Indo-European Roots - Sources - LexiLine Journal 286

>Hi, Andis - Following the Wipipedia link, I ran into this one on
>Root Words for Indo-European languages.

>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indo-European_roots

>Do any of these look Latvian to you?

>Thanks,
>Ina Mitchell

Dear Ina,

Your Wikipedia link points to alleged Indo-European roots in Pokorny, who is regarded by mainstream linguists to be an important source, although Pokorny's 1959 Indogermanisches Wörterbuch is outdated.

A list of sources on (proto)Indo-European is found at the Indo-European Lexicon at the University of Texas Linguistics Research Center
http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/ielex/index.html
where it is written:

"Our project goal is to produce a large, heavily indexed collection of Indo-European (IE) "reflex" words having their inferred etymological origins in the reconstructed ancestral language Proto-Indo-European (PIE)."

The best easily available source for current mainstream views of Indo-European roots is the section "Indo-European Roots" in the appendices of various American Heritage dictionaries.

An up-to-date list of Indo-European roots is found online in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th edition, which is reproduced at http://www.bartleby.com/61/

Important to read there for starters is the article "Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans" by Calvert Watkins at http://www.bartleby.com/61/8.html as well Indo-European Sound Correspondences http://www.bartleby.com/61/indoeuro.html and of course
The Indo-European Roots Index at http://www.bartleby.com/61/IEroots.html

Many of these alleged Indo-European Roots are correct, many are incorrect, and I will be getting into a detailed discussion of them in coming e-mails.

Enjoy,

Andis

Bengt Hemtun on the Ancient World - LexiLine Journal 285

Bengt Hemtun started an excellent website on "ancient ideas, megaliths, rock-carvings, rituals"
at http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~catshaman/
which is now found and updated at his new domain
http://www.catshaman.com/index1.htm

It is really well worth a read.

Hemtun has also started a Yahoo discussion group at
the oldworld_ideas group at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/oldworld_ideas/

[You might want to join that list as also our LexiLine list - Andis.]

What is Agglutination in Linguistics? - Language Structures in Estonian vs. Latvian Maja - House - Words for Colors - Property - LexiLine Journal 284

Bob Sand inquires as follows:

>Subj: Baltic languages agglutinative
>Date: 6/9/2004 3:14:15 PM Eastern Daylight Time
>From: bob sand <bad_sand2000@yahoo.com>
>To: LexiLine-owner@yahoogroups.com
>Sent from the Internet (Details)

>Are Baltic languages agglutinative? I was just thinking since they
are similar to Sumerian >and Akkadian and them being agglutinative,
then the Baltic languages are agglutinative.
>Can you answer that question?

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines agglutination in linguistics
see http://www.bartleby.com/61/2/A0140200.html as:

"The formation of words from morphemes that retain their original forms and meanings with little change during the combination process."

An example in English would be the forming of the word likeness from "like", by pasting "like" and "-ness" together. A similar example in English would be the glued on "-ance" in "inherit+ance" or "import+ance" or "maintain+ance", or the many -tion or -sion endings following words such as deci(de)+sion, exclamation, (exclaim+tion), and yes, even agglutination or inflection.

That same dictionary defines inflection in linguistcs see (http://www.bartleby.com/61/19/I0131900.html) as

"An alteration of the form of a word by the addition of an affix, as
in English dogs from dog, or by changing the form of a base, as in
English spoke from speak, that indicates grammatical features such
as number, person, mood, or tense.

The drawing of a strict dividing line between so-called agglutinative and inflected languages is a comfortable fiction of modern linguistics which is generally subject to the critique that foolish consistencies are the hobgoblin of little minds.

See http://www.fact-index.com/i/in/inflected_language.html

Latvian, just as English, has both agglutinative and inflected elements, which is not surprising, given its near neighborhood to Estonia. As is written at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_language

"Estonian is not, as is sometimes thought, in any way related to its nearest geographic neighbors, Latvian and Lithuanian, which are Baltic languages, but is related to Finnish, spoken on the other side of the Gulf of Finland, and Hungarian. It is not true, however, that the northern dialects of Estonian are sufficiently similar to Finnish for the two to be mutually intelligible...

