4:20 PM
Actually Stanton, I just picked a language out of midair, but I am reminded of a DOOMED attempt by my Aunt Reiko to teach me some rudimentary written japanese many years ago.
Where in Edenics are questions regarding written language addressed? Or has not this "science" grappled with such questions?
Posted by: ahunt | January 1, 2008 4:24 PM
Ironically, these nuts are probably right in the sense that there was almost certainly a base language for the first group of modern humans to leave Africa around 70K years ago. Humans were speaking long before that, but I suspect whatever that group spoke would resemble Hebrew no more than it would resemble English or Korean. If in fact Stephen Oppenheimer is right in The Real Eve (see the genetic map) and those folks first crossed via southern Arabia, Palestine would've been a comparatively recently discovered region, therefore its languages would've been a more recent vintage and not a source tongue.
Posted by: gus steeves | January 1, 2008 4:29 PM
"Oh, joy. They're after all of our sciences."
Well, that's the thing, isn't it?
For instance, my brother told me about a friend of his who "explained" the fact that we can see objects farther away than 6000 light years by saying that maybe the speed of light is different in interstellar space.
The just don't understand that it all works together, and if you change one part of it...
Oh shit! that's irreducible complexity, isn't it?
Posted by: BaldApe | January 1, 2008 4:31 PM
So to illustrate this, they have, 'eSHKoL' in 'Edenics.' 'SCHooL' in english, 'éCoLe' in French, and 'eSCueLa' in Spanish. I'm very curious where `elitnaurvik` fits into this pattern.
Assikaa = Adore? Hmm. I guess the HDR thing doesn't work when you lack Rs. And Ds. That's unfair.
Okay, MaSaKH = MaSK = Avangcaq? Oh, yes, I'm seeing the edenic roots now!
Posted by: KC | January 1, 2008 4:34 PM
Give me a word, any word, and I show you that the root of that word is Greek.
Posted by: xebecs | January 1, 2008 4:43 PM
So the same god who very carefully concealed all evidence of his creation behind false carbon dating and careful variation of the speed of light botched the business of confusing mankind's languages badly enough that we can easily find evidence of his meddling?
Why did he so carefully conceal one and not the other?
Oh, I forgot: God's ways are mysterious.
Posted by: Crosius | January 1, 2008 4:49 PM
For instance, my brother told me about a friend of his who "explained" the fact that we can see objects farther away than 6000 light years by saying that maybe the speed of light is different in interstellar space.
Sounds like someone has been reading Rene's Last Skeptic of Science, a pamphlet made entirely of brain poison. Ugh.
Posted by: Lunacrous | January 1, 2008 4:51 PM
#8:
I would like to officially exclude English from the list of "intelligently" designed languages...
Posted by: kcanadensis | January 1, 2008 5:05 PM
SERIOUS QUESTION
I'm confused as to what exactly the Intelligent Design asserts as a hypothesis. Correct me if I'm wrong - IDiots are Old Earth Creationists who partially accept Progressive Creationism in conjunction with a modified Baraminology (created kinds). Thus, according to the IDiot hypothesis the designer created adam&eve proto-bird-kind which subsequently 'evolved' into all the various modern bird species. Likewise adam&eve proto-dog-kind and adam&eve proto-fish-kind, However, human man&women were created recently as a modern non-evolved species. Is this correct? Do the IDiots assert that the designer created a adam&eve proto-dinosaur-kind that is now extinct? Do they assign rough dates to the miraculous appearance of each 'created kind' that corresponds with some part of the fossil evidence? For example, do they assert that adam&eve proto-dinosaur-kind was created by the designer roughly 230 million years ago, adam&eve proto-bird-kind roughly 70 million years ago, and adam&eve proto-dog-kind roughly 40 million years ago? I would assume then that any 'link' fossils, say between dinosaurs and birds are explained away as odd deformities caused by disease? Is this a correct assessment or have I gotten Intelligent Design completely wrong?
Posted by: noodlesoup | January 1, 2008 5:11 PM
http://www.tbm.org/tongues.htm
"Many people inaccurately define speaking in tongues as "speaking gibberish" or "talking nonsense." The truth is, speaking in tongues is the most intelligent, perfect language in the universe. It is God's language."
Edenics can't possibly top that so who gives a rodent's anal orifice about it.
