A View of the Ancient World and its Modern Revolutions at Tribes With Flags by Friedman at the NYTimes.com

Thomas L. Friedman at the New York Times reports on recent revolutions in Tribes With Flags.

It is a modern view of the ancient world. What will become it?

Hat tip to CaryGEE.

The Hebrew Language: Its Relation to Indo-European in Light of Daniel Sivan, Grammatical Analysis and Glossary of the Northwest Semitic Vocables in Akkadian Texts of the 15th-13th C. B.C. from Canaan and Syria

Franz Bopp, the founder of comparative linguistics, as well as August von Schlözer, who coined the term "Semitic" only 200 years ago, saw ancient Indo-European connections to Hebrew. I have examined some word groups below and draw attention to the following sources, especially to the work of Daniel Sivan, work which I have studied but which is -- surprisingly -- not sufficiently known in the linguistic world, to the detriment of modern linguistics, whose understanding of the ancient languages of the Ancient Near East and including the Egyptian hieroglyphs would profit greatly if they simply read and applied Sivan's findings!

Major References: (Library Volumes)

• Botterweck et al., Theologisches Woerterbuch zum Alten Testament (in 8 volumes), Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart (standard work)
  
• Jenni and Westermann, Theologisches Handwörterbuch zum Alten Testament, Chr. Kaiser Verlag, Munich, 1976 (in 2 volumes)
  
• Wilhelm Gesenius, Hebraeisches und Aramaeisches Handwoerterbuch ueber das Alte Testament, 18th ed., Springer Verlag, 1995.
  
• Daniel Sivan, Grammatical Analysis and Glossary of the Northwest Semitic Vocables in Akkadian Texts of the 15th-13th C. B.C. from Canaan and Syria, Volume 214, Alter Orient und Altes Testament, Verlag Butzon & Bercker Kevelaer, 1984, based on the El-Amarna Tablets, The Alalah Tablets (Level IV), The Akkadian Texts from Ugarit (Ras Shamra), and The Tacanak Tablets
  "Here are the changes found by Sivan in the Northwest Semitic Vocabules which every linguist should examine in the future:
  
  •  i/e, u/a, i/u, aw>o
  • ay>e
  • i+u>u
  • i+a>a/i
  • uw>u
  • iy>i
  • i+i>i
  • i+e>e/i
  • assimilation of vowels to bilabial consonants
  • assimilation of a short vowel to a long vowel following it
  • vowel assimilation in words not beginning with '
  • a shift of a>o (this is also found in Indo-European where most words beginning with S in Latvian are SA- but are found shifted in Greek to SU-) 
  • ana>una (look at Lithuanian ana)
  • dropped vowels as a result of stress shift (in Latvian, where all words are stressed on the first syllable, the initial vowels following the initial consonant are pretty resilient -- but they start to disappear when stress is shifted to later syllables and short vowels disappear more quickly than long ones)
  • a shift of b/p, p/m, m/n
  • many changes among the dentals - going from fricatives or palatalized dentals to simple sibilants or simple dentals
  • shift of n/l
  • assimilation of R, L and N to the consonant following
  • nazalization of n
  • shift of s>sh
  • shift of w>y at the beginning of a word
  • y/w dropped between vowels
  • y is dropped at the beginning of words in certain cases
  • ya>a/i
  • assimilation of y to the consonant following it
  • - etc.
• Muehlenbachs and Endzelins, Latvian-German Historical Dictionary
  
  Examine the following word groups as samples.
  
  
  • Earth, Erde, Eretz, Zeme, Khemia, Hemi-, Humus 
  • Creation, Birth, Child
  • Word for Fire and Related Concepts
  • Elders, Parents, Man and Woman
  • Star Words
  • Water Words
  • The Sun
  • The Moon     
   

The Kaulins Ancient Sign Concordance, Chomsky and Lakoff

One need not be a behaviorist sludge to see that the shoe must fit the foot, not even speaking of socks. "Women speak because they wish to speak, whereas a man speaks only when driven to speak by something outside himself like, for instance, he can't find any clean socks." - Jean Kerr 

Therefore, the idea that speech, language and grammar are inherent in the human brain is ... quaint and directly contradicted, by none other than Eve's inheritors, who point to the necessity of outside influence.

We have just been reading Ben Smith at Politico.com in
The linguistic wars, all on the left
and marvelling at the inexigency (we coin it) of a modern linguistic world caught in its own virtual artificially created vision of human speech where theoretical grammatical constructs rather than real actual lexicology (word content) allegedly form the essence of language.

Theory over common sense prevails in modern linguistics, to the loss of the real world of actual language.

Could contemporary linguists decipher 00 on the Moon or would they be left in the dust? Verily.

