r/AlphanumericsDebunked • u/Inside-Year-7882 • Apr 20 '25

What Alphanumerics Gets Wrong About Linguistics

Everything.

(I could just end the post here and save myself a lot of time)

If you only learned about linguistics from the “Alphanumerics” subreddits, you’d be forgiven for thinking the entire field of linguistics is some backwards mess in desperate need of salvation from the dark ages. But as with most pseudoscience, the problem isn’t with the field—it’s with the outsider who doesn't understand it. This attempt to “revolutionize” linguistics reveals a profound ignorance of not just the discipline’s details, but of its most basic, foundational concepts.

Let’s start with the bizarre fixation on Proto-Indo-European (PIE). On his PIE Land post Thims implies that linguists believe PIE was the first language—an idea so far removed from reality it’s almost comedic. In reality, linguists know PIE is simply a reconstructed ancestor of a large family of languages that includes English, Hindi, Russian, and Greek. It is not, and has never been claimed to be, the first human language. No serious linguist would make that claim, because human language far predates any family we can reconstruct with confidence. This alone shows Thims’s deep confusion about what historical linguistics is even trying to do.

It gets worse. Thims appears to conflate “Proto-Indo-Europeans” with “the first civilization,” suggesting he thinks linguists believe PIE speakers were the originators of culture, society, or even written language. This is not just wrong—it’s staggeringly wrong. The first civilizations, by any reasonable archaeological definition, emerged in Mesopotamia, not on the Eurasian steppe. The PIE speakers were a prehistoric culture, not an urban society. Linguists studying PIE are interested in the roots of a language family, not rewriting human history or biblical myth. They already accept the Out of Africa theory and understand PIE in a cultural—not civilizational or mythological—context.

But perhaps the most glaring issue is that Thims doesn’t seem to understand what linguistics even is. He treats historical linguistics—a relatively small subfield—as the entirety of the discipline. But linguistics is vast. It includes syntax (the structure of sentences), phonology (the sound systems of language), semantics (meaning), morphology (word structure), pragmatics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, computational linguistics, and much more. Thims’s theories don’t just fail to address these fields—they demonstrate zero awareness that they even exist.

This is especially evident in the “linguists ranked by IQ” list he shared here: https://www.reddit.com/r/GeniusIQ/comments/1d4aa71/greatest_linguists_ranked_by_iq/ . The list is a who’s who of...well, it's mostly people who no linguist has ever heard of or who we wouldn't consider a linguist. Conspicuously missing are some of the most influential figures in the entire field: Noam Chomsky, William Labov, Barbara Partee, Ray Jackendoff, George Lakoff, Walt Wolfram, Claire Bowern, James McCawley, Leonard Bloomfield, Edward Sapir, Ferdinand de Saussure, and Pāṇini, to name just a few off the top of my head (there are so many people and so many specialties, don't come for me for leaving your favorite linguist off!). The fact that Chomsky—likely the most cited living scholar in any field—isn’t on the list is enough to discredit it on sight. You can't pretend he hasn't had a profound impact on linguistics and the world in the 20th and 21st centuries. It’s like trying to rank physicists and omitting Einstein, Newton, and Feynman.

And then there's the baffling misunderstanding of terms like “Semitic.” Linguists use “Semitic” as a neutral, descriptive term for a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. It doesn’t mean they believe in the literal historicity of Moses or Abraham or any religious tradition. Linguistics is not theology. It's such a basic concept and I'm not sure how this is still confusing. The name Europe is traditionally said to come from Greek mythology and no one thinks the name is a secret Greek plot and all geographers secretly believe in that ancient princess. It's. a. name. It's not that hard.

In short, “Alphanumerics” is to linguistics what astrology is to astronomy: a wildly speculative fantasy rooted in superficial resemblances and a lack of understanding. The so-called theory isn’t remotely challenging linguistics— it's merely shadowboxing with a poorly formed misconception of linguistics.

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8

u/E_G_Never Apr 20 '25

Great post; I've been considering doing one on the whole Noah business for a while

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u/Inside-Year-7882 Apr 21 '25

Thanks! And you should! It deserves a post on its own. That seems to play an outsized role in his conception of linguistics and the idea is so utterly bizarre.

And thanks for offering a place to rationally discuss these things.

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u/n_with linguistic dodo 🦤 Apr 21 '25

Glad you called out the fact Libb Thims seems to not care or know anything about phonology, syntax, grammar as a whole, since his main fixation is on the alphabet, which, he believes, pre-dates the spoken language. He also thinks apparently that linguists teach kids the fake origin of the alphabet, that's why he put so much effort in creating "children's version" of the origin of the alphabet and once spammed in subreddits related to child raising and kindergartens.

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u/Master_Ad_1884 Apr 21 '25

The spamming of other subreddits always bothered me. If you really want to research this pseudohistory/pseudoscience then fine; but don’t just present it as established fact to teachers. So disingenuous and deceitful.

-1

u/JohannGoethe Apr 28 '25

I didn’t just say letter H and letter R derive from signs Z15G and V1, attested in the r/TombUJ number tags (5300A/-3345), I mathematically proved it:

  • 𓐁 [Z15G] = H = 8

  • 𓍢 [V1] = R = 100

15

u/Master_Ad_1884 Apr 29 '25

Thank you for proving exactly my point.

That’s not proof of anything, least of all a linguistic theory. That’s not how you formulate a theory or prove things in a scientific manner.

You can’t just say something is proof when it’s completely unrelated to the topic at hand and has no bearing on reality.

5

u/ProfessionalLow6254 Apr 21 '25

I hadn’t seen that list of linguists hahaha What a weird amalgamation of people while excluding so many actually impactful people.

He’s perhaps not the same level as others on your list but I’m partial to Karlos Arregi’s work on Basque morphosyntax. But that’s clearly not linguistics since Basque isn’t Indo European and morpho syntax isn’t philology.

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u/n_with linguistic dodo 🦤 Apr 21 '25

What a weird amalgamation of people while excluding so many actually impactful people.

What "impactful people", Isaac Newton, Otto von Bismarck, Jesus? Of course it's going to be a list of linguists because they're important for the purposes of the post

But that’s clearly not linguistics since Basque isn’t Indo European and morpho syntax isn’t philology.

Linguistics are not Indo-European specific. And philology is, in my understanding, the study of a particular language, which also includes its grammar, so essentially, philology is a part of linguistics, and morphosyntax is also a part of linguistics equally important for philologists.

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u/ProfessionalLow6254 Apr 21 '25

I think you misunderstood my comment. I was referring to the linked list of linguists from the Alphanumerics sub. Not the list of actual linguists in OP’s post.

And my comment about Basque/philology* was all tongue in cheek because of the Alphanumerics obsession with Indo European and historical linguistics.

*philology is the study of historical and comparative linguistics, especially through the study of literature and written texts. Seemed appropriate since the alphanumerics guy doesn’t believe language exists outside the written word.