Posted by: Fernando Magyar | January 1, 2008 5:14 PM
"I congratulate you for investigating for yourself if language is an engineered miracle or merely the evolved gesturing of chimps."
Steven Pinker's Awesome Hair #18 wrote:
You forgot to mention the annoying thing in the beginning of the sentence: the congratulations given to those ordinary folk with no background or expertise in a subject for "investigating for themselves." Just poking around on your own is the very best way to be sufficiently prepared to debunk an entire discipline (or series of disciplines) and outsmart all the "experts."
Don't let other people tell you what to think just because they've spent lifetimes working in the area and have put it all through a rigorous vetting process! Arrive at your conclusion independently, by weighing all the sides equally, and then make up your own mind. That's what God gave it to you for! And why He made it all so easy!
Posted by: Sastra, OM | January 1, 2008 5:22 PM
Mark Liberman writes:
Of course it is. All fundies know that the original language of Eden was English. After all, the English KJV is the inspired, authoritative version. Perhaps, Hebrew only seems similar to English because it stems from it. In fact, perhaps, the circular rediscovery of English explains the "blessed" nature of the US and presages the End Times. There you go. Who needs valid research when you can just make gut-feel conjectures.Posted by: Ex-drone | January 1, 2008 5:22 PM
I always thought they were a big bunch of cunning linguists.
Posted by: Bride of Shrek | January 1, 2008 5:31 PM
noodlesoup #35 asked:
I think you've gotten it wrong by putting in too much detail. As far as I can tell, ID has no model. They don't ever give any broad overview. They leave that up in the air.
Mostly, ID ists just pick out details here and there which they say could not have evolved, either because of irreducible complexity or it's just too, too improbable. The rest of it can be standard science. This way, you can accept almost all of evolution and reserve nothing but the flagella of a bacteria as a special miracle of God. Or you can think it was all specially created -- except when it was allowed to run on its own.
The Young Earth Creationists at least have a model. ID -- which is presumably less "radical" -- does not. Which, ironically, makes it even less scientific on that level.
Posted by: Sastra, OM | January 1, 2008 5:32 PM
"They're still trying that, huh? I thought that went by the wayside in the 1980's."
I thought it was in the gutter in Voltaire's day.
Posted by: Numad | January 1, 2008 5:35 PM
Hmmm. A lot of English words come from the Latin, or from languages that descended from Latin, so I propose that the original language of people was Latin. We're all Romans!
Seriously, there are a lot of English words that come from Arabic, which is a Semitic language, so maybe they have something there ;)
Posted by: Ali Gator | January 1, 2008 5:36 PM
A book, The Key, by John Phillip Cohane, has an interesting twist on the origin and dispersion of language. His explanation of the word, "havoc" has stayed in my mind for more than thirty years.
Is this book familiar to anyone else?
Posted by: Rita Bennett | January 1, 2008 5:42 PM
Bride of Shrek: (#39)
That's a fellatious conclusion.
Posted by: Mike Haubrich, FCD | January 1, 2008 5:43 PM
#30 - I loved that movie...
here, have some Windex.
Posted by: CanadianChick | January 1, 2008 5:51 PM
I just recently ran across something similar and probably related. It was a site showing how Chinese characters 'prove' that the bible is true.
Can't seem to make working links anymore but if you look up
'bible chinese characters proof' on google you will find a boatload of sites.
Posted by: coathangrrr | January 1, 2008 5:53 PM
Fortunately, a couple years ago a wonderful book was published that described in loving (and easily understood) detail the evolutionary forces on human language. Linguistic evolution isn't as widely understood as biologic evolution, so I was very happy to recently discover this book.
http://theunfoldingoflanguage.com/
Posted by: Wolf Logan | January 1, 2008 5:55 PM
R'lyehian was created by God?! Sheesh, who woulda thought? Sigh...now I gotta rewrite the lecture I'm giving at Miskatonic U next week...
Posted by: Yog-Sothoth | January 1, 2008 5:59 PM
I love they way they specify "human" words. As opposed to what, Klingon?
Posted by: Bride of Shrek | January 1, 2008 6:07 PM
To go off on a little tangent. I am sure many of you discovered the Burroughs books at a tender age. Some folks did not, and that is why their brains failed to develop properly. Tarzan's first language was the language of the apes (no known species). This is the basic language and is understood by all animals. Because of his knowledge of ape language, Tarzan is able to very quickly learn any language he encounters. I've never counted them up, but Tarzan surely knows more languages than did the late Pope John.
