Babel (was Re: Dutch Treat (1885))

[Mark A Mandel]

On Thu, 7 Nov 2002, James A. Landau wrote:

#>  The prima
#>  facie evidence for onomatopoeia seems fairly good. How widespread is
#>  this one worldwide?
#
#You may be right about onomatopoeia but your suggested evidence is tricky.
#If "babble" occurs in a number of languages, then it is probably due to the
#Book of Genesis, which is known worldwide.

That depends on a whole lot of things. F'rinstance, if (and I have no
idea) Sanskrit contains a word like "babble" and meaning about the same,
it is probably not from a Biblical source. I don't KNOW about any of
this; I was suggesting an alternative origin for "Berber" to the
"barbaros" source that someone (sorry, don't remember who) posited, and
pointing to a possible line of inquiry.