Subject: Re: The Origins of the White Man
From: fmurray@pobox,com (frank murray)
Date: Sun, 10 Nov 1996 05:58:06 GMT
On 1 Nov 1996 , grooveyou@aol.com wrote:
>....................the well documented statistic of the fact that
>white people By nature are the most violent people on the face of the
>earth, the present and historical statistics shows evidence of these
>facts.
to which, after appropriate preliminaries, i responded:
>i challenge you to present such statistics...
your subsequent posts have shown no ability to set forth a statistical
argument, but i'll help...i've got a 1993/1994 statistical abstract of
the united states on my bookshelf, so i'll use it to show you how you
might construct an argument using "present" statistics...you'll have
to find your own source for stats from the distant past...
the first step is to decide how "violent" is to be measured...in this
example, we will use the fbi annual report on "Crime in the United
States" as quoted in chart no. 303 of the sa...this chart shows the
crime rates by type for the seventy five largest cities in the
country...(the figures are from 1991, the most recent available at
time of printing).... under the fbi system, four types of crime are
listed as violent (murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault)...we
will use this definition of "violent" in this example...
our next step is to separate the most violent cities from the least
violent cities...this is easy to do...we find that the twelve most
violent cities, we'll call then the "dirty dozen" have an average rate
of violent crime that is five times the rate of the twelve least
violent...(about 3100 per 100,000 people vs about 633 per 100,000)...
now, if we look at the racial composition of the population of the
"dirty dozen" vs the twelve with the least violent crime we find:
% black %white
most violent: 44.7% 35.5%
least violent: 7.3% 64.4%
in short, what the stats are telling us is that the more blacks in a
city, the more violent crime there is...lest you try to slide off with
"but, these stats don't tell us who is committing these crimes", chart
no. 313 gives us the percentages of those arrested in the us in 1991
(as reported by 10,075 agencies) in each category, who are black:
murder: 34.6%
rape: 54.8%
robbery: 61.1%
aggravated assault: 38.3%
to put the horror of these statistics in perspective, chart no. 13
tells us that only 12.4% of the 1991 population was black...
this, of course is only a simple example of the type of figures you
would have to bring forth to make your case that:
>....................the well documented statistic of the fact that
>white people By nature are the most violent people on the face of the
>earth, the present and historical statistics shows evidence of these
>facts.
good luck,
frank
Subject: Re: The Coming of the Greeks
From: mcv@pi.net (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Sun, 10 Nov 1996 06:44:35 GMT
S.NEMETH@IX.NETCOM.COM (Stella Nemeth) wrote:
>mcv@pi.net (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) wrote:
>>On the whole, however, languages do not mix very well. It's easy to
>>borrow single nouns, even lots of them, especially for new items of
>>technology or thought. Verbs are not borrowed so easily, but it can be
>>done. But the grammatical system of language, the way verbs work, word
>>order, personal pronouns, etc., that kind of stuff gets harder and
>>harder to borrow once the languages start to differ from one another.
>>From one dialect to another, yes. From Old Norse to Old English, only
>>just: "they" is the only example. From Old French to Old English: no.
>>The influence of French *was* overwhelming, far larger than what is
>>typical, but it never went beyond "you arrive here" (a borrowed verb),
>>not "vous comez here".
>What makes English a Germanic language? Just to make my question
>clear, I'm not arguing that it isn't a Germanic language. I just am
>wondering what parts of the language were considered when the decision
>was made to classify it that way?
>The reason I'm asking is that your example of borrowing in the quoted
>paragraph made me realize that English doesn't have the same sentence
>structure as German. In fact, mostly English uses the same sentence
>structure as the Romance langauages I've studied (not well, not long
>and I can't speak or read any these days ).
Not quite true. English and German, as well as the Romance languages
have SVO [Subject-Verb-Object: I see a house, Ich sehe ein Haus, Je vois
une maison] word order. The original IE order was SOV, and German still
has traces of that, more than English or French (e.g. in subordinate
sentences the order reverts to SOV: "Ich weiss, das ich ein haus sehe").
The European Indo-European languages have been moving in that direction
for centuries (Celtic has even moved to verb first [VSO]), and there is
little reason to assume French had much to do with it in English.
>I don't see all that great a difference between "vous" and "you" and
>even less between "vous" and "youse" (spoken Northeastern American for
>you-all ). And "comez" looks a lot like "come", and "vous comez
>here" sounds a lot like "you came here". To me, anyway.
