And the Whole Earth Was of One Language

[alexa]

And the Whole Earth Was of One Language, by Prof. W.F. Albright (Book Summary)

That 'one language', Sumerian, and many other similar 'lost' languages including Etruscan, Scythian, Achaemenid Elamite and Aramaic, Parthian, Urartian, Hurrian are deciphered.

Against the observation of Prof. W. F. Albright, "Archaeology proves the correctness of the old philosophical adage, 'natura non facit saltum'; there is a continuity in all the apparent discontinuity of history," an obvious artificial anomaly stands apart in history books created by the so-called 'lost languages.' There is a reasonable continuity in major languages such as Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Germanic languages, Persian, Arabic, Turkish, as well in such minor languages as Albanian, Georgian and Armenian. Lost languages of significance were those of the Sumerians, Elamites, Medes, Scythians, Hittites ( Hattians), Phrygians, Lydians, Trojans, Etruscans and Arameans, great nations of their times, some creating the civilization itself and some making contributions to the arts and cultures that established the foundations of the Greek Renaissance, and through it, made possible our present civilizations. Languages of many of these nations still lived in Strabo's age. Why then, their languages should be lost while those of the minor nations lived. How could a great nation such as the Sumerians be lost who, in the words of the chronicler, spoke 'the language of the whole earth?' ( Gen 11.1-2: "AND THE WHOLE EARTH WAS OF ONE LANGUAGE"). Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson who became known as "The first successful decipherer of the cuneiform writings", at first had considered the Sumerian a Turanian language. In any case, logic will rule that these ancient languages could not possibly die out if normal historical process and continuity had to be preserved.

According to scholars, 'lost languages' in question were generally non-Semitic, non-Indo-European, and also agglutinative. Languages meeting these conditions, such as Sumerian, Elamite, Etruscan, Urartian (the language of Urartu), and
Hurrian, branded vaguely 'Asian' must be related to the Ural Altaic group of which Turkish is the only major language spoken today in Eurasia. Thus, the elimination of this anomaly from the history books depended on the proof that these languages were akin to Turkish in some form or dialect. Based on this logical point, the book solves the secrets of the lost languages, and a global distribution and development of the Turkish languages during the last five thousand years has been established.

It may be shown that the culture of 6300 B.C. Anatolia discovered at Çatalhöyük by Archaeologist James Mellaart is Turkish. The Anatolian Mother Goddess represented by two leopards (back cover of the book - above picture on the left; photo by Mrs. Mellaart) found by Prof. Mellaart was also known 6000 years later to the Etruscans (front cover - picture on the right; photo by Editions d'art Albert Skira) who have been shown in this book to have spoken a Turkish dialect.

Other lost languages including Sumerian, Scythian, Phrygian, Trojan, Lycian, Hittite (Hattian), Hurrian, Urartian, Pelasgian (Oghur Turkish, the ancestor of the Hungarian - Finnish, Chuvash and perhaps the ancient Cimmerian language), Achaemenid Aramaic (official language of the Achaemenid Persians, translated partly by R. A. Bowman), Elamite (also an official language of the Persians, phonology and morphology of which is well investigated by Herbert H. Paper), Median, Parthian (the language of the super power of the East that challenged the Roman Empire), and several languages of Central Asia including that of Sakas (Yueh-Chih), Sogdians (considered by Richard N. Frye and others as Iranian), White Huns (Hephtalites) have been deciphered in this book through translations of existing texts, using normally accepted phonetics of the Aramaic-Phoenician alphabet or applying a modified 'filtered' cuneiform reading in which according to Hincks (transmitted by Sumerologist Samuel Noah Kramer) 'one and the same cuneiform sign could stand for more than one sound or value', and / or through translation of local geographical names and of personal names of kings and nobles. All these languages are thus proved to be basically Turkish. It has also been established that Turkish-speaking peoples had important roles in the founding of the ancient Chinese civilization as well as Egyptian civilization.

