Skeptical Humanities

Hello again, everybody!

I summarize here the linguistic aspects of some general catastrophist theories involving Atlantis and other ‘lost’ continents/civilizations.  Some of the thinkers in question, like Ryan & Pitman (discussed last time), are highly qualified in some of the relevant disciplines; one such is Stephen Oppenheimer, who locates an early centre of diffusion in a now-submerged South-East Asian continent (but note that both Oppenheimer and his linguistically-trained ally Paul Manansala appear relatively weak where historical linguistics is concerned).  Others, such as Stan Hall (to whom I referred earlier) are clearly non-mainstream.

Arysio dos Santos accepts the reality of Atlantis; he places much emphasis on historical linguistics, arguing that unexpected similarities (at all the main linguistic levels) exist between languages such as Guanche (Canary Islands), Etruscan and Dravidian (Tamil etc.), at frequency levels which exclude chance.  He disputes the mainstream use of statistics in this area and argues that accidental similarities are much less likely than has been concluded by mainstream linguists such as Ringe (see earlier).  The disagreement does not seem to involve the mathematics per se but rather dos Santos’ handling of the linguistic data, which, a linguist might suggest, does not appear to incorporate adequately the factors which I discussed, such as structural differences between the languages in question.  (Dos Santos also rejects conventional ideas about proto-languages and language families.)

Other writers who accept the reality of Atlantis (especially as a lost land rather than as a location or culture known later by other names) include: Viatcheslav Koudriavtsev and his colleagues with their ‘Protolanguage’ (pan-Slavic) and its ‘Protoscript’; J.M. Allen and Rand & Rose Flem-Ath with their focus upon South American locations(the Flem-Aths believe that Atlantis was in Antarctica and that the Atlantean refugees arrived first in South America; they endorse some extreme and unjustifiable claims about the structure of Aymara which are associated with the idea that it is of Atlantean origin); Constantin Benetatos with the view that all later European languages (especially those in Northern Europe) are descended from the language of Atlantis; etc., etc.

J.S. Gordon also accepts the reality of Atlantis (and links his ideas about Atlantis as a real entity with arguments in support of the currently fashionable theory of the universe as pervaded by consciousness).  His work is vitiated by a number of unwelcome features, including some relating specifically to his use of linguistic data.  For instance: a) he repeatedly discusses key linguistic matters in an impossibly vague manner; b) he fatally confuses linguistic levels (pronunciation and grammar) in using key terms such as agglutinative; c) he relies upon earlier non-mainstream thinkers and ill-informed and dated sources; d) he proposes wildly implausible and unsupported scenarios involving the development of languages and scripts (intended to replace well-established mainstream ideas about these matters); e) he largely ignores the two hundred years of scientific historical linguistic scholarship and thus employs the usual loose, seriously unreliable non-mainstream philological/etymological methods; etc.

One of the works of Gene Matlock (see my earlier references) also argues for the reality of Atlantis.  His claim to have ‘proved’ his case is grotesquely exaggerated, to say the least.  As in his other works, Matlock relies repeatedly upon isolated and unsystematic superficial similarities of vocabulary items in attempting to establish etymologies which would demonstrate his diffusionist claims about ancient links between the languages and cultures of India (and other Old World areas) – all derived from the supposed Ursprache, Sanskrit – and the Americas.  And again, as in his other works, his claims on these fronts also contradict many established etymologies and vast amounts of well-established information about the relationships between languages.  Matlock ignores the crucial structural aspects of the languages which he compares; his linguistic terminology is popular and non-standard; he makes many claims about poorly-documented periods of early history without presenting any references or worthwhile evidence; he cites other non-mainstream claims rejected by most experts; etc., etc.