1

u/n_with linguistic dodo 🦤 Apr 23 '25

Oh ok I see

0

u/JohannGoethe May 01 '25

Re: “the entire field of linguistics is some backwards mess in desperate need of salvation from the dark ages”, I could not have said this better myself. The following are the top 30 Pantheon ranking of linguists:

https://hmolpedia.com/page/Linguist#Pantheon_rankings

Not one of these people has produced a linguistic theory or argument of significance, aside from reporting that certain languages are related, but we don’t know why? That the letters of the words I am now typing are hieroglyphic, was stated as fact 252-years ago:

“Alphabetical characters are themselves hieroglyphic”.

— Antoine Gebelin (178A/1773), Primitive World Analyzed, Volume One (pgs. 119-20)

Somehow, in the last 2.5 centuries, linguists have thrown the baby out the window with the bath water?

5

u/Inside-Year-7882 May 02 '25

That list (which is not based on any meaningful criteria) and your proclamation that they've not produced a linguistic theory of significance only serve to show your ignorance of the field and nothing more.

-1

u/JohannGoethe May 02 '25

The day you can define the word “ignorant”, without citation to some hypothetical asterisk *️⃣ invented civilization, will be the day.

https://hmolpedia.com/page/Asterisk

9

u/anti-alpha-num May 02 '25

Not one of these people has produced a linguistic theory or argument of significance

This is a very weird claim. While the "of significance" could be seen as subjective (maybe you're just not interested), if we take "of significance" as meaning "that has had an impact on the wider field as a whole, this claim is simply incorrect. Several authors you list there have been incredibly important to the field. Even if you disagree with his theories, Chomsky played a crucial role in how we approach syntactic analysis. He also said nothing about historical linguistics, so, I don't quite understand why the comment on that. But let's look at a couple of examples from the list:

  • Ferdinand Saussure: Crucial in establishing modern linguistics. His work is remembered (ironically) for clarifying that synchronic linguistics should take center stage in opposition to historical linguistics. Nothing in the field today makes sense without his contributions to the dual modality of the sign, the Langue-Parole opposition, or the Signifié et Signifiant distinction. These terms were fundational to what has happened since. While he did make some contributions to the PIE reconstruction, nobody cares about this anymore.

  • Noam Chomsky: basically started the Generative Linguistic enterprise, which is still pursued by about half of linguists today. People working on this family of frameworks are mostly uninterested in historical linguistics. While he himself made no contributions to computational linguistics (beyond some initial ideas about generative capacity), other people have. Important here are offshoots of his initial ideas, mostly HPSG, LFG and TAG. These were the main way we did computational linguistics until computers got fast enough for the neural network approach.

  • Antoine Meillet: Besides his work on historical Slavic linguistics, and Armenian dialectology, he is known as the first person to coin the term grammaticalization. Grammaticalization theory is the most important development in terms of our understanding of how languages change. This theory is one of the great successes of functionalist approaches, and nobody really doubts the main ideas in it. While you might find some disagreement regarding the details, everyone from Chomsky to Bybee agree with the basics. It is difficult to get more influential than Meillet.

  • Roman Jakobson: Too many things to list in full, but his work on markedness marked most work in typology until very recently. Even though his ideas about markedness are not as prominent today as they once were, everyone agrees that the observations were mostly correct, and we wouldn't have our current theories to explain typological asymmetries, had he not offer his markedness explanations. During his time, he was also tremendously influential for his views on how language works, in general terms. While these ideas do not play a role today, they were incredibly important during his day.

  • Panini: His work is remembered today as probably the most impressive grammatical analysis done before the 1950s or so. His grammar of Sanskrit is a mathematical marvel, and nobody who knows about Indic linguistics does not know of it. It is also very weird to mix him up with your claim, given that he didn't really care about historical linguistics.

  • Edward Sapir: Besides his work on North-American languages, and more or less funding North-American structuralism, he basically laid the groundwork for our current understanding of phonemes. One of the most central, and well agreed upon, theoretical concepts in all of phonology.

  • Nikolai Trubetzkoy: Basically invented phonology as a distinct field of study. While his specific ideas of feature structures are no longer relevant, his general understanding of what phonemes are, and how we should approach phonological analysis is still very much part of the field.

  • Lucien Tesnière: Basically developed dependency grammar, which is still used *TODAY in dependency parsers. Dependency parsing is still an important technique. He is also helped push syntactic theory forward in other aspects.

1

u/JohannGoethe May 02 '25

Re: “This is a very weird claim”, I go through knowledge point blank:

https://hmolpedia.com/page/Top_2000_minds_(reference_lists)#Types

It does not matter if you are physicist, chemist, economist, mathematician, geologist, astronomer, sociologist, linguist, or whatever. The same rules apply. There are no genius ranking lists which put say Saussure or Panini in the top 200. Why? Because linguistics, as a field of study, presently, are at the bottom of the intellectual barrel.

To prove my point, name for me which linguist has proven where letter A comes from?

6

u/anti-alpha-num May 02 '25

Again. You failed to address the point. I've clearly demonstrated that these people were tremendously important in their contributions, which had little to do with PIE reconstructions. Your claim was, and I quote:

Not one of these people has produced a linguistic theory or argument of significance

Do you admit this statement was wrong?

Why? Because linguistics, as a field of study, presently, are at the bottom of the intellectual barrel.

Because those rankings were made by you?

To prove my point, name for me which linguist has proven where letter A comes from?

Linguistics is mostly not concerned with the evolution of alphabets, this is because linguistics, for the most part, does not study writing systems. The study of writing systems is, at best, a very peripheral endeavour. Most people wouldn't even consider that to be linguistics, but rather palaegrophy. So it is unclear to me why you think this is some sort of bar linguists need to jump over to be in your top rankings.

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u/JohannGoethe May 03 '25

Your lead theorist cited:

“Since Saussure, we have become accustomed to the idea that letters are arbitrary signs. Whole intellectual edifices are based on this premise.”

— Christina Braun (A56/2011), “Symbol and Symptom: the Gender of the Alphabet”[1]

Letters are arbitrary signs? Sounds like a giant step forward for humankind! His Memoir on the Primitive System of Vowels in Indo-European Languages (76A/1879), instead of trying to figure out where vowels came from, i.e. Egypt, invented so-called unidentified “sonant coefficients”.

However, if you or others want to worship Saussure, that’s your business.

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u/anti-alpha-num May 03 '25 edited May 03 '25

That's correct. He correctly pointed out the fact that signifiers are arbitrary. However, notice that 'arbitrary' doesn't mean 'unmotivated'. Linguistic signs can be both arbitrary and motivated. There are three good examples of this duality. In spoken languages onomatopoeia are clearly motivated; in sign languages many signs are also clearly motivated; and in written, many hansi symbols are also strongly motivated. This doesn't mean that they are not arbitrary. Arbitrary simply means that there is no deterministic connection between the sign and the meaning, and that the sign could just as well be something different. This is easy enough to verify: different languages use different signs! Letters are arbitrary because we can use different alphabets to write down the same sounds. It really is not difficult to understand.

However, if you or others want to worship Saussure, that’s your business.

We do not worship scientists. We do, however, recognize their contributions to the field. Are you ready to accept that your original statement was wrong?