Again, in this long period, Turkish languages have not changed very much in their basic structures. Even the border-line languages such as the Hungarian language and the Finnish language which have apparently borrowed large amounts of foreign words from neighbouring nations to swell their vocabulary, have preserved the character, the structure and the grammar, all undoubtedly Turkish, of their basic languages.

Through re-translation of part of 8th century Gokturk (Göktürk) inscriptions a contemporary Turkish Buddhist Kingdom on the Silk Road has been discovered, a kingdom that may go back at least to the beginning of the first century.

It has been further shown that 13th century Mongol language and present Chuvash language are not independent Ural Altaic languages but are essentially Turkish in their structure and vocabulary. Along with this, a Turkish-speaking world of Marco Polo is also discovered and some of Polo's Turkish words and expressions are explained in this work for the first time.

The Issyk inscription found recently in a fifth-century B.C. royal tomb in Central Asia near Lake Issyk (ıssik Gol) belonging to a royal person dressed in a magnificent gold attire, have been re-translated correctly and it is discovered that the man and relatives accompanying the dead royal persons in Turkish tombs were doing so 'voluntarily'.
It has been shown in Chapter 6 that the smallpox inoculation, the first important break-through in the medical history, was invented in the Ottoman Empire.

The book is divided into four parts. First part (Chapter 1 thru 6) discusses and re - discovers Turkish languages and civilizations of the last fourteen hundred years. Part II (Chapters 7 thru 29) covers the main subject, deciphering of lost languages. Part III (Chapters 30 thru 32) discovers the effect of ancient Turkish dialects on the other language groups. Here, it is shown that ancient Greek language was most likely first built on the language of the Pelasgians who inhabited Greece before the Greeks, and that the majority of the names of the Greek gods and goddesses can be explained in Turkish dialects. Finally Part IV (Chapter 33) is devoted to analysis end decipherment of ancient and modern geographical names. The work ends with an epilogue.

Some of the additional conclusions derived from the book will include the following :

1. The Japhetic language assumed to be the origin of the Kurdish language and the Armenian language is a Turkish dialect. Japheth, his brother Shem and their father Prophet Noah were Sumerians who spoke a Turkish language.

2. Epic stories such as Homer's Iliad, Firdawsi's Shahname and Virgil's Aeneid were most likely originally written or told in some Turkish dialect. In the first two, the heroes fighting on both sides were most likely Turkish - speaking peoples.

3. First Cretan civilizations were most likely created by Turkish - Speaking peoples.

4. From the borrowed words we have found in the Sumerian Turkish, we may deduct that other languages especially Indo-European Iranian and the Semitic Arabic were also well developed in the ancient world of the Sumerians.

5. All alphabets including Arabic and Latin are continuation of the Aramaic alphabet. Amongst these, Gokturk (Kok - Turk) alphabet stands apart as the most perfect with several independent modifications, additions and improvements to accommodate hard or soft vowels and their associated consonants.


Souce : http://www.lostlanguages.com/

 

[alexa]

The purpose of this thread is to establish why there are so many languages and religions on Earth.

I took Juan's suggestion and I began with the lost languages. Prof. Albright wrote a very instructive book about them and you have the summary of his book in my first post.

This is a challenge to find the evolution of languages and religions over centuries. There is no limit time, as free time is very precious for all of us. Those who took the time to read the posts from Morality within evolution, could see neither Juan, nor me don't abandon easily, once commited.

Don't be shy and feel free to participate ! Each contribution will be appreciated.

 

[juantoo3]

Kindest Regards, Alexa!

Forgive my laziness, but I will leave a quote of the most part of a paper I did for my Sociology class awhile back as a starter for my initial contribution. I am strapped for time, but perhaps it will provide a number of discussion boosters and some links to related information. This is the paper that earned me the privilege of being loaned my professor's copy of "The Golden Bough" by Frazer. I'm so glad I keep these things!