Posted by: JIm Thomerson | January 1, 2008 6:11 PM
As opposed to what, Klingon?
Probably some sort of divine language like the language of the angel.
Posted by: coathangrrr | January 1, 2008 6:20 PM
I assumed they were talking about Elvish
Posted by: tintenfisch | January 1, 2008 6:29 PM
In fact, yes. Hangeul comes from an ingenious reinterpretation of Phagspa, which comes from Tibetan, which comes from Brahmi, which comes from Aramaic. The alphabet was invented one single time -- probably as the use of a few selected one-consonant hieroglyphs by Egyptian bureaucrats to write Semitic names.
Writing in general, of course, is a different matter. The Chinese characters, for example, were invented on the spot. (Hiragana and katakana, though, are vastly simplified selections of Chinese characters.)
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | January 1, 2008 6:41 PM
And just to elevate the mildly amusing to the level of the incredibly hilarious, Tarzan has taught himself English by teaching himself to read! TSIB.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | January 1, 2008 6:43 PM
Noodlesoup (#35):
I think Baraminology only considers divergence that has happened since Noah's flood. It tries to infer what kinds of organisms were on the ark by grouping similar species into 'baramins'. For example, they ask how many different snake baramins must the ark have carried to account for all the kinds of snakes alive today. I guess Noah and family must have diverged into all the different kinds of people, but not into different species.
Species that were created or diverged before the flood but that didn't make it onto the ark are not represented in modern organisms. So I guess dinosaurs were one or more baramins that god didn't want to save from the flood.
Posted by: Rosie Redfield | January 1, 2008 7:01 PM
I think Baraminology only considers divergence that has happened since Noah's flood. It tries to infer what kinds of organisms were on 电炉
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接近开关the ark by grouping similar species into 'baramins'. For example, they ask how many different snake baramins must the ark have carried to account for all the kinds of snakes alive today. I guess Noah and family must have diverged into all the different kinds of people, but not into different species
Posted by: asd | January 1, 2008 7:18 PM
And yet why do I suspect many of these same people are the ones who get angry because they now have the option to press 2 for Spanish?
Posted by: craig | January 1, 2008 7:20 PM
#53
David, are you sure about that? I have been given to understand that hangul was based on the shape of the mouth when making various sounds. Written Tibetan is based on the Sanskrit devanagri which while phonetic does not attempt to graph actual sounds.
Just FYI, while I am not a linguist I am a functional speaker of Korean and a first year student of Sanskrit. Who may nonetheless be mistaken.
Posted by: Tim | January 1, 2008 7:34 PM
Another L. Bob Rife Bible College graduate goes into the world...
Posted by: Pope Guilty | January 1, 2008 7:36 PM
"First they came for the evolutionary biologists, but I just argued for framing since I wasn't an evolutionary biologist. Then they came for the astrophysicists...then the geologists...then the linguists..."
Posted by: Tulse | January 1, 2008 8:12 PM
#53
You're right. All of my respectable references on Korean writing (among them "The World's Writing Systems" and Sampson's "Writing Systems") agree that Hangeul was based on a phonological analysis of the Korean at the time. The theories that it was derived from another script are only mentioned to point out that they're not widely accepted.
The nail in the coffin of the other theories was the discovery of the Hunmin Jeongeum Haerye in the 1940s.
Posted by: Kutsuwamushi | January 1, 2008 8:18 PM
As far as I can see, the source of your confusion is the assumed premise of this question.
Posted by: Azkyroth | January 1, 2008 8:29 PM
Following several links from the Edenics page, one finds this little gem:
© Bibi Baxter, England 2007
THE MYSTERY OF IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
A Theory by Bibi Baxter
Immaculate conception was almost certainly achieved with the use of combined technologies. Every part of the body has a different range of frequencies. It is possible to activate parts of the body, using this method, e.g. the bladder can be made to work, the stomach can be made to produce more or less acid, etc. In Mary's case, parthenogenesis occurred. The ovaries were made to produce an egg, which was fertilized with another of her eggs. When an egg is fertilized in this way, the child is infertile.
