Re: Edenics

On Fri, 11 Jun 2004 14:41:29 -0700, william drewery <will65610@...>
wrote:

> [Many "Edenics" websites] 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
There is no factual basis for it at all.

OTOH, there is rock-solid evidence that Hebrew descended from
"Proto-Hebrew" (or "Semitic"), along with a number of other languages,
like Arabic.

There is also basis to beleive that Semitic is derived from an older
protolanguage, called Afroasiatic (from which also come a number of
African languages, including Ancient Egyptian), and some evidence that
Afroasiatic in turn descends from something called Nostratic (from which
most of the languages of Europe, West and South Asia, and Africa are
descended). There are those that hold that Nostratic in turn descends from
the Mother Tongue of all people on Earth (the so-called "Proto-World"
theory).

Essentially, if you stack all the "Proto"s on top of each other, back to
proto-proto-proto-proto-proto-Hebrew (at least) then yes, Hebrew and
(almost) any language you choose to pick are distant cousins, but that's
about as far as that theory goes in actual fact.





Paul