PS. I just double checked some of the links and they are not all working, apologies.
********************
Abstract Rational Thought, Religion, and Symbolic Language

Let us begin by approaching this puzzle from the vantage of artwork. There are some captive animals that have been encouraged to express artistic creativity. My studies included two creatures in particular; a gorilla, and an elephant. While their works exude a certain charm, they are obviously lacking in expressive detail. There is no definition or distinction, merely swaths of color. The gorilla has yet to artistically demonstrate any creative construction that represents more than wishfully the form of a bunch of bananas, or anything else real and concrete from her known world.4 The elephant has not reproduced a mouse or peanut, or any other thing from her known world in a recognizable fashion.5 It could possibly be argued that we see the world differently than other creatures. Organically there may be some truth, especially pertaining to the elephant. But how much closer, as the biologists argue, can we get organically to an ape? "Well, gorillas don't have the fine motor skills..." Have you, as a human, ever tried to peel a banana without using your thumb? And if so, did you end up with anything worthwhile to eat? Gorillas do so all the time; they are actually quite adept with fine motor skills.

So we are left with the conclusion that lesser animals, including apes, do not have the fundamental abstract conceptual skills required for artistic conveyance of a thought, which is arguably a precursor to written language. Promise has been shown with this gorilla, named Koko, in using sign language to convey "real time" wants and needs.6 While this is a wonderful attempt in cross-species communication, still it does not demonstrate abstract conceptualization required for conveying a thought to another (in or out of species) by written or artistic means. Abstract thoughts are beyond the reach of this beautiful creature. Other experimental attempts at cross-species communication with parrots and porpoises produce similar results; relative success conveying real time "in the moment" wants and needs, but a total lack of abstract conceptualization beyond the here and now into the future, or to a slightly lesser extent the past.7 So, we can state that there is a distinct gulf in mental comprehension between humans and the rest of the animal world. That other creatures communicate is not here called into question, they do. But to convey a thought by artistic creation to another creature, as humans do with writing, is beyond the capabilities of all other animals. Humans think abstractly and rationally. So far as we know, no other animals do.

The evidences we seek in order to continue this discussion lie shrouded in the mists of prehistory. There, we cannot be certain, we can only suppose. There is no conclusive proof. As evidence is gathered from remote corners of the globe, our established presumptions are being challenged. The more we learn, the more we realize we do not know.

For example, early man was considered to be a "hunter/gatherer", which implies a carnivorous diet. Yet examination of the hair of the "Ice Man" (also referred to as the “Tyrolean Ice Man” and “Ötzi”) found in the Italian Alps and estimated to be from around 5000 BC (before the advent of agriculture) shows an almost strictly vegetarian diet.8 Such contradictions challenge our conventional suppositions.

There are a few landmark moments that mark the beginnings of what we consider humanity: the conquest of fire, the invention of weapons and tools, the wheel, and agriculture. And all of these are tied inextricably to one major component, rational thought. Concordant with rational thought is the contemplation of the spiritual elements of nature.

According to various researchers, humans acquired fire sometime during the "stone age", with reports varying from 700,000-200,000 BC.9,10,11,14 It is thought that humans first used natural fire, then developed means to transport it, and sometime around 20,000 BC learned to create fire using iron pyrite stones. Later, the bow and drill were used to create fire. Contemporary with this, humans also developed tools and weapons made of stone and wood.10 And with these things we separated ourselves from the lesser animals. Contained within these achievements is the germ of rational thought.

Sometime during this same period, according to the evidences that have been gathered, humanity began to demonstrate a comprehensive and overwhelming awareness of spiritual concepts. Each culture may not have arrived at the same conclusions, and certainly very many expressed their concepts in different manners, but the raw fact is that early human civilizations all had some familiarity with spiritual concepts. Those concepts chiefly revolved around a "Creator", and where the spirit/soul went upon release from this earthly shell. Stone age man is credited by many researchers as having developed elaborate rituals and ceremonies for burying their dead, evidenced by the burial chambers and tombs that have been discovered dating to 10,000 BC and possibly earlier.9,11,12 The shaman was already an integral part of early tribal societies.