The whole subject area is a paradise of rollicking relics for skeptics, panoramizing renown linguists astoundingly adept at broadcasting abstruse theories about language cognition more successfully than they are at unraveling the undeciphered mysteries of real human languages actually used in the past.

That work remains for others, who in order to succeed, must be firmly rooted in simple lexical parameters and "banal" human concepts of content and meaning.

The real question in this vein is whether the Kaulins Ancient Sign Concordance MinAegCon supports Chomsky's theory that the human mind instinctively "cognizes" thought grammatically as part of its innate structure, thus leading to a generative grammar, presumably of syllabic pictographic shape, even in the era of the origins of writing, or, to the contrary, as Lakoff might argue, whether these pictographic signs and symbols in syllabic expression are tangible evidence of subtle metaphors of meaning bound like Prometheus in intellectual struggle beyond the lexical pale?

The chicken or the egg!? Chicken feathers! Bite your tongue! And silence your lips. "It is all in your mind." Chomsky. Grammar rules there and it rules from the womb.

Much discussed, but little proven, we asked someone who should know.
Our pet parrot just said "poppycock". Now there is a born grammarian!

And yet, the resolution of the linguistic wars will surely not come from a study of language as it is found TODAY in our Western-Centric Marshall McLuhan media world. It is a world where not only grammar but also metaphor are often strangers to "kauderwelsh language posters" that dot the landscape of the likes of Facebook and Twitter.

Rather, the linguistic wars will abide when language AS IT WAS -- long ago, elsewhere, beyond the borders of Europe -- and far before the modern era, is studied AND understood. That age is yet to come.

As if it mattered in a world of inherent clones?

By "inherent grammatic theory", diverse invading hordes, Golden, barbarian or otherwise, necessarily thought as we do. They could not otherwise. We are innately all language wizards in our core, sharing an underlying identical language structure. What use then the linguists you may ask? We ask the same question.

Or can we envision the mind inherent in Chomsky's innate language virtually firing up and illuminating the ancient landscape as we come to understand the clear sign relations of diverse languages as revealed in the Kaulins Concordance?

Perhaps only the signs change and the grammar stays constant?

Or are the signs more-or-less constant and is it the grammar that changes?

Decipherment work suggests the second is more true than the first.

Manifestly, there must also have been a common physical origin in terms of human sign invention, albeit a mankindly creation immediately recognizable intellectually by others -- via their shared innate cognitive patterns.

In modern parlance: the first signs, inherent in origin, were instantly copyable.

To a man trained in the law, one might even easily argue today before a judge in a court of law on the basis of modern linguistic dogma that alleged legal infractions such as copyright infringement are INGRAINED in the human condition, for the grammar of any text allegedly stolen is inherent in all.

INHERENT, your honor. Certain forms of expression are GIVEN. We can not do otherwise. Chomsky. Like shooting sitting ducks. Pardon the metaphor. Lakoff.

But who are we to challenge sacred cows?

The linguistic wars rage on, oblivious to the foreboding oracles of Minoan, Aegean, Cypriot, Luvian, Elamite, Sumerian or Hieroglyphic scripts, where grammar is rare and content is pervasive.

That there is so much disagreement in linguistics, by the way, is rather a politically incorrect puzzlement, given the innately blessed character of the subject matter, think ye not? And surely overdone for anyone seeking rarely cooked metaphors.

Or is the inherency of language so deeply submerged that it is difficult to identify?

Potentially, a born analytical mind prone to metaphor might invoke the question whether spoken language, written language and modern linguistics are potentially separated each from the other by a cognitive digamma. A digamma is a letter that has come and gone as vivacious as the wind. That is the loss of inherency. WOW!

A Speculative Question About W-Based Syllables in esp. Cuneiform Luvian (Luwian): Are These Determinants of Vowel Harmony Rather than Self-Sufficient W-Based Syllables?

This is quite speculative and an area I leave to interested linguists since these kinds of technical linguistic questions are not my main interest.

This has little to do with my syllabic grid in the Ancient Sign Concordance, but I saw this problem and I thought I would mention it.

In Luvian (especially later cuneiform Luvian) one could ask whether the W-based signs, currently transliterated as "syllables" are actually a form of vowel "determinants", which in Luvian would mean that they mark labial, pharyngeal, uvular or velar sounds or something similar, or, possibly mark vowel harmony.

I have read online about "vowel harmony" in the Ural-Altaic languages like Turkish and Mongolian, which I do not speak, so I can not address this issue any further, but vowel harmony could explain the W-based "syllables" in cuneiform Luvian especially, which appear to have been developed to deal with vowel harmony in a language foreign to the original Luvians.

