Mr Murphy, thank you. Can you post reference? I would be interested! I did not mean this to be contradicting; I realize there are other possible etymologies, but was interested in this one.
Either way, the “gate to the gods” and sacrifice would fit; it’s an interesting idea. John Walton’s point of view was that people tried to reestablish communion without God’s approval:
Ruhlen is an outlier. The following paper concludes that his procedure was flawed, and it also lists the many papers that disagree with the hypothesis of a “mother tongue”: Simple combinatorial considerations challenge Ruhlen’s mother tongue theory
There is currently a considerable literature detailing how criteria for determining both a semantic and a phonological match are almost entirely lacking, and there are numerous publications arguing against multilateral comparisons (Campbell, 1988, 1998a 1998b, 1999; Guy, 1995; Matisoff, 1990; McMahon and McMahon, 1995; Nichols, 1996; Rankin 1992, Ringe, 1992, 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999; Trask, 1996).
Aitchison provides an excellent summary of the problems, which we discuss further below:
Chance resemblances are easy to find among different languages if only vague likenesses among shortish words are selected…sounds change radically over the centuries. Words which existed so long ago are unlikely to have survived in anything like their original state… Taboo is a further problem… the ‘lucky dip’ approach does not make any attempt to eliminate accidental correspondences, nor does it control for phonetic probability or tabo… meanings tend to be reduced to fairly simple, straightforward items, with a limited number of phonetic shapes. In these circumstances, chance similarities are likely to play a worryingly high role, and this ‘mass comparison’ method is unlikely to stand the test of time. (Aitchison, 1996: 173)
In more damning critiques, many linguists even consider that the Global Etymologies “cannot teach us anything about the origins of human languages” (Bender, 1993; Hock, 1993; McWhorter, 2001; Picard, 1998; Rosenfelder, 1999; Salmon1992a, 1992b, 1997). In fact any demonstration of a relationship between languages depends largely on finding words of similar phonological shape and roughly equivalent meaning in the languages considered. However it must be shown that the similarities observed could not have arisen by chance. Unfortunately Ruhlen does not take this precaution. We must therefore determine whether the observed similarities give us reason to reject the null hypothesis, that is, the hypothesis that the similarities are merely a product of chance factors.
As Hurford puts it: “As linguists like Larry Trask, Don Ringe and Lyle Campbell, to name but a few, loudly insist, no good answer has yet been given to the charge that the correspondences noted by the long-range reconstructionists are not above the chance level. In other words, no effort has been put into rejecting the null hypothesis.” (Hurford, 2003).
CONCLUSION (following a lot of math by the authors …)
We have demonstrated, by simple combinatorial considerations, that the Global Etymologies proposed for a proto-sapiens language in The Origin of Languages can be explained by random chance: The null hypothesis cannot be rejected. With the methodology used, Ruhlen and Bengtson had a 100% chance of finding 27 Global Etymologies common to the 32 families and thereby of validating their mother tongue hypothesis. They used too few Global Etymologies, too many equivalent meanings, too many languages per family, and too many phonological equivalences for a too small number of different phonological shapes.
Dear Randy,
Thank you for the link. What I find often with such commentators is that they generalize the too much and do not recognize that people were just a varied then as now. There were highly spiritual people and there were materialistic people looking for material rewards - pagans. The most documented case of this was was at the Oracles of Delphi where people came with offerings and demanded information from the gods. This is what the pagans have always done, but not the spiritual minded peoples. For the spiritually minded people, the Tower of Baba’el was how they saw raising their thoughts to the Father in Heaven. No building or sacred space has ever been needed to do this.
Best Wishes, Shawn
Not necessarily Pevaquark. It depends on how he confused it. Having had the privilege of living roun the world, and encountering various languages and dialects, I have observed that in order to make a language indecipherable to another, all one needs to do is change the pronounciation. In aberdeen scotland there is a language called Doric. When you see Doric written, you can almost figure out what is being said. but when it is spoken, it is unintelligible because the words are pronouced so oddly. Secondly, in China, people from Fujian and from Sichuan are speaking Mandarin Chinese and use the same written language, but they are very very hard to understand when one hears them. I used to go to a hot-pot restaurant in Beijing owned and operated by people from Fujian. I couldn’t eveer understand them and they couldnt’ understand my US southern accented Beijing pronunciation of Mandarin. But one can construct a phylogeny.
What I don’t understand about most of you all here, and I don’t know about you in particulare Peva, is why on earth believe a book with so much nonsense has any religious value at all? I mean, I am not that gullible and if I believed as most here do that the Bible told me nothing true historically about creation, or the Fall, I would not be inclined to believe that there was a need for Jesus’ death and bodily resurrection to pay for sin that never happened. So, maybe we both have a bit of amazement at each other.