The cave paintings in Lascaux, France, and in other places, are usually interpreted by researchers as including a spiritual component.9,11,12 Whether the paintings were done in homage to those creatures that gave their life for sustenance, or a thank offering to "God", or for demonstration in how to properly conduct a hunt, is unclear to us now. Although we cannot be certain what the exact rituals were in shamanic practice within a primitive tribal society, what we can ascertain without question is that very early in human social organization, spiritual awareness was a key fundamental component. The conventional thought is that humans somehow mentally conceived of spirit in some manner that tangled it with "superstition". And after several thousand years of rational and logical thought, we now stand ready to throw off the bonds of our superstition. I wish to propose another possibility: the dawn of rational thought is more likely connected intimately with the realization of spirit. That is, the awareness of spirit awakened and nurtured rational thought.

A kindergartner’s stick drawings may not be high art, but they are recognizable as to what they represent. The artwork in Lascaux is not contemporary art, but the figures are unmistakably horses, bison, antelopes, and other humans. While the details of the story line are beyond our understanding, we can take a pretty good guess at the thought being conveyed some ten to fifteen thousand years after they were drawn. Humans by this time were capable not only of abstract thinking, but were capable of relaying information to another human, across time, without being present. Human communication now transcended vocal patterns.

Other milestones mark the development of humanity, notably the wheel, the use of metals, agriculture, the development of textiles, pottery, and most significant for our discussion, written language.13,14 These all stem from rational thought, that is, without rational thought none of these would have been developed.

Virtually all of the research I looked into placed these crucial developments into the region called Mesopotamia, and the culture referred to as Sumeria. It was here, almost universally accepted as between 4000-3500 BC, that agriculture, textiles (spinning thread to make cloth), pottery, and the wheel were developed and invented. Here, the use of metals, beginning with copper, later bronze and iron, was developed (giving rise to the ages referred to as "Bronze Age" and "Iron Age"). It was also here, that written alphabets were developed.13,14

The earliest forms of written language were based on crude and simple forms of very real things from the known environment.13 Humans moved from pictorial representation like the cave paintings, to crude symbolism, a kind of shorthand. Early alphabetical letters were representations of animals, tools and weapons, natural phenomena and other things with significance; such as an ox, a house, a spear, or a lightning bolt.15,16 Each symbol gained an associated sound, a verbal meaning. Symbols were combined, and new meanings and combined sounds attached. And these symbols were scribed upon clay tablets, which were then baked for preservation. These are the cuneiform tablets we hold today, and can still read.13,16

This region, the Fertile Crescent of Mesopotamia, gave rise to many of the great civilizations we know today. This is the land of Ur of the Chaldees, the birthplace of Abraham. Sumeria later became known to our history as Babylon. Sumeria is where the first walled cities and fortresses were built, and organized war was first practiced. Sumeria is the historical foundation of Western cultures ranging from the sons of Ishmael to the sons of Isaac, and others besides. And it is here that spirit based moral expression was first articulated in the abstract art of alphabetical writing. It is here that these early expressions of what we might term "formal religion", are first "cast in stone".13

The Ten Commandments, the Code of Hammurabi, the Egyptian concepts that led to weighing the soul against a sacred feather, etc, are forms we are familiar with that demonstrate the formal codification of spirit based morality. No doubt these are the "carving in stone" of the shades and forms that grew out of the spiritual traditions of the earliest societies. Different cultures expressed their spirit based moralities in different manners, using means that held significance within their respective cultures. But universally, the societies that gave rise to our modern social structures all acknowledged a spiritual element and guidance of a "Creator". The formal establishment of religion, and the power structure that followed, in concert with the political structure, gave society a structure to build upon. History tells us this structure was often bent and twisted, distorted for reasons of power and control over the masses being governed. But the underlying truth remains, for perhaps as long as humans have had a rational mind, we have perceived an innate sense of spirit.