[Here is an updated link to an understandable article on vowel harmony and the languages of the world that have it.]

This would in any case not be an element of the base Luvian Indo-European language and could hence in cuneiform Luvian be a borrowing from Hittite, which I sense to be a Turkish type of language.
  
Hence, in cuneiform Luvian especially, it might be speculated that the W-based symbols are not "pronounced" per se but instruct the reading of the "modified" vowels in terms of "vowel harmony", where in grammatical elements the subsequent vowel is modified to agree with the vowel of the preceding syllable (base word).

Or, vice versa, someone accustomed to vowel harmony might be trying to write a foreign language using those basic aspects of a language he knows.

That might explain having too many vowels in words the way Luvian is currently transliterated and bring some new insights.

Again, this is speculative and a product of my sensing that original Hieroglyphic Luvian and later cuneiform Luvian are languages that may be wide apart from one another.

Mycenaean Linear B - Mykenisch Linear B - Minoan Signs - the Online Learning Module viz. Qedoc Quiz

Qedoc has a learning module viz. quiz titled
Mycenaean Linear B - Mykenisch Linear B

 by
Anja Junghänel

It is a Java application with some possible initial messages about security issues upon downloading, but we ran it without difficulty, though this is no guarantee for anyone else. Caveat emptor.

If you have followed my postings on the Minoan Aegean Sign Concordance, this quiz should prove easier for you than it would have been before.

Hieroglyphic Luwian - Syllabograms -- the Online Learning Module viz. Qedoc Quiz

Qedoc has a learning module viz. quiz titled
Hieroglyphic Luwian - Syllabograms
by
Anja Junghänel

Anyone who thinks this ancient language sign study is easy should try that one.

It is a Java application with some possible initial messages about security issues upon downloading, but we ran it without difficulty, though this is no guarantee for anyone else. Caveat emptor.

Syllabic Grid of Ancient Scripts : Luvian MinAegCon Syllabic Grid Conclusion

More than 30 years ago, I deciphered the Phaistos Disk (also written Phaistos Disc) as a mathematical problem of parallel lines and that decipherment stands up to the MinAegCon + Luvian syllabic grid that I have just finished publishing.

There are some minor corrections to be made there by me in the future since I did have to move a few of the signs around based upon that MinAegCon syllabic grid, but by and large the decipherment of the Phaistos Disk as Ancient Mycenaean Greek and as an ancient version of Euclid's 5th postulate (its converse) on parallel lines remains intact.

ALL of the signs on the Phaistos Disk are syllabic and none of them represent any of the vowels or W-based syllables later encountered in the ancient scripts of the grid.

That remarkable fact not only makes it impossible that the Phaistos Disk was forged, as some observers have ventured, but it also suggests that either the Phaistos Disk -- or its predecessor - was either made prior to the addition of vowel signs or W-based signs to the writing system, or, more likely, that the maker to save space intentionally stuck to syllabic signs. Only someone who knew the language perfectly could have done so. No forger would have been able to differentiate ancient signs in terms of syllables, w-based syllables and vowels.

Indeed, the scholars working on these scripts today have a hard time identifying the language value of the syllables, period, and the MinAegCon syllabic grid will ultimately lead to an improvement of the decipherment of syllabic and vowel signs and the attendant scripts in all ancient written languages.

Summa summarum, all things considered, the MinAegCon syllabic grid + Luvian contributes to us vast amounts of new knowledge and understanding about how the landmark technology of writing by human beings on our planet began and how it developed in the early civilizations of mankind.

Syllabic Grid of Ancient Scripts: Luvian Vowels and W-Based Syllabes Update to the Minoan Aegean Sign Concordance MinAegCon by Andis Kaulins

Syllabic Grid of Ancient Scripts: Luvian Vowels and W-Based Syllabes Update to the Minoan Aegean Sign Concordance MinAegCon by Andis Kaulins

The quality of the image scan here is improved over the version posted at 66.

(continued from ZU Luvian Update)

This posting updates the series started here by adding Luvian (also spelled Luwian, formerly Hieroglyphic Hittite) to the syllabic grid for the Vowels and the W-Based syllables originally published at 66 - Vowels and W-Based Syllables : Origins of Writing in Western Civilization and the Kaulins Minoan Aegean Sign Concordance (MinAegCon™): A Syllabic Grid of Mycenaean Greek Linear B Script, the Cypriot Syllabary, the Phaistos Disk, two Old Elamite Scripts, the Inscription on the Axe of Arkalochori, and Comparable Signs from Sumerian Pictographs and Egyptian Hieroglyphs.