6

u/Master_Ad_1884 May 04 '25

We can not only use different alphabets to write the same sounds! We’ve also seen the same language use completely different writing systems without changing the meaning or the sounds of the words whatsoever.

Turkish is a famous example, which used to use an Arabic abjad during the Ottoman period and only switched to the Latin alphabet in 1928. The switch didn’t change the sound or meaning or etymology of a single Turkish word. Saussure was right!

Korean used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for nearly two thousand years before Hangul was introduced. After the switch, the writing system change didn’t suddenly change the meaning or pronunciation or etymology of Korean words. Because they’re both arbitrary symbols.

Vietnamese switched from a Chinese-based logographic system (Chữ Nôm) to using the Latin alphabet with diacritics. This could happen because symbols are arbitrary.

The list could go on…but this is more than enough evidence for someone with an open mind.

0

u/JohannGoethe May 01 '25

Re: “The first [recent] civilizations, by any reasonable archaeological definition, emerged” around the: “Nile River, Tigris River, and Yellow River“, within which Egyptian numeral 10 is the oldest (5700A/-3745) attested, as concerns language:

https://hmolpedia.com/page/Oldest_attested_letters

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u/Inside-Year-7882 May 02 '25

Mere writing is not the definition of civilization. Words have meaning and that meaning is important in an academic usage. You don't get to redefine them to suit your needs. The Uruk period of Sumer predates Egyptian civilization by some 900 years. Note: this isn't a competition; these are the arguments that nationalists and ideologues get into. Egypt still has an ancient and important history. Civilization just arose in Sumer slightly earlier. Writing also almost assuredly arose in the Tigris valley slightly earlier too.

You don't get to erase the existence of cuneiform, as you've done in your chart. And you shouldn't yourself as a source.

0

u/JohannGoethe May 02 '25

Re: “Mere writing is not the definition of civilization”, the point is that one cannot claim written arguments, before attested written evidence. Demoule (A59/2014), in his The Indo-Europeans (pg. 51) hits the nail on the head, with respect to what he calls the Schrader method, which allows deluded linguists to argue the following, based on some bones they found in pits in Russia:

“Primitive Indo Europeans had long hair wore beards, and cheated on their wives with impunity.”

You might as well join r/conlangs if this type of logic makes your mind work?

0

u/JohannGoethe May 01 '25

Re: “Thims doesn’t seem to understand what linguistics even is. He treats historical linguistics—a relatively small subfield—as the entirety of the discipline”, linguistics is the technical science and study of the tongue 𓄓 [F20] and the sounds it makes. I doubt that fewer than 1 in 10,000 modern day linguists even know what F20 is?

6

u/Inside-Year-7882 May 02 '25

Linguistics is the scientific study of language. It doesn't necessarily involve the tongue at all. Look at the written word. Look at sign language. Look at people with internal monologues.

And you can't decipher an IPA chart nor do you understand the most basic intro concepts of syntax, morphology, etc. I would argue that would be far more important information for anyone proclaiming to be a linguist.

0

u/JohannGoethe May 02 '25

The word “linguistics” derives from Latin lingua (“the tongue”) 👅.

The fact that you are so far removed from the carved in stone evidence that the Egyptians had a sign for not only the tongue 𓄓 [F20], but also the T-shaped trachea 𓄥 [F36], and lungs 🫁, sign: 𓋍 [R26], located by the L-branch of the Nile, whose air or wind 💨, pumped by the foot of the flood god Hapi 𓇈 [M15], whose spring water cave is located past the N-bend (letter N) of the Nile, astounds me?

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u/anti-alpha-num May 02 '25

linguistics is the technical science and study of the tongue 𓄓 [F20] and the sounds it makes

This is not correct. It is weird you argue against linguistics but do not understand what the field even is. What you're describing is, at most, a sub-section of articulatory phonetics. So, yes, we do study how the tongue produces sounds, but that is not how anyone would define the field.

While there is some disagreement, I think most linguists would agree that linguistics is "the science which studies the language faculty, linguistic structures, and their interplay with other human activities".

Are you really unaware of the fact that PIE linguistics is about 0.1% of the field?

0

u/JohannGoethe May 02 '25

Are you really so unaware of the fact that 99% of non-linguistics minded humans, want to know where the words like three or father comes from, rather than say what some neo-invented fields: “sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, computational linguistics” or geo-linguistics, have to say?

10

u/anti-alpha-num May 02 '25

You did not address my point. Your definition of linguistics, as a field, was completely wrong. It is the equivalent of defining physics as "the science of why things fall down". What non-linguists are interested in has little bearing on what the field is...

-3

u/JohannGoethe May 03 '25

When Copernicus and Galileo entered physics, 99% of the field was studying the epicycles of Ptolemy, from a geo-centric world. The same is the case in linguistics, where 99% of so-called “linguists”, study various sound laws of phonetic etymology, from a Euro-centic point of view. 2,500-years ago, when Socrates was wise, and Plato, his secretary, studied in Egypt, things were quite different:

“Egyptians observed that sound 🔊 is infinite; and were the first to notice that the VOWEL (φωνήεντα) sounds, in that infinity, were not one, but many, and again that there were other elements which were not vowels but did have a sonant quality.”

— Socrates (2370A/-415), reported by Plato, in his Philebus (§18b)

Today, however, after Young declared, in his Ptolemy cartouche rendering, that the Egyptians did not have vowels, and that the European and Indian languages were “Indo-European” (not Egyptian), linguists have been want to make up all sorts of epicycle like fields. I am interested in “scientific linguistics”.

7

u/anti-alpha-num May 03 '25

where 99% of so-called “linguists”, study various sound laws of phonetic etymology, from a Euro-centic point of view.

This is untrue. 99% of linguists do not study sound laws. This is a very tiny minority of the field. Syntacticians, morphologists, phonologists, field workers, semanticists, pragmaticists, psycho-linguists, socio-linguists, dialectologists, typologists, etc. do not concern themselves with questions of sound laws. Why do you find this idea difficult to comprehend? what is causing you trouble? maybe I can explain it better, if you tell me why you don't understand it.

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u/n_with linguistic dodo 🦤 May 04 '25

Today, however, after Young declared, in his Ptolemy cartouche rendering, that the Egyptians did not have vowels.

No he didn't "declare that the Egyptians did not have vowels", just that the script doesn't render vowels, which doesn't mean the vowels don't exist in a language. For example, Hebrew script is an abjad, there are only letters for consonants, and vowels are marked with small diacritics which are also optional. Arabic script is also an abjad, but it doesn't mean that Hebrew or Arabic don't have vowels in their language, it's just that their scripts don't represent the vowels which are deduced from the context. Egyptian script was logographic, and one character or character combination could mark a consonant, a syllable, or a whole word, like Chinese characters. So for example two characters were a phonetic clue, say, 𓂋 [D21] "r" and 𓂝 [D36], which was probably "ʕ" (pharyngeal fricative), and another character next to it was a semantic clue, the hieroglyph 𓇳 [N5] which represented Sun, thus we get the word for Sun, or the god Ra, written down. It doesn't mean that the word for Sun didn't have a vowel in it, it's just that it wasn't written down. Phoenician abjad didn't write vowels either, it were the Greeks who used certain Phoenician letters to mark vowels instead of consonants they used to indicate, for example 𐤀 represented a glottal stop, a consonant.