"comez" was a joke: English "come" + French ending "-ez".
Like all bilingual jokes, it's only funny if you know both languages.
The funny thing is that the reverse: French verb + English ending (for
instance: he arrive-s) is not funny at all. The bottom line is that
verb endings are almost never borrowed, while verbs are. But not as
much as nouns. And then again, some nouns are seldom borrowed (like
words for body parts).
The linguist Morris Swadesh once made a list of the 100 words least
likely to be borrowed ("basic vocabulary").
> I, you, we, this, that, who, what, not, all, many, one, two, big, long,
> small, woman, man, person, fish, bird, dog, louse, tree, seed, leaf, root,
> bark, skin, flesh, blood, bone, grease, egg, horn, tail, feather, hair,
> head, ear, eye, nose, mouth, tooth, tongue, claw, foot, knee, hand, belly,
> neck, breasts, heart, liver, drink, eat, bite, see, hear, know, sleep, die,
> kill, swim, fly, walk, come, lie, sit, stand, give, say, sun, moon, star,
> water, rain, stone, sand, earth, cloud, smoke, fire, ash, burn, path,
> mountain, red, green, yellow, white, black, night, hot, cold, full, new,
> good, round, dry, name.
There are only two Romance loans: "person" and "mountain".
There's a couple of Scandinavian ones (skin, egg).
A couple are English "inventions" (bird, dog).
All the rest have been directly inherited from Old English. I may have
missed a few loans and inventions, but in excess of 90% of the basic
vocabulary is Anglo-Saxon.
==
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal ~ ~
Amsterdam _____________ ~ ~
mcv@pi.net |_____________|||
========================== Ce .sig n'est pas une .cig
Subject: Re: Etruscans [was: Re: The Coming of the Greeks]
From: ayma@tip.nl
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 03:48:35 GMT
Thanks for your extensive posting.
mcv@pi.net (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) wrote:
>Beekes ("De Etrusken spreken", 1991), gives muvalch = 50 (mach = 5).
>I can't confirm or deny.
****True, the numbers for 40 and 50 are not known by certainty, as
they are not 'regular' like the ones for 30, 60-70. Only one word is
known, muvalch, and this could be either 40 or 50. Why Beekes chooses
for 50 is unknown [only because it starts with 'm'?]. Choosing for
40 is more appealing because of the Luwian mauwa en the other
IE parallels. Even in your preference for 'higher level' relations
between IE and Etr. I would say?
Beekes' booklet [isbn 90.6283.797.2, in Dutch] btw is a real gem,
simply because of the fact that it makes 'source material' available
for the public in handy format, and one would wish this would be done
more often in archaeology and linguistics.
>huth can be derived from earlier *kut, and the IE labiovelar *kw (which
>was single sound, not k+w) may also be derived originally from k + u.
>But that's Pre-Indo-European, taking us back thousands of years:
>Anatolian had labio-velars, just like the rest of IE. If a relation
>with Etr. huth exists, it must date from very early days (early
>Neolithic, I'd guess). Etruscan kw- (E. wh-) words are absent: the
>relative and interrogative pronoun seems to have been ipa (Beekes: < in
>pa?). Etruscan *kw > p?
****What about the 'cv'-s in Etruscan? Aren't they likely the way
labio-velars were rendered in Etr. script? Like in (Beekes) cvera/cvil
"gift[?]". And the name Tanachvil that was rendered
in Latin as Tanaquil. But this is just my own speculation.
woudhuizen states that there is a kw>k development in Etruscan, and
some Anatolian languages show a similar development of labio-velars:
IE * kwi - = relative pronoun = cuiniform Luwian kui-, Luwian
hierogyphic chwa- = Etruscan chva, cve [that is to say,
Woudhuizen judges these relative pronouns]
IE * -kwe = enclitic copula ['and'] = Luwian hieroglyphic -cha(wa),
Lycian -ce, Lydian -k, Etruscan -c(h)/-ke
>or maybe:
>Indo-Tyrrhenian a Indo-European
> ...