References:
4. koko.org/kokomart/art.html, various examples by koko the gorilla and other gorillas. Associated with Dr. Penny Patterson.
5. www.novica.com (in association with National Geographic) and www.roadsideamerica.com both contain multiple examples of elephant art
6. Patterson, Penny, conducting and facilitating, www.geocities.com/RainForest/Vines/4451/KokoLiveChat.html contains one of three distinct “online chats” I found conducted with Koko. Despite Dr. Patterson’s claims on the subject, I could find nothing in the “chats” to support the idea that Koko “thinks”, abstractly, as humans commonly do. As with all of the trans-species communication projects I have studied in the past, Koko can only reason at a level comparable to that of about a three or four year old human. There seems to be a threshold beyond which animals cannot pass.
7. I wish I could give proper credit concerning the research conducted using porpoises and parrots, but this evidence is pulled from snippets of interesting information I have gathered over the years, and while I am certain it could be verified, I am being a bit lazy because I have enough other sources here to pull from.
8. Macko, S. A., Lubec, G., Teschler-Nicola, M., Andrusevich, V., Engel, M. H. The Ice Man's diet as reflected by the stable isotopic composition of his hair. FASEB Journal 13, 559 - 562 (1999)
Dickson, J. et al. The omnivorous Tyrolean Iceman: colon contents (meat, cereals, pollen, moss, whipworm) and stable isotope analysis. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 355, 1843 - 1849 (2000)
www.nature.com/nsu/001228/001228-7.html
9. A Paleolithical Embellished Cave found in France (Ardeche), AN EXCEPTIONAL ARCHEOLOGICAL DISCOVERY, Paris, January 18th, 1995
http://www.sacred-texts.com/nel/cavepeng.txt
10. (No Author Listed), FIRE, Introduction http://ixquick.com/do/metasearch.pl?cmd=process_search&language=english&rl=NONE&query=Earliest+History+Fire&relsrch=1
11. (No Author Listed), EARLY MAN, http://www.mts.net/~william5/history/hol.htm
12. Whitehouse, David, "A prehistoric planetarium on which man first charted the stars", August 9, 2000, © MMIII
13. (No Author Listed), The Cradle of Civilization, last updated Sunday, March 23, 2003 http://home.achilles.net/~sal/iraq_history.html
14. (No Author Listed), Early Human History, http://history.evansville.net/meso.html
15. An Archive of Alphabetical Possibilities, citing: "Sign and Design; the Psychogenetic Source of the Alphabet, by Alfred Kallir, Vernum, Richmond, Surrey, 1961" "The Alphabet, by David Diringer, London, 1948" "The Alphabet, by Isaac Taylor (2 volumes), 1883"
www.adh.brighton.ac.uk/schoolofdesign/MA.COURSE/Lalphabet.html
16. Bett, Steve and Lawrence Lu, "The Alphabet part II, meaningless shapes arbitrarily linked to meaningless sounds" (citing three and a half pages of references) www.unifon.org/alphabet2.html

 

[alexa]

Hello Juan,

I finally understand your interest in morality ! I had no chance, since the beginning to convince you about the earth based religions, had I ?

As per wikipedia, cuneiform writing began as a system of pictographs. It was subsequently adopted and adapted by the Akkadians, Babylonians, Elamites, Hittites and Assyrians to write their own languages and was widely used in Mesopotamia for about 3000 years, though the syllabic nature of the script as it was refined by the Sumerians was unintuitive to the Semitic-language speakers. This fact, before Sumerian civilization was rediscovered, prompted many philologists to suspect a precursor civilization to the Babylonian.


Most later adaptations of Sumerian cuneiform preserved at least some aspects of the Sumerian script. Written Akkadian included both phonetic symbols from the Sumerian syllabary, together with logograms that were read as whole words. Many signs in the script were polyvalent, having both a syllabic and logographic meaning. When the cuneiform script was adapted to writing the Hittite language, a layer of Akkadian logographic spellings was added to the script, with the result that we no longer know the pronunciations of many Hittite words conventionally written by logograms. The complexity of the system bears a resemblance to classical Japanese, written in a Chinese derived script; some of these Sinograms were used as logograms, others as phonetic characters. Contemporary Japanese graphically distinguishes the logograms (kanji) from syllabary characters (kana) but otherwise retains a similar system.


