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