> b Anatolian
> c Tyrrhenian
> c1 Etruscan
> c2 Lemnian
> c3 Raetian
The reason I made my tree like I did, are all the
adjective/ethnic/factitive/iterative morphemes
Etruscan shares with Anatolian, making it a bit closer to
that than to the rest of IE, not? Matter of taste, no doubt, as often
with such trees. But you yourself writes:
>Etr. seems rather similar to IE in general and Anatolian in
> particular (genitive endings in -s(i) and -l(a), pres. ptc.
> in -nth, some lexical items).
The notion "particular" seems better expressed in my tree than in
yours? However i realize that tree-models are all too often inadequate
for rendering a complex reality.
>The Lemnos stele is dated to the 6th c. BC. If the Etruscans came from
>the Aegean c. 1200 BC, as "Sea Peoples", that would only put between 500
>and 700 years of separation between Etruscan and Lemnian. Is that
>enough? Can the "Sea People" theory explain the presence of Rhaetian in
>the Italian Alps?
***I couldn't judge the first - if they came from different regions,
then they could have even lived side by side till one moved, and still
have grown relatively far apart, not? Like Lycian/Carian/Lydian. What
i mean: the linguistic seperation would already have been going on in
the Aegean.
If they were one group in 1200, then there would have been 700 year
seperate development on Lemnos, and 500 years seperate development in
Italy, before either language was written down [ca 500. resp. ca. 700
BC] - so a 'gap' of 1200 years....Or am I making a thinking error
here?
Your point about the Rhaeteans is a valid point, and is one i always
thought was one of the few points in favour of the 'native to Italy'
thesis. However, the Rhaetian evidence is rather scares to draw all
too firm conclusions upon. Even Beekes thinks the elements in
Rhaetian are mere borrowed traits from Etruscan, so there need not be
a 'racial' link.
Like Steve noted, the Po was an important trade route: before the
founding of Massilia [600 bc], it was the end of the traderoute of
amber from Northern Europe. [Elbe-Danube-Alps/Brenner - Po - Adriatic]
That's why some of the Classics transfered the name Eridanos - the
legendary amber river - from the Elbe to the Po].
>I don't think so: the text clearly reads "tis phoke", and previously
>there has been talk of "Holaiesi phokiasiale", probably "Holaios the
>Phocaean". In any case, one -ke ending is not nearly enough: there
>should be several past tenses in the stele (he did this, or he was that,
>or he died at 60 [65?]), which only confirms my suspicion that the -ke
>in phoke is not a past tense ending.
**I do not agree in the 'clearly' and the 'should be' at all, much
too firm words.
The sign in question is neither ph nor th. If one rotates it, it is a
th, if one lenghtens the bar it is a ph. Take you pick. There is a 50%
chance of either scribal error.
If you look at the Etruscan grave inscriptions, you will see that most
often no verbs in -ce are used to indicate age or died. Often just
number of years or a participium are employed. Beekes p. 76-79.
And the same with office: just title given, hardly ever with 'amce'
or another verb. No, your argument "should be several" is not
convincing.
>[*] Woudhuizen translates thuvas as "two",
>Woudhuizen should know better: "thu" is "1". Pity of IE *dwo:, but
>that's just the way it is.
****He does not think so. He treats the numerals at lenght in
Talanta, volume XX/-XXI, 1988/89.
Whatever 'thu' and 'esal' would be, 1 and 2 or 2 and 1, the last does
have a Lydian equivalent 'isl-' .
>But why "his own"? The following funerary inscription (TLE 619) should
>explain:
>"cehen suthi hinthiu thues' sians' etve thaure lautnes'cle caresri
>aules' larthial precathuras'i larthialisvle cestnal clenaras'i ..."
>Beekes translates: "This subterranean tomb for the first father [etve?]
>for the family grave has been built by Aule and Larth of the Precu
>family, sons of Larth and Cestnei ..."
>"The first father" (thues' sians') makes no sense (neither would
>Woudhuizen's "second" father). "Their own father" fits much better,
>like it fits to translate "munistas thuvas" as "own (private) gift" in
>the Pyrgi inscription (for "munistas" cf. Latin munus, muneris (*munes-)
>"service, tax, gift").
***The problem is that the meaning of sians is not really known. There
is a divine epitheton 'sans' that *perhaps* could mean 'father'
[Beekes p.48], but to think that 'sians' is the same word is one leap
further....
