Biology trumps linguistics?

[Joel S. Berson]

Yes, clearly the Truth is that the primal
location of the forking of proto-Indo-European was the at the Tower of Babel.

But the Tower of Babel was not in Armenia (nor in
the steppes above the Black Sea) -- it was on the
plain of Shinar, "a biblical geographical locale
of uncertain boundaries in Mesopotamia."

Although the western part of the former
Mesopotamia is in modern-day Anatolia, Turkey,
the hint from "Shinar" is a location in
modern-day Iraq.  "The name may be a corruption
of Hebrew Shene neharot ("two rivers"), Hebrew
Shene arim ("two cities"),[2] or Akkadian Sumeru
(from the Sumerians' name for Sumer, which meant
perhaps "land of the civilized lords" or "native
land")."  [Previous quotes from Wikipedia.]  That
suggests a populated area, somewhere near Baghdad
or Babylon (two cities), where the Tigris and
Euphrates come near each other (two
rivers).  JewishEncyclopedia.com actually says
"SHINAR. ­Biblical Data: Name for Babylonia
occurring eight times in the Old Testament. ...
­Critical View: It is clear from Gen. x. 10 (J)
that Shinar was the Hebrew name of a land which
included both Babylon and Erech, i.e., both northern and southern Babylonia."

Joel

At 8/25/2012 05:24 AM, Michael Newman wrote:
>Wait, no. It should have shown the Truth. It was right at the Tower of Babel!!
>Actually, a colleague once had a distraught
>student tell her after a language origins unit
>in a 101, that this violated what her preacher said.
>
>
>
>
>Michael Newman
>Associate Professor of Linguistics
>Queens College/CUNY
>michael.newman at qc.cuny.edu
>
>
>
>On Aug 25, 2012, at 5:35 AM, Eric Nielsen wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the
> mail header -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Eric Nielsen <ericbarnak at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: Biology trumps linguistics?
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Turkey or Armenia?
> >
> > Eric
> >
> > On Fri, Aug 24, 2012 at 3:06 PM, Victor
> Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:
> >
> >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >> -----------------------
> >> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> >> Subject:      Re: Biology trumps linguistics?
> >>
> >>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >> But of course it did! Right at the foot of Mt. Ararat, in the shadow of
> >> Noah's Ark. So did every other family tree--they just haven't tested
> >> /that/ hypothesis yet.
> >>
> >>     VS-)
> >>
>
>
>
> >> On 8/24/2012 1:07 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> >>> "Family Tree of [Indo-European] Languages Has Roots in Anatolia,
> >>> Biologists Say", by Nicholas Wade.
> >>> NYTimes, today (Aug. 24), A8 (N.E. Edition).
> >>> http://tinyurl.com/bw59qly
> >>>
> >>> (The illustration's legend begins with an unfortunate sentence: "A
> >>> new study suggests that the sprawling Indo-European family of
> >>> languages originated in Anatolia, or modern-day Turkey."  Surely the
> >>> I-E family did not originate in modern-day Turkey.)
> >>>
> >>> Joel
> >>
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> >>
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