The complexity of the system prompted the development of a number of simplified versions of the script. Old Persian was written in a subset of simplified cuneiform characters, that formed a simple, semi-alphabetic syllabary, using far fewer wedge strokes than Assyrian used, together with a handful of logograms for frequently occurring words like "god" and "king." The Ugaritic language was written using the Ugaritic alphabet, a standard Semitic style alphabet (an abjad) written using the cuneiform method.


The use of Aramaic became widespread under the Assyrian Empire and the Aramaean alphabet gradually replaced cuneiform. The last known cuneiform inscription, an astronomical text, was written in 75 AD.


Cuneiform has a specific format for transliteration. In the study of languages written in cuneiform, transliteration is the process of representing the sounds of written cuneiform signs in a lossless way, as opposed to transcription, which is a lossy method of representing the spoken language. Because cuneiform is polyvalent, signs may be interpreted to represent more than one syllable (or logogram). For example, the sign DINGIR may represent either the sound "an" or "il", as well as the word meaning god and the phonetic complement for a name of a deity. Similarly, the sign "MU" represents either the sound "a" or the word meaning water.


A logogram, or logograph is a single written character which represents a complete grammatical word. Most Chinese characters are classified as logograms.A good example of modern western logograms are the numbers - 1 stands for one, 2 for two and so on; the ampersand & is used for and, while @ sometimes stands for at.Compared to alphabetical systems, logograms have the disadvantage that one needs many of them to be able to write down a large number of words. An advantage is that one does not need to know the language of the writer to understand them - everyone understands what 1 means, whether they call it one, eins, uno or ichi; likewise, people speaking different Chinese dialects, or even Chinese and Korean or Japanese, cannot understand each other in speaking, but sometimes can in writing. In addition, a logogram-based system uses fewer characters to express something than an alphabetic system, a benefit enjoyed by Chinese, Korean, and Japanese users of cell phone web browsers and other devices which display information on a small screen.

 

[alexa]

The Hittite language is the dead language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who once created an empire centered on ancient Hattusa (modern Boğazköy) in north-central Turkey. The language was used from approximately 1600 BC (and probably before) to 1100 BC. There is some attestation that Hittite and related languages were still spoken for a few hundred years after that.Hittite is one of the earliest known Indo-European languages, although marked differences in its structure and phonology have lead some philologists to argue that it should be classified as a sister language to the Indo-European languages, rather than a daughter language.
Akkad (or Agade) was a city and its region of northern Mesopotamia, (now located in present-day Iraq) between Assyria to the northwest and Sumer to the south, for the period in ancient history before the time of Babylonia. Akkad gave its name to the Akkadian language, which reflects the linguistic variation between south and north in Mesopotamia. The name of the language is derived from akkadû which was used in the Old Babylonian period to denote the Semitic version of a Sumerian text.

Babylonia was formed out of the combined territories of Akkad and Sumer, with the Akkadian language evolving to form the language of Babylonia and the Sumerian language falling into everyday disuse, but retained in religious contexts.

In the later Assyro-Babylonian literature the name Akkadu appears as part of the royal title in connexion with Sumer; viz. non-Semitic: lugal Kengi (ki) Uru (ki) = sar mat Sumeri u Akkadi, "king of Sumer and Akkad," which appears to have meant simply "king of Babylonia."Babylon was the capital city of Babylonia in Mesopotamia (in contemporary Iraq, about 70 miles south of Baghdad). The name is the Greek form of Babel, which is derived in turn from the Semitic form Babilu, meaning "The Gate of God". This Semitic word is a translation of the Sumerian Kadmirra.

The monumental list of its kings reaches back to circa 2300 BC, and includes Hammurabi (perhaps the Amraphel of Genesis, and, if so, hence the contemporary of Abraham). It stood on the Euphrates, about 322 km (approx. 200 miles) above its junction with the Tigris, which flowed through its midst and divided it into two almost equal parts.