Typologically, Estonian represents a transitional form from an agglutinating language to an inflected language.

Let us compare the word māja, which is "house" both in Latvian and Estonian (maja).

A yellow house in Estonian is kollane maja
A yellow house in Latvian is dzeltene maja viz. dzeltena maja
[The Nostratic root of koll- and dzel- will be the same]
The illative (locative case meaning "into") agglutinative in Estonian
in the case of the yellow house is formed by saying
kollasesse majasse
whereas the inflected locative in Latvian is formed by lengthening the final vowel
dzeltenā mājā
but also possible in Latvian is an agglutinative-like
dzeltenāsi mājās(i), which then of course looks like the Estonian.

Note that the colors (COL-ors) in Latvian [which are the words]
ZIL, ZAL, DZELT, ZELT
for blue, green, yellow and gold
are hardly differentiated,
showing a very old language status,
which of course is cognate to Estonian KOLL-,
and surely cognate with the English world COL-or.

Essentially, agglutinative means that isolated words are glued together for grammar whereas inflected means that words (especially word endings) are changed in form to reflect grammar.

A good example here is the Latvian word manta "property, thing owned" (also meaning "toy").

According to current erroneous mainstream linguistic analysis, Latvian manta is seen to consist of a root stem mant- meaning property plus the nominative inflected ending -a.

But of course, this view of [modern] mainstream linguistics is totally wrong.

As Franz Bopp, the founder of comparative linguistics, suggested more than 150 years ago - to the still deaf and ignorant ears and minds of modern linguists - inflection at the ends of words in Indo-European derives from the [agglutinative] affixation of isolated pronouns or other elements to other words.

In Latvian man- means "mine, to me, for me" and ta is a pronoun meaning "that". Hence the Latvian word manta "property" is actually made up of the components of man- and -ta as MAN.TA "mine that".

The same is true for the plural mantas, which is MAN.TAS [man- plus tās] "mine those".

We also see the English-based -sion or -tion ending (in Latvian as shini, shani, shana - very much like Akkadian and Hebrew) in the Latvian word mantošana (pronounced mantoshana), i.e. MAN.DUO.SHANA, meaning "inheritance", i.e. "me - give - that" viz. "mine - give - that".

Logically, Latvian mantota "inherited" is MAN.DO.TA "mine - given- that" viz. "me - give - that". There is - strictly speaking - no root "mant-" in Latvian meaning property, contrary to the opinions of modern linguists.

What modern linguists see as Latvian inflection is the product of previous agglutination.

Much more on ancient languages will be forthcoming on LexiLine. - Andis

Basque and Ogam - LexiLine Journal 283

>From: keith dennis <xskeeter2001@yahoo.com>
>To: LexiLine-owner@yahoogroups.com
>Sent from the Internet (Details)

>Thank you for posting this; discussions about language and tracing man's path across the earth by means of are topics of great interest.

>it reminds me of another language of great antiquity: that of the Basque.

>I was wondering if you have read the Edo Nyland on the subject of the Basque language, its links to Ogam, and some of his even wackier ideas?

>As a Lexiline lurker, let me also say i appreciate what you do, and enjoy reading the emails.

>thanks,

>kd

Keith,

I found this link to the work of Edo Nyland, about whom I know nothing.
http://www.livejournal.com/community/linguaphiles/2004/03/26/

The Linguaphiles Journal is a community discussion group; see
http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=linguaphiles

I do not know enough about the group to pass any judgment.

Andis

More on How Old are the Baltic Languages? Latvian, Latin and Italian - LexiLine Journal 282

>Dear Andis,
>You have written "since the actual root AUG had disappeared from Latin".
>Since is an adverb and in Italian is =
> - da
> - da allora in poi
> - da quando
> - dal tempo in cui
> - dal momento che.
>So I think that there is a discrepancy as it is impossible the name
>of the
>emperor AUGUSTUS may disappear.
>Cordialit
>enrico

Dear Enrico,

Of course you are right - aug has not totally disappered as such, but it is no longer the single word aug "grow" in Latin [as it is still in Latvian]. Rather, as you say it has been transformed in Latin - witness the name Augustus - of course, this is a name drawn after the harvest season,
August, the month of highest growth.

