Elves, Trolls, Pre-Flood - Continued

Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Neanderthal's Language · Creation vs. Evolution : Neanderthal - speculations and certainty · HGL'S F.B. WRITINGS : Neanderthal Pre- or Post-Flood? Me and Roger Pearlman ... · Neanderthal Flute · Neanderthals as Elves and Trolls and as Pre-Flood · Elves, Trolls, Pre-Flood - Continued

I notified

of the previous discussions being mirrored on my blog.

IV a

Ryan Z. Dawson

There's a...well there's a lot one might unpack here. Things to be said about the historicity of the Biblical stories of Noah and the Tower of Babel, about Hebrew being the only language at some point, about H. neanderthalensis being descended from Noah, but none of that is really relevant to a discussion about conlangs spoken by fictional elves. This proposition to develop a Hebraic Neanderthal language might be a better fit for the Constructed Languages group, which discusses conlangs in general.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Ryan Z. Dawson : you forget the salient point that one version of how Neanderthals looked would have made them a probable historical original for both elves and trolls.

You ALSO miscontructed my view on when H. S. subsp. Neanderthalensis existed.

Mainstream creationism, as you say, descended from Noah. My own view : descended from Adam (possibly as or via Nephelim) and extinct during the Flood, except for at least one of Noah's daughters in law (probably Mrs Japheth) being half caste Neanderthal.

Anthony Docimo

Hans-Georg Lundahl so...you sure you know what a caste is?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I think "half caste"* is the less offensive word in comparison to "half breed". I'd use "half breed" about dogs of different breeds.

Would "mestiza" do?

Have you other suggestions?

*

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-caste

Anthony Docimo

Hans-Georg Lundahl hybrid, which is the accepted term for when two species produce a child, be it sterile or not

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Since I do not consider Neanderthals another species, hybrid would be very inappropriate.

Did you know that "caste" is Portuguese for race?

Hence, half caste is perfectly appropriate.

The Indian caste system was partly a racialist system (whiter skin = higher caste), which is why the Portuguese word got applied to it. The Sanskrit word actually (off the top of my head) means "colour".

IV b

Thomas Harris

True to a degree, however, the OP paired the theory that the memory of Neanderthal pallida was a potential source of Elven lore.

Ryan Z. Dawson

Peanut butter for the medicine.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Not at all.

If I am right on it, it means elves and trolls are historical.

The following section, IV c, I did change my mind on. I think Neanderthals may well have sounded fairly normal. They were certainly capable of normal purposeful behaviour.

IV c

Hans-Georg Lundahl

According to this, an adult Neanderthal male would have sounded like a troll:

High-pitched voice theory - Neanderthal - BBC science
BBC Studios | 9.I.2009
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o589CAu73UM

Unable to speak properly ... but as Neanderthal children did not have so large thoraces, the Neanderthals could still have spoken and a Neanderthal child doing the enticement before a Neanderthal cannibal feast could be original to elvish voices - leading to ruin, as in Erlenkönig.

My hopes for some Neanderthals being decent pre-Flood fellows is, while in Belgium Neanderthal tooth enamel has been found including DNA of man and of woolly rhino, in Spain Neanderthal tooth enamel has been found including DNA of pine nuts.

Which would be a possible source, if so, for ljósalfar or Tolkien type elves (at a distance of 5000 years, by now, or 4000 in the time of Snorre).

V

J Diego Suárez Hernández

I wanted to believe the "flood" mentioned in this post referred to the flooding of Doggerland rather than or perhaps the Black Sea deluge hypothesis but I'm afraid some of those links seem to indicate that is not the case :/

Also, what do you mean exactly by Hebrew? There's a ten of thousands of years gap between Neanderthal extinction and Proto-Afro-Asiatic, let alone Hebrew in any recognizable form. Or would this be an alternative world where the Neanderthals lingered till far more recent times?

I really hope it's not the case, but if you happened to be the type that disregards the work of centuries of linguists and claimed that Hebrew was the original language of mankind, then I'd gladly invite you to get the f out.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"There's a ten of thousands of years gap between Neanderthal extinction and Proto-Afro-Asiatic, let alone Hebrew in any recognizable form."

If you accept carbon dates according to conventional calibration.

And if you accept Hebrew being "descended from Proto-Afro-Asiatic".

I do neither.

"Or would this be an alternative world where the Neanderthals lingered till far more recent times?"

It's an alternative view (a Young Earth Creationist one) of the history of this world.

"if you happened to be the type that disregards the work of centuries of linguists"

I don't disregard the work of linguists. I reinterpret some of the data.

"and claimed that Hebrew was the original language of mankind,"

Like St Augustine, I do claim that.

"then I'd gladly invite you to get the f out."

Are you an admin? Or are you just disagreeable?

J Diego Suárez Hernández

Just disagreeable. Though you should bear in mind that most people in these groups will consider you a lunatic for ignoring mainstream linguistics and many may try to engage in showing you how silly Augustine's claim is in the face of historical evidence. I won't even try to, I don't think its worth my time.