Zoltán Simon argues for a historical Atlantis in Western Atlantic waters, and for a catastrophist and otherwise revisionist account of early human history; he believes that the cases for (a) catastrophist interpretations of early history, (b) the early discovery (and subsequent loss) of advanced technology, and (c) extraterrestrial intervention in that period are much more persuasive than they are.  His linguistic ‘evidence’ is of the usual amateur kind; he also makes various specific errors; and he rejects reconstructed proto-languages such as Proto-Indo-European, assessing the evidence/argumentation for such entities in thoroughly confused terms and grossly undervaluing it – partly because he wishes to propose alternative genetic and other links between languages, often involving his native Hungarian.  Indeed, he exaggerates the influence of Hungarian and the Hungarians on linguistic differentiation and world history, finding pseudo-cognates and grammatical parallels between Hungarian and English and reading the mysterious Yarmouth Runestone (Nova Scotia) as Hungarian.  (Again, compare Stan Hall.)

Some other non-mainstream authors are interested in Lemuria and/or Mu rather than (or as well as) Atlantis.  One such, Frank Joseph, cites similarities between short words and syllables, with related or allegedly related meanings, in languages normally regarded as unrelated and as not having experienced important cultural contact.  These include the words moai as used in Okinawa and Easter Island (where the meanings are not in fact even close), Japanese torii and German Tor (both meaning ‘gate’), various words containing the syllable –mu-, etc. He believes that these similarities mostly indicate common origin in Lemuria/Mu.  (Joseph also includes in this discussion a completely mistaken comment about the pronunciation of the Latin names Romulus and Remus; he believes that these words too contain the word Mu and were stressed on the relevant syllable.)

There is an entire small world of non-mainstream scholarship based on the works of Immanuel Velikovsky, a major-planet catastrophist and chronological revisionist.  The (minor) linguistic element in Velikovsky’s thought involves the alleged diffusion of words after the catastrophe (compare Michal Tsarion).  Since Velikovsky’s death his ideas have persisted and diversified.  One leading Neo-Velikovskyan tradition is represented by David Talbott and his fellow ‘Saturnists’, who hold that Earth and the other inner planets were formerly in captive rotation about a much larger Saturn and that this situation and the catastrophic restructuring which led to the present configuration of the system are reflected in myths around the world.  Talbott places emphasis upon the similarity and alleged common origin of words in many apparently unrelated languages, which in his view relate to myths and motifs associated with cultural ‘memories’ of the earlier configuration and the ensuing cataclysm.  Most of the Saturnists show little detailed knowledge of linguistics, but one of Talbott’s associates was Roger Wescott, a qualified linguist, who posited relatively recent dates for the commencement of linguistic diversification, partly because of his catastrophist account of the recent history of the planet (many pre-existing cultures and their languages would have been destroyed in any Velikovskyan catastrophe).

There are writers in this area of thought with even more markedly non-mainstream ideas.  These include, notably, Ted Holden, who argues, for instance, that features of the Baltic languages (Latvian and Lithuanian) reflect the beginning of the re-diversification of languages ‘from scratch’ following a catastrophe early in the first millennium BCE.  Holden is also a supporter of Julian Jaynes’ highly suspect theory that during the first millennium BCE the psychology of Homo sapiens underwent a major shift – revealed, for instance, in contrasts between discourse styles found in Homeric Greek and in later Classical Greek – involving the loss of telepathic abilities and the emergence of self-awareness.

Mark

Some who interpret UFOs as extraterrestrial spacecraft claim that various human languages (especially ancient languages) are or have been used by aliens.  Often, the actual origin of the favoured language is said to be extraterrestrial (which would obviously require adjustment to accounts of the relevant human language ‘families’!).  One such group is the Aetherius Society, founded by George King, who ‘channelled’ various beings of this kind.  (I’ll return later to the general question of channelled languages, both ancient and modern.)  Like several of the non-mainstream writers discussed in my last post, the Society ignores what has been learned about the Indo-European origins of Sanskrit, and regards it not merely as the ancestor of all human speech but as vastly ancient and the main lingua franca of a whole series of inhabited planets.  They consider that it was ‘scientifically and metaphysically’ devised and is derived from fifty primeval sounds (which they confuse with the ‘alphabetic’ devanagari letters used to write the sounds of the language).  These sounds themselves are said to be derived from features of the Chakras, supposed energy vortices in the ‘subtle’ bodies of human beings.  (I’ll have more to say more later on the Aetherius Society and other ‘UFO fans’!)