We also find aug- in the term augment or even in our modern eBay "auction", that term deriving according to my dictionary from the Latin auctio (compare Latvian aukshejuo "the highest") and
augere, but of course we see that "aug" is the root. I would even venture a guess that our word for the mighty "oak" is also from "aug" as the tallest northern tree. Here in fact, English has retained the word better than in Latvian, where the Latvian term for oak is ozols which is already a change from auglis.

It is thus surely NOT the case that Latvian or Lithuanian will always have retained the oldest form of a word. But on the whole, the vocabulary - i.e. the lexical component - is very old.

What we do see however are grievous errors in mainstream linguistics among the classical linguists.

Let us take the word accelerate which the linguists tell us derives from some alleged prefix ad- plus celer "swift". This of course is linguistic nonsense. "Accelerate" derives from "aug" (increase) plus Latin celer "swift", i.e. "to increase swiftness".

There are a host of words beginning with acc- in Latin which are strangely alleged to derive from the prefix ad- (!) plus a root, for example words like accrete, accrue, accumulate, accolade. Such terms in fact derive from the agglutination, i.e. the pasting together of the root of aug- plus another word.

The root aug- is also at the root of many terms beginning with ag - or agg- in Latin and English. Just think of AGRI-culture (aug- growth), agglomerate (mass together, increase), aggravate (make worse, increase something), aggregate, yes, even agglutination, the topic of the next posting.

All of the allegations by the Latin scholars that these terms go back to some mythical root ad- are simply wrong, it is "aug-". Latvian tells us that clearly, Latin does not. There is nothing wrong with this, Latin is simply a more modern language and has evolved more over the millennia than Latvian has. That is all.

Latin - the learned language of Italy - as a term is merely Latvian with the weak "v" lost.

How did this happen? According to legend, the Lydians (very similar name to Latvian and Latin) brought writing and the language to Etruscan Rome from Anatolia, where Luwian (Lutwian = Latvian?) presumably became Latin, which then mixed with the local dialects to give us that wonderful language we today know as Italian.

How Old are the Baltic Languages? - LexiLine Journal 281

In a message dated 8.6.2004 01:14:48 Westeuropäische Normalzeit,
bad_sand2000@yahoo.com writes:

>What does it mean that "the lexical origin of words can be
>reconstructed in the Latvian Language without recourse to any other
>source or languages. What does it mean that Latvian is an original
>language. Does this mean that all protolanguages can be
>reconstruced in the Baltic languages? Does this mean that the
>Baltic languages can be considered the Proto-World language? I am
>just curious and write back soon.

Here is my answer:

I think the Baltic languages - and this is acknowledged by mainstream linguists - are very archaic. Indeed, and here is the novelty of my claim, I find that Latvian and Lithuanian are so archaic that these languages - in my opinion - still pretty much represent the Indo-European language as much of Europe must have spoken it thousands of years ago. Take a look at a comparison of the Latvian and ancient Hittite (1500 BC) word declensions for "water" at
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi16.htm

Moreover, I find I need no recourse to any other language to derive the roots of words - these are easily found within the language itself.

Example: Latvian "zeme" is "earth" and "zem" means "down, below".

Another example: the Latvian word "aug" meaning "grow" is a root alleged to be original in Indo-European even by the mainstream linguists and has many cognates in Latvian, e.g. "augums" meaning "stature, physical size", or "augli" meaning "fruits, the growth of the fields and the harvest", and augsts ("high, tall"). All of these can be traced to the root word aug (by the way, we have this word in English as "high" and in German as "hoch"). I need not go to Latin augere "to increase" (whence English grow) to find the root aug, it is already located in the Latvian language. Quite the contrary, Latin can go to the Latvian to find the root for augere since the actual root AUG had disappeared from Latin.

The list is endless. There is no need in Latvian to look to Greek or Latin or any other language for the roots of these words.