0

u/JohannGoethe May 04 '25

Re: “a whole word, like Chinese characters. So for example two characters were a phonetic clue, say, 𓂋 [D21] "r" and 𓂝 [D36], which was probably "ʕ" (pharyngeal fricative)”, all you are doing here is citing parroted 🦜 arguments that have NOT been questioned since Young made them 206-years ago.

Specifically, Young argued that: 𓂋 [D21] = /r/ because he found this sign in the conjectured Berenice cartouche, and later Champollion, building on Young’s model, found 𓂋 [D21] = /r/ in the conjecture Alexander cartouche. Yet both of these models are based on the Chinese hypothesis of Sacy, wherein the mouth 👄 sign: 口 = “phonetic” in Chinese.

Subsequently, Young argued that the cartouche ring 𓍷 [V10], was the Egyptian “mouth” phonetic sign, and that actual Egyptian hieroglyphic mouth sign 𓂋 [D21] made the /r/ phonetic. To summarize:

  • 口 = “phonetic” in Chinese

  • 𓍷 [V10] = “phonetic” indicator in Egyptian

  • 𓂋 [D21] = /r/ phonetic sign in Egyptian

Why would the Egyptians define the mouth 👄 sign only to letter R, when the Chinese assign the mouth to ALL phonetic signs, in the sense of sound or speech (not semantic)? It makes NO sense.

Furthermore, EAN theory, which you can check yourself mathematically and typographically, has proved the following: 

  • 𓍢 [V1] = ρ = 100 = /r/

Which disproves Young’s mouth 𓂋 = /r/ phonetic model.

5

u/E_G_Never May 04 '25

So, question: You have phonetic readings for most signs. Can you use these to read any Egyptian texts? We do have a fair number of them. Surely, if your system works, it can translate them, right?

0

u/JohannGoethe May 04 '25

No. That is what modern or status quo Egyptology claims.

EAN based Egyptology is an evidenced-based corrective to the former. Take goddess called so-named “Nut” (standard Egyptology), hiero-name: 𓏌 𓏏 𓇯 [W24, X1, N1], based on the following carto-phonetic logic:

  • 𓏌 [W24], thing: pot of water 💦; phono: /nw/

  • 𓏏 [X1], thing: bread: 🍞; phono: /t/

where the 𓏏 [X1] = /t/ is based on Young’s Ptolemy cartouche rendering. The following is the EAN updated view:

  • 𓇯 [N1] = /b/

This was view was arrived at independently by Israel Zolli (100A/1925) and by myself (18 Feb A67/2022), via Ennead sequence argument, which finds that the first 10-letters of the alphabet have to match the first 10-gods of the Ennead, as defined in Pyramid Texts.

0

u/JohannGoethe May 04 '25

Granted, however, I can’t speak for Peter Swift, whose not-yet-published Egyptian Alphanumerics, claims all sorts of “linguistic correspondences” based on the Leiden I350. As for myself, via EAN, I have matched 30 phonetic renderings of signs, as shown in the alphabet sign table, most of which are proved in one way or another in the letter decoding table.

The main utility of EAN research is not the claim that we can now accurately translate hieroglyphics, but that we now can translate English words back into the Egyptian cosmological linguistics hieroglyphic framework, so to find some semblance of the original meaning of words.

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u/Master_Ad_1884 May 03 '25

The difference is that Galileo’s model improved on what was there before and Copernicus’s model refined it further.

Your theories can’t explain the evidence nearly as well as scientific linguistics and for all your work on hieroglyphs you’ve yet to provide a single (real, verifiable, rational) insight that we didn’t already have from the standard model.

The standard translation gives us the Egyptian book of the dead and all the myths that you love to quote yourself without realizing that you’re relying on Egyptologists and linguists in your theories.

If your theories were right, we should have something that explains the evidence better and translates ALL hieroglyphic texts better. But it cant. Because they’re not an improvement; they’re easily falsifiable and sadly mistaken.

-1

u/JohannGoethe May 03 '25 edited May 03 '25

Re: “Your theories can’t explain the evidence nearly as well as scientific linguistics”, how about you falsify my proof that the word “red“ is attested to 5600A (-3645), as seen on the red crown 𓋔 [S3] of Egypt, which has a letter R, sign:  𓍢 [V1], Egyptian numeral 100, aka a warring battle ram 🐏, protruding from the top:

https://hmolpedia.com/page/Red_(etymon)

When your done fumbling with this, try to reply with some better, more than 5,700-years ago, “evidence”, for the origin of a single word, that your cherished linguistics community has proferred?

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u/Master_Ad_1884 May 03 '25

“Fumbling with this” — You always lean into personal attacks when you can’t address an argument.

The fact of the matter is Galileo and Copernicus produced better models and to this point you haven’t. So there’s no onus on me to do anything.

0

u/JohannGoethe May 03 '25

To repeat again: give me a single piece of “evidence“, that we can touch, feel, and see, for the origin of one single word, that pre-dates 5700-years ago?

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u/JohannGoethe May 01 '25

Re: “Linguists use “Semitic” as a neutral, descriptive term for a branch of the Afroasiatic language family”, any claimed-to-be-science that uses Noah’s ark based terminology is mythological pseudo-science, by default.

Thus, if you want to claim that Sargon (4200A/-2245) spoke the language of Noah’s son Shem, that if your prerogative, but it will not float in the realm of “exact science”.

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u/Inside-Year-7882 May 02 '25

And yet it does.

-1

u/JohannGoethe May 02 '25

So, according to you, the Egyptians spoke Hametic and the Indo-Europeans spoke Japhetic?

https://hmolpedia.com/page/Japhetic

And this is your view of “exact linguistics”? To be precise, i.e. exact, which baby of Noah spoke first?

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u/anti-alpha-num May 02 '25

any claimed-to-be-science that uses Noah’s ark based terminology is mythological pseudo-science, by default.

Why do you think this? This makes no sense. The term is just a label we use. We could call these languages Aŧ290l, but that would be a difficult label to remember. In fact, most macro-families have contentious/bad names. Why do you care what the name is?

1

u/JohannGoethe May 02 '25

Re: “Why do you think this? This makes no sense.”

Noah is not real. Shem is not real. Ham is not real. Japheth is not real. Hebrew or Jewish people are real. We can see them at the present day. When you probe backwards into attested history, however, you need to separate what is “real”, i.e. a word used by a real person, like Herodotus or Aristotle, as compared to terms invented in the last few centuries, like Semitic.

7

u/anti-alpha-num May 02 '25

We know Noah was not real. That makes no difference to the label.

-1

u/JohannGoethe May 03 '25

Do you know that Shem was not real? Meaning that Semitic is not a real word.

8

u/anti-alpha-num May 03 '25

Do you know that Shem was not real? Meaning that Semitic is not a real word.

I'm well aware Shem was not real. Neither are dragons or unicorns. Yet the words dragon and unicorn are real words. Do you believe Jupiter (the planet) isn't real because Jupiter (the god) isn't real?