Paul von Wardascribes special status and universal applicability to the devanagari script and to the Sanskrit language itself.  He too ignores/rejects what has been learned about the Indo-European origins of the language, and he implausibly interprets the language and its script as the ultimate ancestors of all later languages and alphabets, which have allegedly deteriorated and suffered from loss of phonetic range and expressive power.  He attributes the invention of devanagari to ‘Advanced Beings’, extraterrestrial or inter-dimensional beings whose activities are reflected in myths around the world.  Von Ward is more widely read in linguistics than most such promoters of ‘ancient astronauts’, but his ‘understanding’ of the subject is very uneven and idiosyncratic.

The Theosophical Society also focuses on Sanskrit; the founder Blavatsky’s ideas on the language and on linguistics, which were strange and dated even in her own time, continue to command respect among Theosophists.  Some Theosophists freely invoke Sanskrit in the context of their beliefs (in lectures, etc.) without much knowledge of linguistics.

In a rather different vein, Jordan Maxwell, Paul Tice and Alan Snow were inspired by the late nineteenth century diffusionist writer Gerald Massey and by the anonymous author of a three-volume work called Priesthood of the Ills and published around 1940, both of whom believed that they could trace all religions back to a small number of linked cults (stellar, lunar, solar).  The ancestor culture and language is identified by Maxwell et al. as Egyptian or (especially by Snow) as Hebrew; but some specific words are again held to be of Sanskrit origin.

Maxwell et al. present linguistic ideas in support of their viewpoint, following Priesthood of the Ills; notably, they adduce some non-standard philology as support for these diffusionist theories of religion.  They also believe that there is a specifically linguistic conspiracy, part of a vast overall conspiracy also involving religion, which involves a) keeping humanity divided by enforcing the use of many mutually unintelligible languages and b) blocking humanity from discovering the original (‘true’) meanings of words, especially words with religious significance.  (See my fourth post for other ideas of this nature.)

This latter notion (b) suggests that all changes in the meanings of words are illegitimate, which of course is an untenable folk-linguistic idea; but the earlier author, again supported by Maxwell et al., argues chiefly for the more specific claim that the ‘true’ meanings of some of the key words in ancient languages were very different indeed from those of the English words normally used to translate them.  This has allegedly been deliberately concealed (by the Forces of Evil) by various means, including the disguising of important words through the manipulation of spelling.  The ‘true’ meanings which have been concealed in this way are implicated in huge numbers of unrecognized links between languages.

These writers go on to suggest that simply focusing on pronunciation rather than spelling will enable a listener to begin to overcome this conspiracy, because they will then hear and thus know which words are genuinely connected historically (as cognates, etc.) – since truly connected words will sound similar.  (Then one can appreciate the ‘true’ form of Christianity and its links with earlier religions.)  Historical linguistic scholarship is simply ignored here, in particular the vast body of evidence that in most alphabetically-written languages spelling is a more reliable guide to etymologies than is modern pronunciation.  This is because spelling is typically rather conservative and thus reflects shared older forms of words and common origins somewhat better than does phonology with its relatively rapid shifts.  Indeed, paying attention only to pronunciation will encourage the treatment of words which are in fact unconnected homophones – such as English roe (‘fish eggs’), row (‘propel boat with oars’) and row (‘line of items’) – as probably connected, and will thus encourage the development of false theories regarding associated non-linguistic connections.

Examples of unsubstantiated etymologies proclaimed here include the derivation of the name Abraham from ab-ra-am (said to mean ‘father of nations’), of the name Jesus from an alleged Egyptian expression meaning ‘light bearer’, of Amen as used in Christian prayers from the Egyptian god-name Amun, etc., etc.

I’ll deal later with some ‘Afrocentrist’ ideas about historical linguistics.