(more to be added at a later date)
Posted by: Chemist | January 1, 2008 8:47 PM
Jesus was a woman? Because there is a decided lack of Y chromosome there.
Posted by: Moses | January 1, 2008 8:57 PM
I don't believe this is true. Parthenogenesis has been seen in reptiles, fish, and turkeys. Anyone who can't figure out that two eggs fusing will yield a female probably can't be counted on to know much about parthenogenesis either.
Posted by: raven | January 1, 2008 9:09 PM
(pointless nitpicking follows:)
The "Immaculate Conception" refers to the story of how Mary was conceived, following the doctrine that she was "without Original Sin." Jesus' story is referred to as the "Virginal Conception" or the "Virgin Birth".
I would suspect that an understanding of parthenogenesis might be a little bit much to expect from someone who can't even keep their own mythology straight.
Posted by: Wolf Logan | January 1, 2008 9:19 PM
IIRC, he thought the letters of the alphabet in his school book were little bugs, and he still managed to get it right. (And he had never even heard of a "spelling bee"!)
After he taught himself to read, when he encountered his first Englishman he could understand English if the message was written on paper but not if spoken!
Here you will discover that ALL human words can be written down, proving that hieroglyphics came first, before spoken language. Isn't the Word of God, the Holy Bible, communication in writing? You see, It was only after eating from the tree of knowledge that Adam and eve were able to communicate with spoken words. (I could go on all night, making up stuff is fun)
Posted by: RamblinDude | January 1, 2008 9:26 PM
That's Esperanto, isn't it?
Posted by: usagi | January 1, 2008 9:32 PM
Tarzan's first spoken human language was French, even though he could read and write English. He learned from a Frenchman who did not feel competent to teach him to speak English.
Posted by: Jim Thomerson | January 1, 2008 10:35 PM
..or perhaps he felt it was beneath him to teach English.
http://www.mwscomp.com/movies/grail/grail-08.htm
I fart in you general direction.
Posted by: Bride of Shrek | January 1, 2008 10:44 PM
And here I was thinking that the proto-Semitic languages drew on other even earlier languages... At least that's what the letter chart (organised by script and time) in my Hebrew textbook shows. Speaking as someone with some amount of linguistic chops, the phrase "not even wrong" springs to mind.
'eSHKoL', huh? Yeah, that sure looks like "beit-sefer" to me. Could it be "ouniversitah" instead? How 'bout (to completely switch languages) "gakko" or "daigaku"? Mhh, similarities abound!
On the other hand, I'd believe that maybe something akin to S*K*L was a hypothetical Indo-European root word. Which makes me wonder if the person who wrote this isn't one of those white supremacist sort of people who think that the Bible was about white, European type people, if you know what I mean.
Posted by: Interrobang | January 1, 2008 11:28 PM
Ok, seriously? You're supporting your crazy theory that all the languages in the world have the same root by comparing Spanish, French and English? Half of English is French, and from the perspective of someone who speaks, say, Mandarin, Spanish and French are practically identical.
This is ten gallons of stupid in a five gallon asshat.
Posted by: Sophist, FCD | January 1, 2008 11:38 PM
この「イデニックス」という概念は絶対にナンセンスです。
There. Let's see an Edenicsist(?) translate that.
Posted by: Kimpatsu | January 1, 2008 11:49 PM
Вся ваша наука принадлежат нам!
Posted by: Ксения | January 2, 2008 12:13 AM
I'd be suprised if creationists concocted a neurological argument.
Posted by: PirateHooker | January 2, 2008 12:44 AM
Palangi valaiha so so.
Posted by: Rick T. | January 2, 2008 1:06 AM
That about covers the value of trying to use English to judge the relatedness of languages.
Posted by: Venger | January 2, 2008 1:09 AM
You're right. All of my respectable references on Korean writing (among them "The World's Writing Systems" and Sampson's "Writing Systems") 电炉
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接近开关
除尘器
袋式除尘器gree that Hangeul was based on a phonological analysis of the Korean at the time. The theories that it was derived from another script are only mentioned to point out that they're not widely accepted
Posted by: dd | January 2, 2008 1:42 AM
These guys are just making stuff up. Any true scholar of Adamic knows that the only surviving words are "Pay Lay Ale", which means "Oh God, hear the words of my mouth" or "Being 'Prophet' has awesome perks" depending on whom you ask.