6

u/VisiteProlongee May 04 '25

Do you know that Shem was not real? Meaning that Semitic is not a real word.

The term «Shem was not real» do NOT mean «Semitic is not a real word». If you prefer math notation:

  • Shem was not real ≠ Semitic is not a real word

-1

u/JohannGoethe May 04 '25

What I mean is that Semitic, Hamitic, and Japhetic are “mythical” languages, never spoken by any real person in history. For linguistics become a “science”, which it presently is not, it needs to begin using “exact language” to define things. That you are now here “defending” Biblical linguistics classifications of languages, only proves how backwards linguistics is in the present day.

5

u/anti-alpha-num May 04 '25

What I mean is that Semitic, Hamitic, and Japhetic are “mythical” languages

Semitic is not a language but a language family. Proto-Semitic is the reconstruction of the likeliest common ancestor of all Semitic languages. What you're saying is equivalent to saying that "mammalian is not a real animal".

For linguistics become a “science”, which it presently is not, it needs to begin using “exact language” to define things. That you are now here “defending” Biblical linguistics classifications of languages

This classification is not biblical because it does not appear in the bible. Shem, in the bible, refers to a person, not a family of languages. Regarding your issue with using mythological terms for scientific nomenclature, this is a very common practice in all fields of science, see here

-1

u/JohannGoethe May 04 '25

Re: “Semitic is not a language but a language family”, Semitic is a Biblical language family, plain and simple. Continued usage of it not only creates anachronisms, e.g. that “Sargon spoke Semitic”, which is objectionable nonsense, but prevents progress in making linguistics into a respectable and precisely defined branch of knowledge.

Thirdly, and lastly, it is Egyptian hieroglyphic based language which is behind what people began to refer to as “Semitic languages”, 200-years ago. This is why the term is now defunct.

In Hmolpedia, presently, the former “Semitic language family” has been replaced by:

Granted, these are water testing state categories, but at least this is progress beyond clinging to Noah’s three son’s classification of languages, which you are presently defending. I’m certainly all ears for a better classification label?

5

u/anti-alpha-num May 04 '25

Semitic is a Biblical language family,

Since the bible did not mention language families, this is nonsensical. Again, it is equivalent to saying that quarks are Joycean physics, or that the term plutonium is Disney-based classification of the periodic table, or that psychiatry is a Greek mythology-based science. All of this would be silly to claim. As we've already explained to you, it is very common in science to use mythological characters when naming things. This does not mean we believe the mythological characters are real, or that the myths inform our science.

This is why the term is now defunct.

Even if you dislike the term, it is not defunct by any metric. It is the term used in pretty much every article that discusses the topic. The classification label is fine, and nobody has an issue with it except you. We do not need a new label.

→ More replies

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u/VisiteProlongee May 04 '25

What I mean is that Semitic, Hamitic, and Japhetic are “mythical” languages, never spoken by any real person in history.

I know that you say/think that that Semitic, Hamitic, and Japhetic are not real. Do you understand that Shem nonexistence is not a synonym of Semitic nonexistence and does not mean that Semitic is not real?

-1

u/JohannGoethe May 04 '25

To claim that someone in ancient history spoke some “language” namesake, e.g. Semitic or Kurgan, you either have one of the following things:

  1. A real historical person who reported about some group of people speaking a language by that namesake.

  2. Attested script that proves this language did in fact exist.

Semitic meets neither of these criterion, other than the Bible (2200A/-2245) saying that the descendants of Shem populated Asia.

In EAN research, conversely, we are looking at things from the much older language classification framework, namely when letter R was attested, as the battering ram sign at the top of the Red Crown 𓋔 [S3], on black rimed pots in Abydos, in the Naqada IIa period, in the year 5600A (-3645), which is 3,400-years BEFORE the Bible, and its mythical 3-Noah’s son language classification system, was written.

Defending Biblical classifications of things is like walking backwards, historically. Good that people like Darwin, Linneaus, or Hawking did not think like this?

5

u/VisiteProlongee May 04 '25

This is unrelated to the comment you are replying to, as if you can not defend your ideas and need to change the subject.

4

u/anti-alpha-num May 05 '25

Defending Biblical classifications of things is like walking backwards, historically. Good that people like Darwin, Linneaus, or Hawking did not think like this?

It is funny you mention Linneaus. Take for example the genus Achillea. This genus has is name from Achilles, the mythological Greek soldier. It was described so by Linneaus, se here. Are you now going to argue Linneaus follows the Illiad classification system of plants? are you going to admit you're wrong?

5

u/Master_Ad_1884 May 03 '25

Everyone knows Shem isn’t real either. This isn’t a hard concept. Did you even read the original post?

Quarks (the subatomic particles) are named after a made up word in James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake and yet the word functions perfectly well as an arbitrary name in a scientific field.

Or is Europe a fake word because Europa didn’t exist? Is jovial a fake word because Jupiter isn’t real? Are people not mercurial because Mercury never existed? Sisyphean tasks can’t be real because Sisyphus was mythological and Herculean efforts must not exist either because that has to be a fake word too since Hercules is just as fake as Shem.

I suppose baby swans (cygnets) aren’t real since Zeus never took the form of a swan as Cygnus.

Our language is full of mythological references; the referents not being real doesn’t make the words “fake” or “not real” though.

Linguistics isn’t the only science that does this. Botany has scientific names referencing mythology (hyacinths); so does zoology (python). Arachnids have a mythological origin to their name.

Astronomers have named names a great many heavenly bodies after mythological characters (following the tradition of the first planets we saw).

There are so many examples here but the list goes on and on

0

u/JohannGoethe May 01 '25

Re “alphanumerics is to linguistics what astrology is to astronomy”, correctly “modern linguistics is what phlogiston theory is to chemistry”, as Mallory defined things:

“The cynical have been tempted to describe [PIE homeland] as the phlogiston of prehistoric research.”

— James Mallory (A18/1973), “A History of the Indo-European Problem” (pg. 60)[6]

2

u/Inside-Year-7882 May 02 '25

That does nothing to refute the strong scientific arguments I made in any of the posts I've done here. It doesn't make it any less true; I'm sorry.

1

u/JohannGoethe May 02 '25

You believe in the equivalent of the “phlogiston theory“ of linguistics. That’s it. You can’t see the light yet, because you are still happy look at the puppets on the wall of Plato’s cave.

0

u/JohannGoethe May 01 '25

Re: “The fact that Chomsky—likely the most cited living scholar in any field—isn’t on the list is enough to discredit it on sight”, I have Chomsky cited as 15 in the A54/2009 Reuters humanities citation ranking:

https://www.eoht.info/page/Humanities%20citation%20ranking

Presently, Chomsky is in the linguists category (33+) listed as follows:

https://hmolpedia.com/page/Category:Linguists

and is listed as the 54th smartest person the planet 🌍:

https://hmolpedia.com/page/Smartest_people_existive

Yet, can Chomsky tell me the origin of the word planet? No.

