<html>
<head>
<img align=right src="pbs390b.jpg" alt="">
<title>Listserv Archives</title>
</head>
<body>
<h2><b> HASTRO-L LOG9909 Archive Note</b></h2><hr>
<pre>
<CODE>
Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1999 11:00:36 EDT
Reply-To: History of Astronomy Discussion Group <HASTRO-L@WVNVM.WVNET.EDU>
Sender: History of Astronomy Discussion Group <HASTRO-L@WVNVM.WVNET.EDU>
From: Andis Kaulins <AKaulins@AOL.COM>
Subject: Indo-European and Astronomy
Comments: cc: kelley@hama-med.ac.jp
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
In einer eMail vom 07.09.99 14:42:30 (MEZ) - Mitteleurop. Sommerzeit schreib=
t
kelley@HAMA-MED.AC.JP:
Re: Stonehenge 5 - The Standard of Measure and Ley Lines
> According to Carl Darling Buck's (1949) A Dictionary of Selected
> Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages, Old Lithuanian
> INKSTYS and modern Lithuanian NKYSTIS, as well as Lettic (i.e. Latvian)
> IKSTIS and Old Prussian INSTIXS, all meaning 'thumb', are thought to be
> derived from proto-Indo-European ENGW(-EN)- 'groin, internal organ' by
> way of an intermediate meaning of 'swelling'. Cognates include Latin
> INGUEN 'groin' and Greek ADEN 'gland, gut'. So it is doubtful that the
> Lithuanian and Lettic words for 'thumb' are related to English INCH, at
> least based on the standard historical linguistics reference books.
Sorry, but Buck - a non-speaker of Baltic - was writing way back in 1949 -
and what he writes is nonsense.Thumbs are not named after the groin nor
because they are swollen.The Indo-Europeanists have confused the Latvian
term for thumb with IEKSH- "inner" and AKNA "liver". This is the kind of=20
sorrowfully
sloppy lexical linguistics which has prevailed for centuries.
In recent years, modern linguists have taken a position that Latvian
and Lithuanian are the most archaic of all still spoken Indo-European tongue=
s=20
-
which fits in well with Pitman and Ryan's recent book, Noah's Flood
(Simon & Schuster) and the geologically undeniable inundation of the Black S=
ea
by the Aegean (through the Bosporus) ca. 5500 BC - with subsequent migration
of the "Indo-Europeans"- and their astronomy - out of the Black Sea region.
Prof. Rainer Eckert (Univ. Greifswald) writes (1971) in Baltistische Studien=
,=20
that "a series of researches, especially in the Soviet Union, demonstrate ho=
w
important the evidence of the Baltic languages is for a partial reconstructi=
on
of Indo-European".
For example, V.V. Ivanov in Zeitschrift fuer Slawistik,
"Zur Herkunft einiger baltischer Verbalformen", Vol. XXIII, 1978, writes
that the 3rd person singular in its thematic form is so archaic in Baltic
that it "represents an early stage in the development of language comparable
to that in proto-Tocharian and proto-Anatolian".
Gamkrelidze and Ivanov challenged the prevailing language tree
(and thus the prevailing etymolgies) in 1985, demonstrating pronunciation=20
changes in the
Caucasus,and the Kartvalian family of languages, contrary to prevailing=20
linguistic rules.
Hence, they reconfigured the language tree. Everyone laughed until the=20
Americans
Donald Ringe, Ann Taylor and Tandy Warrow of the University of Pennsylvania
- in 1995 - repeated the work of Gamkrelidze and Ivanov on a computer=20
analysis of the world's
languages - and, at first unbelieving - confirmed their linguistic results.=20
As Pitman and Ryan
write, p. 212 of Noah's Flood, Simon & Schuster (1999)
"What Gamkrelidze had deduced and what the computer had confirmed was an=20
initial
bifurcation [of Indo-European] into two trunks
- one for southerners, the speakers of Anatolian, and the other for=20
northerners,
who then divided into groups migrating [from the Black Sea /Baltic Sea area]
into the interior of Europe,
the speakers of Celtic groups traveling to the Mediterranean coast of Europe=
,
the speakers of Italic;
and groups adventuring eastward into the heart of central Asia,
speaking the ancestral form of Tocharian [very similar to Baltic, esp.=20
Tocharian B].
Hence, you can pretty much toss Buck and Pokorny
(with their predominating unfounded reliance on Greek and Latin forbears)
into the wastebasket as hopelessly outdated. It is the linguistics of=20
yesteryear.
However, when Kelley quotes Klein's Etymological dictionary, that "inch"=20
also goes back to counting he is right:
The Latvians use the thumb to count for "one" and place
two thumbs together to measure "two inches", i.e. "divi inkshki".
(That you will find documented in Muehlenbachs-Endzelins
definitive historical Latvian-German dictionary in 4 volumes).
Here are "Nostratic" words relating to counting and measure
LANGUAGE WORD MEANING
Latvian CIK (TSIK) "How many" "How much"
Latvian CIKos "At what time"
Latvian TIK "so much, so=A0many, so few"
Latvian TIKai "only"
Latvian IK "every, every one"
Latvian IKI "exactly, singly"
Latvian IK-skis INKskis "thumb*
Finnic IKSKI "one"
Indo-European *dik "point with a finger"
Inuit Eskimo tik "index finger"
AmerIndian tik "finger"
Latvian dieg- "string, slender object"
Uralic ik, odik, itik "one"
Nilo-Saharan tok, tek, dik "one"
Sino-Tibetan tik "one"
Na-Dene tek tiki tak "one"
The first "one" was the thumb on the hand, at least for the decimal counters=
,
e.g. the Germans.
"Three" in Germany is shown by the thumb and the next two fingers.
The dozen counters use the index finger, so that in England and America,
it is common to use the middle three fingers to show the concept of "three".
I suggest you look at my website pages on Hittite, Akkadian, Pharaonic
Egyptian and Sumerian at:
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi15.htm - Latvian
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi16.htm - Lu(t)wian Hittite
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi37.htm - Latvian and Sumerian
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi53.htm - Latvian and Pharaonic Egyptian
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi55.htm - Akkadian (also lexi94.htm)
or failing to access those, the same pages under
htpp://members.aol.com/ikaulins/expak/expak15.htm expak 16.htm etc.
Be assured, there is a revolution underway in linguistics and astronomy.
- Andis Kaulins, J.D. Stanford University; Lecturer, University of Trier
</CODE>
</pre>
</body>
</html>