Greenberg, who suggested similar things for African languages and was proven correct was also an outlier for years and years, rejecting the then popular consensus both of methodology and the view that African languages have nothing to do with each other. Joseph Greenberg - Wikipedia
So, when people say that someone is an outlier, or that isn’t consensus, what I hear is the person saying that it is either too scary or too much trouble to look at the issues for themselves and see if consensus is right or not. I am simply not impressed with arguments that because the experts thing a guy is wrong therefore the guy is wrong. That is a logical fallacy called argumentum ad populum. You should disabuse your self of the idea that experts are correct most of the time by looking up Tetlock’s work on expert opinion where he found that it wasn’t much better at being right than that of the common man. I will leave it to you to look up Tetlock. Wouldn’t want to deprive anyone of the fun of research.
I love that jpm!!! Hadn’t thought of it that way. If god could do that, why not do a Babel? Sadlly lots of people just don’t want to believe god is powerful.
I took my time in answering because I took the trouble to look at the issue. I read the citations in the other paper that I could get my hands on. My life would be easier if Ruhlen were correct. He’s not.
You should disabuse yourself of the idea that you are correct most of the time. Over and over, your key ideas turn out to be based on outliers. Doesn’t go a long way toward building confidence in the ultimate conclusion.
Sealkin You are most welcome. I am appreciative of the open minded attitude you have. I suggest looking at my reply to pevaquark today which outlines how I think it happened all the while maintaining the ability to do a phylogeny. I agree with you that the time isn’t important and I don’t necesarily think it requires that it happened to all of humanity either.
LOL, Probably, but I do argue and defend my position until backed into a corner, then I will change. I will study your link when I get out of the hospital. I always study what critics say about what I have said. But I will say this, haven’t noticed a whole lot of humility in any of us here debating about each person thinking they were wrong. Lol, why put out a position if you think you are wrong? You are arguing against me because… wait for it… wait… because you think you are right. Same here my friend.
Absolutely. But I always recognize the possibility that I could be wrong. That’s where the humility comes in. At least, that’s how I rationalize my behavior … 
I loved the Doric allusion, @gbob. I hope your time in the hospital is spent profitably, and you improve. God bless.
To comment on the question about the Bible, many of us (I know I have) have struggled for a long time trying to fit in the Bible to what I believed as a child–that is, concordant. Please understand that I never wanted to change; I do believe in God through Christ, and believe that Christ is His Word and my savior, as I think you do. I know you have struggled a long time, too. Please keep that in mind that because we have not ended up exactly like you (with what you admit is sometimes a unique point of view), does not mean we don’t have as much devotion to our mutual Father. I have learned a lot from the folks here. I also appreciate your thoughts. God bless.
I agree with you, Mervin, that this discussion seems to have moved into an area which is restricted to examining the evidence for a Biblical event–not its significance–and therefore it no longer helps answer the question: What lesson should I take from this bit of O.T. Scripture that is applicable to the problems I (and the rest of humanity) face today.
The Catholic Encyclopedia encourages a literal treatment of the Babel story. “The Lord came down to see the tower of Babel and said "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other. The Lord scattered them all over the earth.”
The authors of this segment of the O.T. may have been inspired, but their concept of the Creator-God still had not shed the shackles of the ANE religions from whence it sprang. They still thought it reasonable that the God they worshiped was capable of harboring jealousy, being fearful that the humankind He (they?) created could threaten or exceed Him in power. So the lesson for today seems to be: "Mankind, beware of the sin of Pride; don’t get too big for your britches."
That can be very good advice, especially if the Pride is expressed thru power over your fellow humans. But the lesson we may learn for today may be somewhat different. The Babylonians should NOT be faulted for wanting a bridge to Heaven. They had to be taught that such a material “bridge”, a ziggurat, cannot be built. Only a spiritual bridge will work.
I prefer to believe that Jesus calls us to be co-creators of a new humankind, a humankind that is far advanced technically over today’s. (Just as today’s humans are able to live a more productive, pain-free life than our remote ancestors.). But our goal for the ‘improved human’ should not be exclusively material, like a ziggurat reaching out to Heaven. As a human, I take vicarious pride in the Apollo program and our robot sojourners to Mars. They represent the Ziggerats of this generation. What is discouraging, is the World Politics that seems returning us to intense tribalism–as opposed to Jesus’ command to ‘love one’s neighbor as oneself’. What I find encouraging are the people who help their ‘neighbors’ on the other side of the planet thru organizations like Doctors With Borders and Smiles Train (and many, many others.)