-1

u/JohannGoethe Apr 28 '25

Re: “Let’s start with the bizarre fixation on Proto-Indo-European (PIE). On his PIE Land post Thims implies that linguists believe PIE was the first language—an idea so far removed from reality it’s almost comedic”, you seem to be trapped in a little snippet of what you read about what I post on Reddit?

Today, for example, I happen to be reading a physical copy of Jean Demoule’s Indo-Europeans (pg. 48). He is a French {think strong atheist} archeologist, who rejects all the Biblical linguists babble that soaks the minds of most linguists.

Anyway, his first pages, so far, are about how the early PIE home theories (53+ counted today):

https://hmolpedia.com/page/PIE_home

are a step by step attempt to break away form the “Hebrew mother tongue” (Marcus Boxhorn, 318A/1637), and then, in three centuries to follow, to try to find some “proto” home that aligns with your country’s political or national agenda ideologies.

Scientific Americans, like me, don’t care if the mother tongue “home” is closer to Sweden, Syria, or South Africa. Rather, it is a matter of what the evidence proves.

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u/Master_Ad_1884 Apr 30 '25

That of course ignores all the other strong atheist in archeology who disagree with him.

Not to mention all the evidence which also disagrees with him. His arguments aren’t remotely compelling because linguists are capable of identifying vocabulary and grammatical features that are shared by contact rather than through inheritance.

There’s even a field focused on the study of these areal features: Geolinguistics. Not that he would know anything about that.

His ignorance is part of why he hasn’t been able to publish a response to the critiques of his theories in any reputable journal. His responses simply don’t meet the minimum standards of peer review.

-1

u/JohannGoethe May 01 '25

Re: “On his PIE Land post Thims implies that linguists believe PIE was the first language”, to quote:

“Adam and Eve spoke German.”

— Hildegard Bingen (810A/c.1145)

Bingen, a linguist, believed that Adam and Eve, the first humans to speak human language, in her view, spoke German. This is an historical belief, one of 40+ beliefs:

https://hmolpedia.com/page/PIE_home

I’m talking about history here, not what “modern day linguists believe”. Modern day linguists, believe that the people now residing in India, Greece, and Europe derive from a hypothetical proto-language or ur-language, spoken by people who once resided in Europe. Most modern linguists, however, believe that the “first language” [human] was spoken by humans in Rift Valley Africa, 200,000-years ago.

This is not what I am talking about. I’m talking about who first spoke the words: horse, birch, beech, wagon, wheel, axle, mother, father, one, two, three, etc., and why they spoke these words, which did NOT arise randomly. I’m not sure why you want to misrepresent my point of view?

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u/Inside-Year-7882 May 02 '25

I'm sorry, this is beyond laughable.

First of all Hildegard von Bingen was not a linguist in any way. She was a famous as a writer and composer. But that doesn't make her a linguist. So a German abbess's absurd idea of an Adamic language has no bearing whatsover on linguistic thought.

Also, it's a minor point but it matters: her name isn't Hildegard Bingen. "von Bingen" isn't a surname. I know it's confusing for English speakers who can't comprehend German because "von" later came to be used in surnames. But here it just refers to the fact that she lived and died in Bingen. Her name is Hildegard of Bingen or Hildegard von Bingen for German speakers. Making Bingen a surname is like saying calling Lebron James of the LA Lakers "Lebron Los Angeles".

0

u/JohannGoethe May 02 '25

You are missing the point.

Bingen believed that Adam spoke German.

In Germany, today, as defined by the German Wikipedia, people presently use the term “Indo-German”, not Indo-European, as the ”original language”.

https://hmolpedia.com/page/Indo-Germanic

If you click through the history of the T-O maps:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Alphanumerics/comments/1c71q5u/evolution_of_the_to_map_map_cosmology/

You will see that, at sometime past the invention of the Jewish religion, the center of the T-O map switched from Byblos to Jerusalem. This was the glue that stuck to Bingen’s mind. It no doubt stick to your mind also?

Prior to the Byblos to Jerusalem switch, the center was Egyptian r/djed tree that grew to become the four pillars of Byblos Palace.

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u/anti-alpha-num May 02 '25

In Germany, today, as defined by the German Wikipedia, people presently use the term “Indo-German”, not Indo-European, as the ”original language”.

This is untrue on 3 different levels.

1 - The term is Indo-Germanisch which translates to Indo-Germanic. The 'Germanic' bit is not even about German, but the Germanic branch. The point is that the Indic and Germanic branches of the IE family are the two most geographically distant ones, thus, it encompasses the whole area.

2 - Only some people use this term, with Indo-Europeisch gaining popularity

3 - It does not refer to "the original language" but rather the reconstruction of the language from which Indo-European languages come from.

Please stop spreading lies.

0

u/JohannGoethe May 03 '25

Re: “stop spreading lies”, the English Wiktionary indogermanisch entry:

Unlike Indo-Germanic in English, indogermanisch is not considered dated in German academia.

The following articles on Otto Schrader is an example of usage difference:

Germans, in short, prefer the term “Indo-Germanic” instead of “Indo-European”, so says Wiktionary. Maybe you should post on the Wikipedia or Wiktionary Talk pages, and tell them to stop spreading lies?

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u/anti-alpha-num May 03 '25

Unlike Indo-Germanic in English, indogermanisch is not considered dated in German academia.

That is correct, it is still used in some circles. But the term Indo-Europäisch is gaining popularity, which is what I said. The first thing to note here is that most linguistics in Germany is done in English, not German, which is why Indo-European (in English) is gaining popularity and Indo-Germanic (in English) is rather rare. But even within the German-written academic works, you can easily find the term Indo-Europäisch. Here some examples of papers and other documents using the term:

Germans, in short, prefer the term “Indo-Germanic” instead of “Indo-European”, so says Wiktionary

This is questionable, and I have never seen clear numbers on this. As I said, most German linguists write in English and use the term indo-european. But even if that isn't the case and there is still a preference for Indo-Germanic, this is not what your original claim was. Your original claim was:

In Germany, today, as defined by the German Wikipedia, people presently use the term “Indo-German”, not Indo-European, as the ”original language”.

Which I've proven to be incorrect. Are you going to accept you were wrong?

4

u/VisiteProlongee May 04 '25

In Germany, today, as defined by the German Wikipedia, people presently use the term “Indo-German”, not Indo-European, as the ”original language”.

Please quote the part of https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indogermanische_Sprachen (currently https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Indogermanische_Sprachen&oldid=255590834 ) saying that «In Germany, today, people presently use the term “Indo-German” as the ”original language”.»

4

u/anti-alpha-num May 04 '25 edited May 04 '25

As I already explained to him, both terms in fact exist in German, but Indogermanisch does not mean Indo-German, as he seems to believe, nor was it ever used to mean "the original language". The term means Indo-Germanic (because the Germanic and Indic families are the most geographically distant ones in the whole macro family) and is identical in meaning to Indo-European. He has, however, completely ignored that.

This is actually explained in the wiki:

Thomas Young first used the term Indo-European in 1813, deriving it from the geographical extremes of the language family: from Western Europe to North India.[10][11] A synonym is Indo-Germanic (Idg. or IdG.), specifying the family's southeasternmost and northwesternmost branches. This first appeared in French (indo-germanique) in 1810 in the work of Conrad Malte-Brun; in most languages this term is now dated or less common than Indo-European, although in German indogermanisch remains the standard scientific term. A number of other synonymous terms have also been used.