A further interesting sub-set of cases involves links between non-mainstream ideas about language history, on the one hand, and ‘catastrophist’ accounts of ancient history more generally, on the other.  I have referred to Michal Tsarion’s ideas about the aftermath of the destruction of Atlantis (see below); but he is far from alone in this respect.

As most readers will know, until the nineteenth century it was widely held that catastrophes had been of major significance in the development of historical events over the ages.  However, in modern times historians (and scientists) have developed other models of history and pre-history which may be described under the general term uniformitarianism.  These models emphasize continuous and repeated patterns of cause and effect, explaining historical events in terms of such patterns as far as possible in preference to attributing them to ‘one-off’ events such as catastrophes.  This model of history became especially prominent with the rise in status of post-Enlightenment science, chiefly because it contributes to the repeatability and perhaps the testability of historical explanations, rendering history (and historical linguistics) more scientific in character.  (But the general idea of repeated patterns in history and the ensuing possibility of general explanations for historical events goes back at least as far as Thucydides.)

Nevertheless, there clearly have been some genuine catastrophic events of various kinds during human history (and indeed during pre-history): large volcanic eruptions, major tsunamis, large earthquakes, minor-planet impacts on the surface of the Earth, etc.  Some of these catastrophes have impacted profoundly on cultural (and linguistic) history; for instance, the tsunami which followed the eruption of Santorini appears to have devastated parts of the Minoan civilization centred on Crete, weakening it and perhaps contributing to its later downfall (and the resulting loss of literacy in the Greek-speaking world).  In more recent decades there has thus been something of a shift of focus back towards moderate forms of catastrophism, considered alongside uniformitarianism as an explanatory model for certain specific (often dramatic) historical events.  For example, some writers (not all of them non-mainstream) believe that there have been large minor-planet impacts during human history, perhaps as recently as 10-12,000 years BP.

One not implausible catastrophe scenario during early human history involves claims regarding the sudden flooding of the Black Sea Basin around 7,500 years BP through the straits leading to the Sea of Marmara and on to the Aegean, as proposed by the scientists William Ryan and Walter Pitman.  It is suggested that this event profoundly affected the pattern of civilization in that area, with much diffusion of populations and their cultures to the surrounding territories; and that the patterns of diffusion from this area included the diffusion of Indo-European, which until then may well have been centred close to the Black Sea – according to some scholars to the north of it, in the modern Ukraine, according to others to the south in Anatolia.  Ryan and Pittman therefore invoke historical linguistic evidence.  If they are correct, the Black Sea area would have been a centre for linguistic contact and later for diffusion.  But – despite their references to mainstream historical linguists such as Donald Ringe – their material on linguistics itself is weak and confused. For instance: they quote Ringe on matters internal to IE, but then make a link with the ideas of deep-time reconstructionists, whose views on pre-Proto-IE matters are regarded by scholars such as Ringe as much too speculative on present evidence.  They do not mention these differences.  Next they confuse the issue of borrowings into IE and that of borrowings from IE; and then they give a list of cognates/probable cognates/loans mostly taken from within IE.  They fail to state that the non-IE etymologies proposed in more doubtful cases are often disputed.

There are, however, many much more extreme and/or dubious catastrophist accounts of ancient history which are proposed by palpably non-mainstream writers. Some of these writers are strongly opposed to modern uniformitarianism and uphold the role of catastrophes as the dominant force in human history. Some claims of this kind involve cultural diffusion in historic times from the surviving remains of an earlier source civilization or culture which was destroyed in a catastrophe, such as the supposed sunken island/continent of Atlantis or equivalent land-masses in the Indian and Pacific Oceans such as Lemuria and Mu.

The linguistic aspects of such theories involve the cultural diffusion of many or all known languages, seen as ‘genetically’ related and descended from the language used in the earlier common source civilization. The civilization destroyed by the catastrophe is sometimes said to have been the ultimate ancestor civilization of humanity, and its language is thus often identified as the Ursprache. (Compare Tsarion’s view of Irish Gaelic as a post-catastrophe Ursprache.)  Next time I will summarize the linguistic aspects of some of these theories.

Mark