LL-L "History" 2006.05.23 (06) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 23 May 2006 * Volume 06
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From: "Paul Finlow-Bates" <wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "History" 2006.05.23 (05) [E]

From: "Heather Rendall"
Subject: LL-L "Appellations" 2006.05.22 (02) [E]

If there is
continuity in the megalith culture, surely there must have been a common
language?

Heather

  It ain't necessarily so, as many examples illustrate.  Papua New Guinea
shows some
remarkable continuity of some cultural traits across the country; the
value put on
Kina shell bracteates, the universal use of the kundu drum with its
"hourglass"
shape.  Yet the country also  has more languages for it's population than
anywhere
else on earth.

  Hopi and Zuni artifacts are very hard to tell apart, but the languages
are as
different as English and Chinese.  Arapaho-Apache were culturally almost
indistinguishable from the Arapaho themselves - but spoke a dialect of
Apache,
totally unrelated to Arapaho.

  The megalithic cult need not have required large numbers of people to
spread it,
just some influential and knowledgeable ones.  And the ones who passed to
the next
folks eastward weren't necessarily those who brought it in the first place.

  Consider how Christianity spread throughout Europe without everyone
learning
Aramaic or Koine Greek.  On the other hand, Islam was accompanied by
Arabic over
much, but not all, of its realm.  So what you you say could be true, but
it is far
from automatic.

  Paul Finlow-Bates

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: History

Hi again, Paul!

That was another set of interesting points.  Apparently there are forces
at work that we don't full understand at this time.  Perhaps much depends
on the nature or mode of contact and the dynamics associated with them. 
Also, I have a feeling we are dealing with strata or levels.

As you said, material culture (and I should add religion, mythology and
oral literature) can be shared by communities speaking unrelated languages
(even before the advent of modern technology).

And, on another level, unrelated languages may share large portions of
their phonologies, as I have mentioned previously.  The languages of the
American Pacific Northwest (from Northern California to Central Alaska)
are a good example of this.  They belong to more than one family
(Athabaskan, Tlingit, Haida, Wakashan, Cayuse, Quileute, Wappo, Salishan,
Penutian), but they have similar phonemic and allophonic inventories.  At
the same time, they have a lot of customs and material culture in common. 
In other words, cultures and phonologies are similar but the languages
belong to unrelated groups and families.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

----------

From: "Ingmar Roerdinkholder" <ingmar.roerdinkholder at WORLDONLINE.NL>
Subject: LL-L "History" 2006.05.23 (05) [E]

"...because the Celts married the women they found and the
>women developed a pidgin based on their own language's grammar and the
>vocabulary of their 'new men'..."

Married them? They probably just raped and enslaved them after killing
their men, because that is the way it has always gone and still with
conquerers.
Arabic doesn't have the same verb order as Welsh at all, and Berber and
Coptic are not at all the same as Arabic.
Btw, a common megalith cultures says nothing about the language; I mean,
the Japanese, the Nigerians and the Indians all have sky scrapers, cars
and fast food restaurants nowadays, just as the Americans, but they don't
speak the same or even related (first) languages, do they?

Groetz
Ingmar

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