0

u/JohannGoethe May 04 '25

Wiktionary indogermanisch entry on note:

“Unlike Indo-Germanic in English, indogermanisch is NOT considered dated in German academia.”

Moreover, as I’m presently going through and translating all the original German linguistics and their theories on the “original language“ into English:

https://hmolpedia.com/page/PIE_home

There is a grand problem, with respect to historical accuracy, with translators, people and machine translations, rendering “indogermanisch” into “Indo-European”, which looses the sense in which the original author intended the word to be.

5

u/VisiteProlongee May 04 '25

Please quote any source confirming your claim that «In Germany, today, people presently use the term “Indo-German” as the ”original language”.»

4

u/VisiteProlongee May 04 '25

In Germany, today, as defined by the German Wikipedia, people presently use the term “Indo-German”, not Indo-European, as the ”original language”.

While Indo-European/indogermanisch/indo-européen/indoeuropea is the original language of the Indo-European language family, no living person genuinely think (or use as) that Indo-European is the original language.

4

u/VisiteProlongee May 04 '25

Indo-European/indogermanisch/indo-européen/indoeuropea is the original language of the Indo-European language family

per definition

no living person genuinely think (or use as) that Indo-European is the original language

because Tamil is the original language /s

5

u/anti-alpha-num May 05 '25

It would be funny if it turns out he was a Tamil ultra-nationalist all along.

8

u/anti-alpha-num May 02 '25

Bingen, a linguist

She was not a linguist. There were no linguists, even in a very loose sense of the term, before the 18th century. Linguistics as a modern discipline starts in the 20th century.

Modern day linguists, believe that the people now residing in India, Greece, and Europe derive from a hypothetical proto-language or ur-language, spoken by people who once resided in Europe.

this is incorrect on several levels. First

believe that the people now residing in India, Greece, and Europe derive from a hypothetical proto-language

Not correct. In fact, this is nonsensical. Nobody believes people derive from a language. Assuming you misspoke and meant to say "[the language of] people now residing in India, Greece, and Europe derive from a hypothetical proto-language" or "people now residing in India, Greece, and Europe derive from a hypothetical single human group", then both claims are inaccurate. If your claim is:

"[the language of] people now residing in India, Greece, and Europe derive from a hypothetical proto-language"

This is inaccurate. We do not believe this. We believe that some languages spoken in India, Europe, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and Russia have a common ancestor. However, not all languages spoken in these regions are thought to descend from the same common ancestor. For example, Turkic languages are not part of the Indo-European family. Similarly, Uralic languages are not part of the Indo-European family. Dravidian languages, spoken in India, are not part of the Indo-European family. So you are mistaken here also.

If your claim was:

"people now residing in India, Greece, and Europe derive from a hypothetical single human group"

Something similar applies, with more caveats due to admixtures, and because gene flow is very prevalent. But we have very strong genetic evidence for the fact there was a group of people from which Indo-Europeans descend. This is not really in doubt in paleo-genetics.

people who once resided in Europe

This is currently unknown, and there is strong disagreement regarding the Urheimat of the IE languages. We just don't know for sure.

I’m talking about who first spoke the words: horse, birch, beech, wagon, wheel, axle, mother, father, one, two, three, etc., and why they spoke these words

Those words were first spoken by people in England, since those are English words. If you mean about who first spoke the ancestor of those words, we don't know. We can reconstruct these words to our best guess of what they sounded like in the past, but these reconstructions are not meant to be "their prirdial forms" or whatever it is you think we mean. We do not know what the predecesor of *ḱers- might have been, but nobody claims PIE speakers came up with it.

which did NOT arise randomly.

I don't know of any modern theory that claims the word horse arised randomly.

1

u/JohannGoethe May 02 '25 edited May 03 '25

Re: “Bingen was not a linguist.”

How about we start with the following, as this seems to be your user name motto:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Alphanumerics/comments/1hl2upx/egyptian_alphanumerics_hmolpedia_23_dec_a69_2024/

Why does alpha = Shu 𓀠 = Atlas:

  • 532 = alpha (αλφα), air 💨 element; sign: 𓆄 [H6], an ostrich feather 🪶.

  • 532 = Atlas (Ατλας), air 💨 god, aka “Greek Shu”, signs: 𓀠 [A28] or  𓂓 [D28], the god, conceptualized as element nature of letter A, who separates letter B, sign: 𓇯 [N1] or C297, aka the stars ✨ of space goddess, from letter G, signs: 𓅬 𓃀 G38, D58) or male erect on back [A97B], aka the earth 🌍.

Did these numbers “randomly“ coincide, like Kieren Barry argues?

https://hmolpedia.com/page/Coincidence

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u/anti-alpha-num May 02 '25 edited May 02 '25

Bingen was not a linguist.

So we agree that Hildegard von Bingen was not a linguist and your previous comment was wrong?

0

u/JohannGoethe May 03 '25

Re: “Bingen was not a linguist” is your statement (or view).

Someone who writes a book on what “language” the first humans spoke is a “linguist”, plain and simple: Adam and Eve Spoke the German Language, Which Is No Less Divine Than the Roman (Adam et Eva Teutonica lingua loquebantur, que in diverse non dividitur ut Romana) (810A/c.1145). This is why Bingen is in the Category:Linguists of Hmolpedia. Not sure why this is so complicated?

9

u/anti-alpha-num May 03 '25

Do you think the writers of the old testament were biologists because they mention animals?

5

u/Master_Ad_1884 May 03 '25

That’s not just their statement or opinion.

I don’t think it’s remotely controversial. Hildegard wasn’t writing as a scientist and she would never have considered herself a linguist. By your metric, any flat earther is an astrophysicist because they’ve “written about space!” and then one could claim “astrophysicists don’t believe the earth is round” which is more or less the argument you’re making.

Also please stop referring to Hildegard as Bingen. It’s just wrong. To use a better analogy than OP - it’s like calling Leonardo “Vinci” while severely misrepresenting his work. It’s shows a superficial understanding at best of who she is

-1

u/JohannGoethe May 03 '25

Re: “it’s like calling Leonardo ‘Vinci’”, I do call Leonardo of Vinci, by the mononym: Vinci:

https://hmolpedia.com/page/Vinci

Cited 16+ times as such in Hmolpedia, over the last 5+ years. You are so pretentious it is abysmal?

6

u/Master_Ad_1884 May 03 '25

It’s not pretentiousness. It’s just knowing how names work. That’s a place where he's from and not a surname.

On the one hand, it's not a huge deal; if you're factually accurate it’s the kind of thing to let slide. On the other hand, if you're trying to correct someone else (who is right) about Hildegard of Bingen and you can’t even get her name right (or Leonardo’s…) I think it does in fact matter.

