From: H.M. Hubey
Message: 515
Date: 2003-04-11
| Subject: | [evol-psych] In Click Languages, an Echo of the Tongues of the Ancients |
|---|---|
| Date: | Fri, 11 Apr 2003 08:32:57 -0500 |
| From: | "M. Washington" <best@...> |
| To: | evolutionary-psychology@yahoogroups.com |
Hello. The final question will be: what is the history and meaning of the term 'conserved' in an anthropological and archeological sense and is what is the possibility that branches of the Bushman click language are conserved. RECENT ARTICLES ON CLICK LANGUAGE: An article on click languages appeared: Alec Knight, Peter A. Underhill, Holly M. Mortensen, Lev A. Zhivotovsky, Alice A. Lin, Brenna M. Henn, Dorothy Louis, Merritt Ruhlen, and Joanna L. Mountain, African Y Chromosome and mtDNA Divergence Provides Insight into the History of Click Languages, Current Biology, v. 13, pp. 464 -473, Issue of 18 March 2003. It was commented upon by Nicholas Wade, In Click Languages, an Echo of the Tongues of the Ancients, Science Desk, 18 March 2003. In summarizing the article,Wade appears to omit points whose absence contributed to misunderstandings of the original article. SOME PARAMETERS OF PREVIOUS CONTENTION: With the risk of over-simplifying the argument, one point of contention when this issue was discussed here in early March 2003 seemed to revolved around the use of the word "ancient" with that producing two possible and irreconcilable interpretations. The first meaning oldest in the sense of being a greater number of years from the present date than any other; and the second meaning more primitive than and lesser than contemporary languages as the more contemporary the language, the more sophisticated and perhaps good. Possible, not fact: My understanding of the original article, as it appeared in Current Biology, is that one point was to introduce the ground to state that there was a chance that branches of the click language are possibly the most conserved language on earth. By saying that branches are possibly the most conserved language on earth leaves room for the alternative that they are not. With the publication of the article, they re-opened a two century-old discussion. DEFINING TERMS: To have a common ground for discussion, there are two terms I'd like to define: (1) conservative, conservativism and (2) ancient. Conservativism as 'frozen in time.' I would like to investigate the possibility that click language is the most conserved language. And, I would appreciate anyone who can set me straight regarding its deeper archeological and anthropological meaning as I do not know the historical first usage of this term "conservative" in an archeological and / or anthropological context. But, by conservative, I would interpret it as a phenomena that has kept the basic features over a long period of time millenniums or deca-millenniums. In the case of the Bushman, it would seem that conservativism has lasted for deca-millenniums. And, to say the click language is conserved would be here taken to mean that essential elements are the same as they originally were deca-millenniums ago. I wasn't there to see and hear the people, so I wouldn't know whether it was or wasn't. I am saying possibly it was or wasn't. Next. I am using the term 'ancient' languagess to mean those more distant in time from 21st century languages than other languages. To say that click language is conserved would mean possibly frozen in time from tens of thousands of years ago. A CONSTELLATION OF CONSERVED FEATURES: Peter Underhill, among others, have championed the use of the multi-disciplinary approach in archeology or genetics where diverse fields are drawn upon to support any given hypothesis. To say that the click language of the Bushman is or is not conserved in the absence of other multi-disciplinary evidence is not as strong an argument to make as a multi-disciplinary one. I will try to make a multi-disciplinary one and introduce a range of other aspects of conservativism that may add credence to the possibility as the San (as opposed to the Khoi or Ethiopian who are mixed races with San input) have remained genetically isolated from other races. And in that isolation, to have preserved a life-style deca-millenniums old. The following are features of the Bushman that MAY have been conserved over time: (1) the extraction of termites from mounds has been found to be the same with some contemporary Bushmen as archeological evidence shows it to have been about 1.2 mya; (2) the use of the hammer and anvil of rock is the same among some branches of the Bushman as it is with the chimpanzee; (3) the social hierarchy is the same among some branches of the Bushman as it is with the hamadryas baboon; (4) the Bushman use of clicks resembles that of the hamadryas baboon [See: Faidherbe, Revue Linguistique, 1885]; (5) the penotype of the San appears similar in height, skeletal, and skull features as the earlier Boskopoid race which lived in the same geographical area and maintained, the same kind of hunter-gatherer life style; (6) there are some branches of the Bushman that continue to make stone tools as did Mesolithic humans; (7) there is a lot of literature on the mythology, folklore, and religious views of the Bushman being similar to those recorded by most ancient Egyptians and other groups first written in the historical record. ATTRITION AND VALUE OF OLD LITERATURE: The fact of the matter is that with each passing year since the turn of the 19th century, old cultures have been worn away by attrition more-and-more with each passing year - many to the extent of the eventual extinction of its culture and people. For this reason, articles written in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th century on old cultures still surviving have the value of being the last eye witness. And, for us today is left the task of determining (with even less evidence) what among those accounts are genuine and / or good science, and which are disingenuous and /or bad science. To that end, I'd like to include some observations by Gerald Massey writing on the subject of Bushman clicks in 1907. QUESTION: My question is what is the history and meaning of the term 'conserved' in an anthropological and archeological sense and is what is the possibility that the branches of the Bushman click language have been conserved for deca-millenniums as other features (as seen above) of their Mesolithic culture have been preserved. Rgds, Marc Washington _______________________________ (Mostly) true or not? MASSEY WRITES: "It has been lately asserted by M. Maspero and Professor Sapeto that in the speech of some negro tribes on the Blue Nile, the clicks, which were deemed a peculiarity of South African speech, are detected; and more than this, that an increase or diminuition of the prevalence of this linguistic feature could be remarked as the traveller advances towards or from Central Africa. The clicks are not quite extinct in Upper Egypt, as the name of the Copt when pronunced properly is CKIBT or CKOOBT. In Egypt they are no longer extant in uttered speech, but if the roots of the Egyptian language are to be found in Africa beyond, there ought to be some record of the clicking stage in the hieroglyphic signs. And there is. For instance, the cenocephalic ape of the Upper Senegal is said to utter clicks which contain a distinct 'd' -sound [In: Faidherbe, Revue Linguistique, 1885]. If so, he has advanced beyond the ancient Egyptian, who has had no sign for D. The hieroglphic pyramid TA, however, becomes the Greek 'delta' [Marc's note: this is a delta sign] and if we take it at the value T the result is still remarkable, as the ape on the monuments is the representative of language, speech, utterance, as the Word or bard of the gods. "He represents Taht, or Tet, and Tet means speech, tongue, language, mouth. As Aan, the ape represented Taht in the northern heaven, and the name signifies speech -- speech of, speech from, or speech to. Thus, the Clicking Cynocephalus personates speech under the two names and forms of Taht and AAn. The typical voice of speech, then, is represented in the 'Click' stage of the Clicking monkey. [Massey goes on to do an etymological analysis of a dozen Egyptian words] ... In these and other instances, the Egyptian article Tu (the) completes the Bushman word, and by dropping the prefix, the Bushman word becomes the Egyptian. These clicks, for reasons which may be stated hereafter, are among the oldest sounds in language, and possibly the first distinctly conscious imitations of other sounds." In: Gerald Massey, A Book of Beginnings, v. 2, (A&B Book Publishers, Brooklyn, NY, [1881] 1994), pp. 628 - 630. After p. 630, Massey continues for some pages more analyzing Egyptian and Bushman words." . News in Brain and Behavioural Sciences - Issue 92 - 5th April, 2003 http://human-nature.com/nibbs/issue92.html Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
-- Mark Hubey hubeyh@... http://www.csam.montclair.edu/~hubey