Re: Edenics

This is as old as the hills.  The idea of the first language being Hebrew or
"Adamic" is medieval.  Adam named the animals, after all.  A book to look at
(for your counter argument and that is fun to read) is Umberto Eco's _The
Search for the Perfect Language_, which gives a history of this early and
erroneous notion, and its contribution, eventually, to the the development
of the Philosophical Languages of the 17th century in attempts to restore
language to its pre-Babelian perfection, which in turn led to the more
recent international auxilliary languages.  But this Edenic source was
dumped by linguists.  One of the early beliefs, before the "discovery" of
Indo-European (and the concept of language groups in general--Hebrew is
Semitic, Travis; Indo-European is not), was that languages developed
linearly: from God to proto-Hebrew, to Hebrew, to Greek, to Latin, etc.;
another was that all languages descended from Noah's sons, Shem, Ham, and
Japhet.  Or Magog, as the Book of Invasions tells us (ninth-century
Ireland).  So as you can see, this idea has been around for a long time, and
is pretty outdated.  However, it would be interesting to see the Edenists'
arguments, before passing negative judgment.  :)

Sally
scaves@frontiernet.net

The Book of Invasions also declares Gaelic to have been invented by one
Gaedel Glas, who fashioned it from seventy-two languages.  Rather like
Fruski or Brithenig, only on a much bigger scale.  :)

----- Original Message -----
From: "william drewery" <will65610@...>

> I have recently ran into these sites about "edenics",
> which I gather is the study of Eden. But they all seem
> to be linked by the ida that ALL languages descend
> from some sort of Proto-Hebrew. Most of the arguments
> I've seen on the sites are laughable at best, but I
> was hoping to find out if there was anything to this
> idea, ad if not, where I could find some good
> counter-arguments. I'm a liberal Christian myself, and
> I have  hobby of putting together factoids about
> "neo-conservatist" theology like Young-Earthism and
> Catastrophism. Thanks,
>                     Travis
>
>
>
>
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