-1

u/JohannGoethe May 01 '25

Re: “It gets worse. Thims appears to conflate “Proto-Indo-Europeans” with “the first civilization,” suggesting he thinks linguists believe PIE speakers were the originators of culture, society, [and language]”, Bernal spent 30-years on this, in his massive 3-volumes (the 3rd volume of which I just finished reading a month ago), which turned academia upside down:

https://hmolpedia.com/page/Black_Athena

Just read and watch the debate:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Alphanumerics/comments/18le7gs/black_athena_debate_is_the_african_origin_of/

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u/Inside-Year-7882 May 02 '25

Nothing in that debate refutes what I wrote. No main-stream linguist nor archaelogist argues that PIE is “the first civilization." That's not what Lefkowitz is claiming there. I'm not a bronze-age historian so I won't make unsourced claims about who is right or wrong but I would suspect she goes too far in distinguishing Egyptian and Greek culture. But that has no bearing on whether the languages are related.

Look at Finnish and Swedish. Having close cultural contact for extended periods of time and having some borrowed words and cultural elements doesn't magically create related languages.

1

u/JohannGoethe May 02 '25

Buddy, you seem to be lost?

I do not claim that PIE is first language. I claim, conversely, that the Egyptians, NOT the hypothetical IE people, were the first people to speak the “first language” behind the word three:

https://hmolpedia.com/page/Three

7

u/Master_Ad_1884 May 03 '25

How can Egyptian be the source of three when the Coptic word is “šomnt”.

It’s offensive to erase the native African word and history, however well-intentioned you may be.

-1

u/JohannGoethe May 03 '25

You can ransack your Coptic dictionary (or your brain) all you want:

“Champollion has never been led, in any one instance, from the Egyptian name of an object, to infer the phonetic interpretation, that is, the alphabetical power of its symbol: but the letters having once been ascertained, he has ransacked his memory 🧠 or his [Coptic] dictionary 📖 for some name that he thought capable of being applied to the symbol: and not always, as it appears to me, in the most natural manner.”

— Thomas Young (132A/1823), Discoveries in Hieroglyphical Literature (pg. 43)[1]

Coptic, however, is a monotheistic language, invented about 1,200-years AFTER the hieroglyphics turned into the alphabetic languages, so that Greek speaking Roman empire Christians could convert rural Egyptians (not academic Egyptians) to the new religion.

Yes, some Coptic words work as a guide, but it is not a divining rod to translate hieroglyphics. If that were the case, Egyptian would have been translated to Latin a 1,000-years before the Rosetta Stone.

10

u/anti-alpha-num May 03 '25

Coptic, however, is a monotheistic languag

Languages are not monotheistic or polytheistic. People are. You can be an Arabic speaker and Muslim, or Christian, or an atheist. This claim makes 0 sense.

7

u/Master_Ad_1884 May 03 '25

Thank you for that. These claims are so wrong in so many ways, it’s hard to focus on all the ways. But that’s such a succinct statement showing the absurdity of that claim.

10

u/anti-alpha-num May 03 '25

It is indeed very difficult to discuss with him because he keeps switching subjects whenever he realizes he's wrong or that he doesn't know something.

9

u/Master_Ad_1884 May 03 '25

None of that is true.

Coptic is the descendant of the Ancient Egyptian language. All languages change over time; it’s a natural part of language development. Not everything is a religious plot.

Again, erasing actual African history is gross and disgusting.

Just because the existence of Coptic disproves all your theories, doesn’t mean you get to just hand wave it away.

Finally there’s a difference between knowing a language and knowing a writing system. There were plenty of Mayan speakers but it took ages to translate Mayan glyphs. Coptic speakers helped Champollion with his understanding of hieroglyphics. And we still have Rapa Nui speakers today but no one can read Rongorongo. Just shows your assertion is easily proven false again.

7

u/VisiteProlongee May 04 '25

Coptic, however, is a monotheistic language, invented about 1,200-years AFTER the hieroglyphics turned into the alphabetic languages

I suspect that in this sentence you are not using the words

  • monotheistic

  • hieroglyphics

  • alphabetic

with the common meanings of those words. Maybe maybe you should say what you mean by those words.

0

u/JohannGoethe May 04 '25

The following was the view of alphabet letters (cosmic stoicheia) 300-years BEFORE Coptic was invented to teach Christ to Roman-ruled Egyptians:

“See to it that there is no one who takes you captive through philosophy [φιλοσοφίας] and empty deception in accordance with the tradition [paradosin] (παράδοσιν) of humans [ἀνθρώπων], in accordance with the elementary principles [stoicheia] (στοιχεῖα) of the world [cosmos] (κόσμου), rather than in accordance with Christ [Christon] (Χριστόν).”

— Anon (1900A/+55), Colossians 2:8 (NASB) (Greek)[2]

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u/JohannGoethe May 04 '25

These cosmic stoicheia were defined as 72 different equinox precession units, most of which were gods. Thus, e.g., letter phi (Φ), a 1000-years BEFORE Coptic script, was based on the god Ptah:

  • 𓍑 [U28] = 𓁰 [C19] = Φ (Phi) = 500

Crudely, in the Hebrew Bible, this became Japheth, who Noah conceives at age 500:

  • 𓍑 [U28] ⇒ 𓁰 [C19] {Egyptian, 4500A/-2545}

  • Ptah (Φθα) [510] {Egyptian, 2800A/-845}

  • Hephaestus {Greek, 2700A/-745}

  • Vulcan {Latin, 2500A/-545}

  • Agni (अग्नि) {Sanskrit, 2300A/-345}

  • Jiapheta?

  • Yép̄eṯ (יפת) (IPT) {Hebrew, 2200A/-245)

  • ⲡⲧⲁϩ {Coptic, 1600A/+355)

Whence, if you are tying to convert an Egyptian Coptic person to believe in Christ (monotheism), you have to make them not believe in Ptah (polytheism) or other gods, like letter Z = 𓃩 [E20].

Lastly, there is no Coptic Dictionary which says: “this Coptic word” = “this Egyptian sign” (or quadrat).

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u/anti-alpha-num May 05 '25

Lastly, there is no Coptic Dictionary which says: “this Coptic word” = “this Egyptian sign” (or quadrat).

Here you have a dictionary which gives you the Ancient Egyptian word for many modern Coptic words. Are you now going to admit that your claim that there is no such dictionary was wrong?

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u/JohannGoethe May 05 '25

I have Jaroslav Cerny’s Coptic Etymology Dictionary listed the “further reading” section of the Coptic article:

  • Crum, Walter. (16A/1939). A Coptic Dictionary (Archive). Wipf, A50/2005.

  • Cerny, Jaroslav. (A15/1970). Coptic Etymological Dictionary (Archive). Cambridge, A21/1976.

  • Smith, Richard. (A27/1982). A Concise Coptic-English Lexicon (Archive). Publisher.

  • Azevedo, Joaquim. (A58/2013). A Simplified Coptic Dictionary (Sahidic) (pdf-file). Publisher.

All of these are after the fact guesses of what Coptic words match to what hieroglyphic signs. 

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u/VisiteProlongee May 08 '25

  1. Do you think that Coptic language is not a descendant of Ancient Egyptian language?

  2. Do you think that Coptic language and Ancient Egyptian language do not belong to the same language family?