Ancient Lower Egypt Nome 6 - LexiLine Journal 280

For the Ancient Nomes of Egypt, see also
Lower Egypt Nome 6 http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/geo/nomel6.html (in English)
and Egyptian Nomes http://www.meritneith.de/gaue.htm (in German)

Starting with this posting I shall begin to add material to the previous postings on the Nomes of Egypt as hermetic geodetic astronomy ["As above, so below"]. As the present posting does, I will now discuss only one nome at a time as a new separate post.

At my Ancient Egypt Weblog at http://ancientegyptweblog.blogspot.com I will also add this material to the comprehensive detail postings previously published
for the Lower Egypt Nomes
http://ancientegyptweblog.blogspot.com/2004/05/nomes-of-egypt-and-astronomy-e-lower.htm
and the Upper Egypt Nomes
http://ancientegyptweblog.blogspot.com/2004/05/nomes-of-egypt-and-astronomy-d-upper.htm
... [see also The Nomes of Egypt and Astronomy Identifed and
The Map of the Nomes of Egypt by Astronomy]

UPDATE to Lower Egypt Nome 6:
"V" of Horns of Lupus, H3sww, "mountain bull".

This is the area of sky where the stars of Lupus (Indo-European, e.g. Latvian lops, lopis (luopis) "animal, beast, cattle, livestock") and Centaurus meet.

The Centaur was the ancient Minoan bull, the Minotaur, and also "on the Euphrates it was considered a complete Bull", see Richard Hinckley Allen (RHA), Star Names, pp. 150-151 (Lupus made up the head and horns).

The capital city of the sixth lower nome is Buto, also called Tell el-Fara'in (Farain), Uto, Edjo, Wadjet (Per-Wadjet) or Wadjit
see http://www.dainst.org/index_52_en.html (de)
http://www.egyptsites.co.uk/lower/delta/central/farain/farain.html
http://www.ancient-egypt.org/glossary/religion/uto.html
http://snipurl.com/6v95
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/cultural/oldworld/africa/gerzean_culture.htm
http://www.crystalinks.com/wadjet.html

Wadjet was the cobra goddess of ancient Egypt twined around a papyrus stem. See the Encyclopaedia Britannica under "Buto".

As RHA points out, the area of connection of Lupus and Centaurus was known to the Arabs as Al Kadb al Karm, "the Vine Branch", i.e. the twine around a papyrus stem.

RHA notes that this stellar area was also called Al Wazn "weight" in Arabic, surely related to the "ground and weight" (Hadar and Wazn) of ancient stars in this region.

I think that stars in this region were originally arranged in the form of the net of the fisherman at Lupus and Centaurus according to my decipherment of the megaliths of Scotland at
http://www.megaliths.net/scotland.htm

This stellar net explains the use of "ground and weight", as used in net construction.

These are comparable to the Ancient Egyptian cities of Pe and Dep, the semi-mythical Predynastic capitals of Lower Egypt at Buto, which we now can see marked the stars above and below the ecliptic. The Pyramid Texts state that Pe marks kings of "Lower Egypt" whereas Dep
marks the serpent (above the ecliptic, i.e. "Upper Egypt").

The use of the serpent rather than the bull came from using Serpens Caput above the ecliptic rather than Lupus and Centaur below it for this stellar position.

The Muu dancers (see http://www.egyptology.com/reeder/muu/) show Dep as wearing a crown (above the ecliptic) and Pe as wearing none. DEP will be Indo-European, e.g. Latvian DEB-ess "heaven". [PE will be Indo,European, e.g. Latvian UPE "river", here, of the underworld"]

We now know from the above analysis that not only the nomes but also the capital city of each nome were hermetic, with the capital - in an astronomical context - presumably marking the lucida - the brightest star in each stellar region.

This area of the heavens marked the Autumn Equinox in ca. 3000 BC, where the ecliptic and the celestial equator met.

Buto has three mounds, but I do not know their shape, by which one should be able determine this astronomical location in the stars exactly in the predynastic megalithic period. Perhaps these oldest mounds marked the three front prominent stars of Scorpio, as at other megalithic sites.