In spite of Jesus’ command, the word ‘Globalism’ has been given a bad connotation, even tho, in principle, it seeks to share our prosperity with peoples living under a different flag; i.e., geographically remote neighbors. We would rather measure our societies’ progress by our Nation’s Gross National Product. Should we have a different goal in mind when we “make America great again”?
Al Leo
Didn’t Augustine write in times like these–when Rome was falling to the barbarians, and he wrote of the City of God, which we need to focus on, rather than making our earthly cities our homes and manufactured by our tribal pride? I am not familiar enough with that, but I wonder if there is a parallel. Thanks for your post; it’s good.
In my latest post, I make allowances for ANE peoples underestimating God’s power and majesty (e.g. His lack of jealousy), but its harder to excuse the Fundamentalists of today for the same mistake.
Mainly, tho, I wanted to let you know that you are in my thoughts and hopes that your trip to M.D. Anderson proves worthwhile. I do not ‘pray to the Good Lord’ in the way I did some 85 yrs. ago, but I do believe He does intervene ‘against the odds’ at times. However it comes about, I hope you are given more years (enjoyable years!) of putting your intellect to work.
Al Leo
I’m on vacation.
I also have no expertise in historical linguistics. All I know for sure is that attempts to develop proto-language, even within established language families are highly speculative. No one thinks there was a Babel event a few thousand years ago. I don’t understand why some people want Genesis to be describing a historical event from 100,000 years ago that would have been completely irrelevant to the original audience. It just sounds like silly “fact checking the Bible” kind of stuff that ignores the literary functions of the text. If the original single human language is what the Genesis account is, why the ziggaruts? Such a scenario kind of ruins the literary flow where the Babel story is the preface to the covenant with Abraham.
I got home today, free from M D Anderson for 2 weeks. Yeah, I have been wrong many times, and I have proof that I will change my mind. I changed from a YEC to an evolutionist. I know only one other YEC published writer who ever made that change, and that was Nicholas Rupke, the originator of the polystrate fossil argument, and he became an atheist as best I can understand. That was a big change, and I squirmed a lot. Yeah, I will defend my position, but slam me with something absolutely irrefutable and unavoidable, and I will change.
I have been working on Genesis 4, which Bill raised, and it is a reasonable issue to raise. I will publish it probabably tomorrow. I have never addressed this issue in any of my publications. I hope some will give me credit for actually writing it.
If you want to know why someone would suggest that, then consider that science says that is the ony way humanity could be descended from a single pair. I suggest looking at When did Adam Live? series. My flood theory, based on the time around which Science says that IF we are to have a single pair it had to be then, results in a flood story that absolutely matches what the Scripture describes. I know most here will think it barking mad. I don’t care.I prefer to have my Bible be factually true.
Edited to add for Christy, I have seen too many young-earthers reject the Bible because they come to believe science says Genesis isn’t true. Unlike yall, they won’t believe the way you do. Thus, one reason to have an apologetic that is scientifically and historically accurate, yet matches the Biblical account is to keep them from going into atheism. I almost went into atheism and still to this day find yalls method of believing that an inaccurate mistake prone Bible holds metaphysical truth to be mind-numbingly illogical to me. It is to the YECs to. So when they come here and say they are slipping on the slippery slope, one better take it seriously. Atheism is about to get another convert. Yall’s system of thinking won’t save them. I think keeping a Christian in the fold is well worth the effort and ridicule I have gotten over the years for my views.
Thank you so much Aleo. You are so kind. I prayed once to be healed, that is all. Bible tells us not to be repetitive in prayers because God knows our needs, but I am content no matter how this turns out. So far, no sign that this trial is stopping the cancer, but I am still healthy enough to do most things in life. Thus, I am blessed.
Oh that video brought back good memories, except for the Scurries (dang albatross), who once dumped on my car winshield the biggest bird strike I have ever seen. Glad I was inside the car. lol
I saw a vid from Aberdeen of a Albatross stealing crisps ever day from a store I believe was on Union street.
Randy wrote: To comment on the question about the Bible, many of us (I know I have) have struggled for a long time trying to fit in the Bible to what I believed as a child–that is, concordant. Please understand that I never wanted to change;"
I know. As I said in response to someone else, the reason we need an interpretation like mine is to help people like you when you are in the midst of struggles. I almost went to atheism and still would if I thought there was no way the Bible could be read as a historically correct, scientifically correct document. I have sadly worked with many struggling people over the years who could never go the way you went Randy, and they became atheists. Also sadly the attitude of those in the intellectual elite of Christianity towards those who believe young earth creationism, is rarely one of love for the individual. It is too often disdain for their ignorance. In some sense I still stand with them on the need of a historical Bible. I don’t say inerrant, I use the word historicity in Scripture. I guess I couldn’t make the change you did.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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