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English May Have Retained Words From an Ice Age Language
sciencehabit writes "If you've ever cringed when your parents said 'groovy,' you'll know that spoken language can have a brief shelf life. But frequently used words can persist for generations, even millennia, and similar sounds and meanings often turn up in very different languages. Now, a new statistical approach suggests that peoples from Alaska to Europe may share a linguistic forebear dating as far back as the end of the Ice Age, about 15,000 years ago. Indeed, some of the words we use today may not be so different than those spoken around campfires and receding glaciers."
My kids think I'm way cool when I say 'Groovy', (you insensitive clod). Laters.
1. Mindfullness
2. Coexist
3. Tolerance
4. Inclusiveness
5. Redistribution
There will be a quiz when Progress has returned us to that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_savage state.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Unga bunga
That has evolved to cowabunga. We conclude that 'ung' is the ancient word for cow.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Just a small sampling of some of the words and phrases handed down from that Ice Age era language...
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Damn! It's fucking cold!
I'm freezing my (nuts/dick/balls/ass/tits) off.
When the fuck is Summer going to finally get here?
When the hell will central heating systems be invented?
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"It is a curious fact, and one to which no one knows quite how much importance to attach, that something like 85% of all known worlds in the Galaxy, be they primitive or highly advanced, have invented a drink called jynnan tonnyx, or gee-N'N-T'N-ix, or jinond-o-nicks, or any one of a thousand or more variations on the same phonetic theme. The drinks themselves are not the same, and vary between the Sivolvian "chinanto/mnigs" which is ordinary water served at slightly above room temperature, and the Gagrakackan "tzjin-anthony-ks" which kills cows at a hundred paces; and in fact the one common factor between all of them, beyond the fact that the names sound the same, is that they were all invented and named before the worlds concerned made contact with any other worlds.
Obviously, the first language was the one taught by God to Adam and Eve. All other languages evolved from that one language.
Unga bunga
That has evolved to cowabunga. We conclude that 'ung' is the ancient word for cow.
And 'bung' is an ancient word meaning 'desire to have sex with' adding the 'a' makes the word plural.
What? My mother was a saint!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Give up. 30,000 years ago the San Francisco Bay and the Great Barrier Reef didn't exist. Sea levels rose and life not only went on, but created these two cherished icons of environmentalism. If they are both destroyed again, life will go on.
There is no way to tell things like this to an AGW zealot without them accusing you of being a shill for Big Oil, which is their version of "infidel" or "heathen".
"This is a pretty lame summary. If there are words preserved from the Ice Age, list like five of them!"
From the Ice Age?
'Climate' and 'Change' comes to mind.
An amusing modern example is the group of armed rebels in the Phillipines that go under the name of MILF.
An amusing modern example is the group of armed rebels in the Phillipines that go under the name of MILF.
What better way to hide on the internet than to choose a name that yeilds billions of false hits?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Maybe you can recommend me a book on Amazon.
Wouldn't a book on Japanese Linguistics be more appropriate?
Or give us the Iceageish translation for "Jeez, it's cold out there."
"Good morning"?
Which, of course, lends credence to the theory that men discovered language.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!