The translations 'first/second father' could make sense if the boys
had a stepfather ['second father'] or the grave was used to put the
oldest known ancestor ['first father'] in. Actually, the word 'thues'
could well have nothing to do with the numeral, as later in the text
'tunur' is used, a distributive of the numeral, and that is not
written with a 'th'. Now the regular forms were thu/thunur, and
obviously regional writing varients with 't' did occure; but surely
not in the same text? So agree with you here that there is no need to
see 'thues'/'thuvas' as a form of the numeral. But whether the
meaning 'own' is attractive..... For which father would they build a
grave than their own?! Seems superfluous.
Your translation of the Pyrgi tablets follows in most cases Beekes
who has nearly all questionmarks. In a few cases you follow
Woudhuizen:
- 'munistas' from 'munes'='gift' [Beekes seeks a 'wild' link with
Latin 'mundus' ="place"'.]
- 'tameresca' - templecomplex, holy place
- 'churvar' = KRR
And you have some suggestions found by neither of the two:
- 'tulerase' - temple domain, area set apart for sacred use? - 'tular'
= border, rather attractive
- 'acnasvers' - burntoffering? - 'verse'=fire
- 'tesiameitale' - she favours him? - perhaps rather connected to
'tes[am]' = "to care for"?
- 'sal cluvenias' = offerfeast for Sol - cleva ="gift"
- 'snuiaph' = greater?
The 'cluvenias' is attractive, as that would render the words in the
Phoenician text more closely. But the Sol is not, as the Etr had their
own name for the sungod, and this element 'sal' appears in many text,
apparantly as some verb? Perhaps a form of the verb 'selace' later on
in the text? Beekes thinks 'sal/sela' means 'to do'/'to dedicate',
Woudhuizen has 'to offrer as sacrifice' [with possible connection with
Luwian 'sarla' of the same meaning].
What is the basis of your notion of 'snuiaph'? Only this text and its
context? And why do you render ''-chva' as '-count'? And not as a
collective as Beekes does?
regards,
Aayko Eyma
Subject: Re: The Coming of the Greeks
From: petrich@netcom.com (Loren Petrich)
Date: Sun, 10 Nov 1996 09:26:13 GMT
In article <563dli$ghl@dfw-ixnews6.ix.netcom.com>,
Stella Nemeth wrote:
>What makes English a Germanic language? Just to make my question
>clear, I'm not arguing that it isn't a Germanic language. I just am
>wondering what parts of the language were considered when the decision
>was made to classify it that way?
The stuff that seldom gets borrowed, such as morphology and basic
vocabulary, such as pronouns. Consider the distinction between "strong"
and "weak" verbs, which is paralleled in other Germanic languages. The
strong ones have vowel shifts and sometimes a -n ending, while the weak
ones end with -ed or its equivalent (-t, -te, ...). The strong verbs are
all rather commonplace ones ("give", "come", "see", "sing", "take", "ride"
...), while all new verbs that are not a strong-verb-containing compound
get the weak conjugation; in linguistic terms, it is "productive". Thus,
"arrive", which MCV mentions, is a weak verb, as is any verb ending in
-ate or -ize (both borrowed suffixes). However, the conjugation of the
verb is not borrowed; thus, we say "we arrive" instead of "we arrivons"
and "I have arrived" instead of "I suis arrive'" or "I am arrive'" or "I
have arrive'".
Also, count from 1 to 10 in the various Germanic and Romance
languages. English's names for these numbers looks *much* more like the
other Germanic ones than the Romance ones, despite abundant opportunities
for borrowing.
>The reason I'm asking is that your example of borrowing in the quoted
>paragraph made me realize that English doesn't have the same sentence
>structure as German. In fact, mostly English uses the same sentence
>structure as the Romance langauages I've studied (not well, not long
>and I can't speak or read any these days ).
What do you mean? And how is sentence structure so crucial? I may
note that English differs from the Romance languages in noun-adjective
order; in English, the adjective almost always comes before the noun,
while in the Romance langs (at least those I'm familiar with), the
adjective usually comes after the noun. Thus, English "white house",
German "weisse Haus" (?), but French "maison blanche" and Spanish "casa
blanca" (word-for-word: "house white").
[A lot of taking MCV's tongue-in-cheek coinage of "comez" seriously".]
--
Loren Petrich Happiness is a fast Macintosh
petrich@netcom.com And a fast train
My home page: http://www.webcom.com/petrich/home.html
Mirrored at: ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/pe/petrich/home.html