I hope you have a good day and also that you do get the f out of here eventually.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"a lunatic for ignoring mainstream linguistics"

I am not ignoring it. I am reinterpreting its data with other theories.

"and many may try to engage in showing you how silly Augustine's claim is in the face of historical evidence."

What historical evidence?

Since Babel = Göbekli Tepe, there is no historical, that is written and therefore linguistic, evidence for linguistic variety pre-dating Hebrew.

As to earliest written evidence for Hebrew, I am not adverse to Hebrew in this sense being Syriac and therefore Eblaite. I mean, Syriac was Christ's language and may have been Abraham's too, and the earliest shape can have been sth like Eblaite - or Ugarite.

"I won't even try to, I don't think its worth my time."

Your choice.

"I hope you have a good day and also that you do get the f out of here eventually."

Thank you for the former. As to the latter, I am right now enjoying some discussions.

ALSO, since a Neanderthal Hebrew (or Neanderthal Syriac) with reduced vowels system is beyond my capacities to conlang, I hope someone does do for me and shows Hebrew (or Syriac) could have functioned grammatically, despite Neanderthal phonetic handicaps.

The following section, VI, I did change my mind on. I think Neanderthals may well have sounded fairly normal. They were certainly capable of normal purposeful behaviour.

VI

Hans-Georg Lundahl

SUBTHREAD FOR LANGUAGE ONLY.

Thomas Harris - this one is for you - and for the answers I am asking.

Here is one part of Neanderthal specific speech handicaps:

Homo Sapiens vs Neanderthals | The Evolution of Language
Epic History | 3.I.2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9KnOjsc0g4&t=280s

Here is another part:

High-pitched voice theory - Neanderthal - BBC science
BBC Studios | 9.I.2009
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o589CAu73UM

The final inaudible or inarticulate version would be specific to adults, since children had no such thoracic cage as the adults.

Problem : could children speak a kind of Hebrew in an intelligible way, if we accept this worst case scenario?

Thomas Harris

That's a good question. If one were to take, for instance, a set of phonemes that a Neanderthal could produce... Keeping in mind that children learn language from parents, so it would have to be ones that both adults and children could produce... And apply it to a word list like a Swadesh 207, would we get anything that looked like a modern Semitic language. Would a modern Israeli understand it if it were spoken to them, for instance, in the streets of Tel Aviv?

I'd like to see a list of phonemes and a theoretical Swadesh list of what you're proposing.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"Keeping in mind that children learn language from parents, so it would have to be ones that both adults and children could produce"

This would be different in people where adults lost capacity fo speech altogether, seeing that thoracic cage doomed them to sound like Chewbacca past a certain age - unless they breathed very slowly, which would perhaps work for rare occasions.

So, children could perhaps learn from women (if they had less huge thoracic cages), perhaps from Cro-Magnon captives.

The problem with a low skull floor would be the vowels.

So, Hebrew phonology or Syriac phonology, but vowels reduced to basically ø or ö and waw and yod realised as the glide in French "puis", unless they used v as substitute for waw in some positions.

As I don't know Hebrew or Syriac, I'd need someone else to work it out for me, if it could have been a feasible grammar or not.

And which functions - if any - would have had to been collapsed if expressed in Hebrew with such phonetic reduction.

I couldn't write a Swadesh list for Hebrew or for Syriac - that is why I am asking in this group, where presumably someone can.

Thomas Harris "Would a modern Israeli understand it if it were spoken to them, for instance, in the streets of Tel Aviv?"

That is NOT the issue.

Many English would not understand Scots, even when it's just English phonemes with different phones.

Lighthouse pronounced as latehoose.

I didn't get that one until I had been there.

"like Chewbacca" - like a mix of Chewbacca and Elmer ...

VII

David Salo

I've deleted some long threads about the historicity of the Biblical Flood and related topics.

This is a group whose main topics are (a) language and (b) fantastic beings (i.e., beings out of fantasy) speaking in languages. It's not a group for discussing either the Bible, Bible-inspired myths (except where those involve fantastic beings with unique languages), or geology. Please try to be a little bit topical!

N.b., Neanderthals are not fantastic beings in the sense given above, and therefore they and their linguistic capacities are not strictly topical either.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

What if they are the historical background to legends of elves and trolls?

David Salo

For the purposes of this group, "historical" and "fantastical" are mutually exclusive categories.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Sounds like a great option if you think "fantastical" actually excludes "historical".

Less great if you don't think so - i e, the position of moderation favours a position about the subject of the group, that elves and trolls are strictly ahistorical.

In other words, the dialogue between Susan Pevensie and Audoin Errol in my fan fic is one they could not have conducted over this group.

EN LENGUA ROMANCE EN ANTIMODERNISM Y DE MIS CAMINACIONES : So What Are Fairies?
http://enfrancaissurantimodernism.blogspot.com/2013/04/so-what-are-fairies.html

David Salo

Oh, no, I think trolls are quite real. I just don't want them infesting this group.

Ryan Z. Dawson

Hans-Georg Lundahl

David Salo I feel somewhat pointed at!

I don't have THAT many Neanderthal genes!

My skull floor is not flat!