If I have found no comparable Luvian syllable in mainstream sources, there is no update posting for that syllable. This applies particularly to syllables with the vowel "O", which predecessor Sumerian did not have (apparently also not in Luvian). Syllables with the vowel "E" are alleged by Luvian scholars not to have been used for Luvian, though I think otherwise. My research indicates that also Luvian had "consonant plus vowel E" (or similar sound) syllables and I include them if I have been able to identify them (provisionally, of course, subject to ultimate confirmation).

Each syllable will be presented in its own posting.

There is first a scanned image of a "syllabic" grid excerpt from the original Microsoft Word manuscript -- the links there are not clickable because it is one image.

The original text follows -- the links there are clickable -- but embedded fonts or images may be missing because Blogger does not pick them all up from Microsoft Word, so use the scanned image for those.

Vowels & W-based Syllables + Luvian in the Minoan Aegean Sign Concordance (Andis Kaulins)

CHANGED HEADINGS			CHANGED	CHANGED HEADINGS	CHANGED
Syllabic Value of the Sign (Symbol)	Cypriot Syllabary	Linear B (Ventris etc.)	Linear B Vowel Signs	Cyprian VOWELS Relative Articulation	Egyptian hieroglyphs	Sumerian pictographs
A (“ah”) א - Alef This vowel placement merely highlights some observations and is not and can not be like the convincing analysis of the previous syllables, for the Phaistos Disk has no vowel signs at all, so that full-fledged vowels must have developed later at other locations.	Cyprian W-Signs _______ There seems to be a genetic relationship between the W-based syllables and the vowels.	Linear B W-Signs _______ Luvian a, "Á e.g. Latvian acs „eye“	Linear B VOWELS � �(08) “A” The vowel “A” as in “ah”	Cypriot Syllabary signs show how the vowel sound is made “A” � � The vowel “A” The mouth is “full, open, even” “A” is LABIAL	Egyptian “A”    „J“ LABIAL Luvian W, WA	Sumerian "A3", WA, WE, WI, WU “arms, side” (Jaritz #688) Luvian 7, "À" e.g. Latvian āķis „hook“
AE from an original AE ה - He οἶκος “house, dwelling place” Latvian ēka „large building, edifice, hall” was = Latvian valds “rule”, see also Latvian vars, valdīšana „power, dominion”	Cypriot syllabary � � WA _______ This sign is upside down of Cyprian MA ἄε-μμα	Linear B � �(54) WA “temple” dominion (Luvian  "dominion")	Linear B � �(38) “E” The vowel “E” A rounded “temple” dominion	Cyprian vowel “E” � � The vowel “E” The mouth is “full, open”, plus more from the throat or side” “E” is PHARYNGEAL	Egyptian was “dominion” “AE” PHARYNGEAL	Sumerian “E” temple dominion (Jaritz #574) Luvian V WA
E, I י – Yod (Yad is Hebrew for “hand”) εὔινος , ον, (ἴς) “with stout fibers” ? These signs point to a concept related to “hand”. Latvian iedot “in give” and ieņem “in take” may provide a clue	Cypriot syllabary � � WI	Linear B � �(75) WE Luvian X, "Ax"	Linear B � �(28) “I” The vowel “I”	Cyprian vowel “I” � � The vowel “I” “less full or open, and more from the top” “I” IS UVULAR	Egyptian “the arm” “IE” UVULAR Luvian ç WÍ	Sumerian “I” (Jaritz #270) “five” i.e. as “hand, arm” Luvian A,"I" ! ?
I, O ו – Waw ὄντα that which one has as possessions or property inside the house (compare to the next vowel)	Cypriot syllabary � � WE	Linear B � �(40) WI one sees the “I” within the tent-like sign	Linear B � �(61) “O” The vowel “O”	Cyprian vowel “O” � � The vowel “O” “toward the bottom” “O” is VELAR”	Egyptian “OO” “W” VELAR Luvian í WA5	Sumerian There was no “O” in Sumerian. Luvian &and Ü I, IÁ
O, U ו - Waw house, roof or eye over one’s head (that which one has a domicile) οὐσία one's own substance, property, outside the house, i.e. the dwelling Indo-European Homophonic (same- sounding) is e.g. Latvian UZ “on, above”	Cypriot syllabary � � WO “house, roof or eye over one’s head” (outside)	Linear B � �(42) WO having an eye on one’s domicile”	Linear B � �(10) “U” The vowel “U” “raised high”	Cyprian vowel “U” � � The vowel “U” “mostly closed and the lips out” “raised high” “U” is a HIGH BACK CLOSE VOWEL	Sumerian Ú, U5, U11 (Jaritz #122, 123) “raised high” Luvian WA "terra"	Sumerian U3, U7 (Jaritz #805) “eye on domicile” Luvian F WA6 “terra”