Posted by: roystgnr | January 2, 2008 1:50 AM
As we all know, the first word ever uttered was, "Yoink".
Posted by: M | January 2, 2008 1:57 AM
Or how about this message?
Posted by: Azkyroth | January 2, 2008 2:46 AM
This is weird. I don't know Russian, and yet I just know what this means... it must be the vestiges of Edenic programming! Praise the Lord!
Posted by: Peter Barber | January 2, 2008 4:46 AM
"ALL human words contain forms of the Edenic roots within them..."
My basque friend is still laughing from that...
Posted by: The green frog | January 2, 2008 4:53 AM
I suppose languages have only undergone micro evolution since babel. And of course those mutations didn't add any new information.
Posted by: grinch | January 2, 2008 4:58 AM
maybe the edenics people can explain why "me" in hebrew is "who" in english, and "who" in hebrew is "he" in english, and "he" in hebrew is "she" in english.
Posted by: arachnophilia | January 2, 2008 6:06 AM
My BA in Linguistics is probably sufficient to tear apart this "theory", but it would be far more entertaining to hear Noam Chomsky do it.
Posted by: ndt | January 2, 2008 6:49 AM
Forgive me, but Edenics is, without a shred of doubt, the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard of.
Then again, I suppose it was only a matter of time before these god-soaked retards started lying about language. I mean, they literally lie about everything else, so why not?
I suppose this is just further proof that religion is the short bus to loony-town. What's next for these assholes? God invented the pencil? Food stamps? Plasma TV's?
Seriously, man. Reading this Edenics nonsense just makes me want to throttle the life out of these supposed "scholars." I can't imagine anyone with the slightest shred of integrity endorsing this half-cocked collection of lunacy.
Posted by: Dan | January 2, 2008 7:46 AM
It is based on the interpretation of four Phagspa letters as indicating the shape of the mouth, and building on that.
Source
But read that one again. Written in Classical Chinese, it says Hangeul is derived from "the ancient seal script" (古篆字). Obviously, it has no resemblance to the Chinese seal script, so what is that claim doing in the Hunmin Jeongeum? Maybe it's a pun (and apparently this particular pun is even attested independently). To write foreign words, the Chinese use characters that sound similar, no matter what they mean. To write "Mongol", they combine 蒙 ("cover"; modern Standard Mandarin měng, where the e stands for the Korean eo sound in the standard and is pronounced o in southern dialects; in the standard, the syllable "mong" does not exist) and 古 ("ancient"; modern Standard Mandarin gǔ -- in no known version of Chinese can syllables end in "l"). Lo and behold, Phagspa had a seal-script version, which is called 蒙古篆字 ("Mongolian seal script") in Chinese.
Well, Greek σχολή (I hope I got that right), which means "spare time", had to come from somewhere... incidentally, that would mean a root more like S*GH*L (with the Hindi-style aspirated g).
"All your science belongs to us" in correct grammar.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | January 2, 2008 7:53 AM
Five. :-]
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | January 2, 2008 7:57 AM
If I remember this correctly, some Swedish guy in the 17th century (forgot his name) wrote a book on "The Languages of Paradise" in which he claimed that God spoke Swedish (of course), Adam spoke Danish and the serpent spoke French.
Posted by: Lars Dietz | January 2, 2008 8:11 AM
Rules of Language
With the exception of those rules that are just plain useless, every linguistic rule is violated by every language in one way or another. I recall once reading at a site on Basque a page where examples of one rule of Basque were listed. Those examples of correct usage were vastly outnumbered by incorrect usage.
On Jesus and Parthenogenesis
Jesus was an XX male. It happens, there are XX males and XY females who are born that way. Fetal development doesn't always proceed the way it's supposed to.
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | January 2, 2008 8:36 AM
Half of English is French
Just a quibble. Roughly 80% of spoken English is Anglo-Saxon. The 50% is on dictionary word counts, and includes a lot of feudal/legal terms and words that are more recent "Latin" constructions than Norman French.
Posted by: Graculus | January 2, 2008 8:37 AM
Bloody Romans, Germans and Normans, coming over here, creating our language.... (mutter grumble)
Posted by: Stephen Wells | January 2, 2008 8:50 AM
As we all know, the first word ever uttered was, "Yoink".
Was that as fire was stolen from the Gods, by any chance?