The Elamites invaded Chaldea (i.e., Lower Mesopotamia, or Shinar, and Upper Mesopotamia, or Akkad, now combined into one) and held it in subjection. At length King Hammurabi delivered it from the foreign yoke and founded the Babylonian Empire, making Babylon the capital of the united kingdom.
The city gradually grew in extent and grandeur, but in process of time it became subject to Assyria. It rebelled against the Assyrian rule under Mushezib-Marduk and again under Shamash-shum-ukin but was besieged and taken over by Sennacherib and Assurbanipal (Kandalanu) again. On the fall of Nineveh (612 BC) it threw off the Assyrian yoke, and became the capital of the growing Babylonian empire.


Under Nebuchadnezzar, it became one of the most splendid cities of the ancient world. His most famous construction was the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
After passing through various vicissitudes the city was occupied by Cyrus the Great, "king of Persia", 538 BC, who issued a decree permitting the Jews to return to their own land (Ezra 1). It then ceased to be the capital of an empire. It was again and again visited by hostile armies, until its inhabitants were all driven from their homes, and the city became a complete desolation.

 

[alexa]

The ancient Elamite Empire lay to the east of Sumer and Akkad, in what is now southwestern Iran. The Elamites called their country haltamtu or hallatamti, which was translated as Elam by the neighboring Akkadians. The high country of Elam was later more and more identified by its low-lying later capital, Susa and called Susiana by geographers after Ptolemy. The Elamite language is unrelated to the neighboring Semitic languages, Sumerian language, and Iranian languages, and the Elamites themselves were an Alpine people who had migrated to the Iranian plateau in prehistoric times. Some scholars believe it is related to the living Dravidian languages of India (see Elamo-Dravidian languages).


Sumerian language, and Iranian languages, and the Elamites themselves were an Alpine people who had migrated to the Iranian plateau in prehistoric times. Some scholars believe it is related to the living Dravidian languages of India (see Elamo-Dravidian languages).

Assyria, a country named after its original capital city, Asshur on the Tigris, was originally a colony of Babylonia, and was ruled by viceroys from that kingdom.
Assyria was located in a mountainous region lying to the north of Babylonia, extending along the Tigris as far as to the high mountain range of Armenia, the Gordiaean or Carduchian mountains.


Mesopotamia (Greek: Μεσοποταμία, translated from Old Persian Miyanrudan "the Land between the Rivers" or the Aramaic name Beth-Nahrin "two rivers") is, strictly speaking, the alluvial plain lying between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (in modern Iraq and Syria), is a region of Southwest Asia. More commonly, the term includes these river plains in totality - not merely the land between the two rivers - as well as the surrounding lowland territories bounded by the Arabian Desert to the west and south, the Persian Gulf to the immediate south, the Zagros Mountains and the Caucasus mountains to the north.

Writings from Mesopotamia (Uruk, modern Warka) are the earliest written work in the world, giving Mesopotamia the reputation of being the cradle of civilization.Mesopotamia was settled by, and conquered by, numerous ancient civilizations, including the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians and the Persian Empire. Peoples who threatened or invaded these lands include the Hittites and the Elamites. During the time of the Persian Empire of Sassanids this area was called Dil-i Iranshahr meaning "Iran's Heart" and the metropol Ctesiphon, the capital of Persia was situated in Mesopotamia.

 

[alexa]

Some maps should be useful :

 

[aquaris]

A very informative and properly researched .....article....

Personally I had a Near/after death experience and the language I heard was not
Arabic, English or any other that I knew....yet i was able to understand it alll....
Unfortunatley...its more than two years since that accident...and all i remember is....
vague reflections....

 

[alexa]

Do you believe that language you have heard is an universal one ? Something hidden very deeply in our subconscious ?

 

[aquaris]

Yes...... I think over the time.....

things got mixed up/ corrupted and deviated from what they actual were meant too...
and I think it was....

One request can I post selected portions of this post on another forum...??

 

[alexa]

Hi Aquaris,

That's why we have this thread here, to investigate what happened with the languages over the centuries. As you could read, at the beginning it was only one language : the Sumarian.

We are at the beginning of this investigation, so in this moment I'm searching for the best sources to find an answer. The conclusion will be drawn only when all the sources will be covered up. Meanwhile, I take everyone's opinion in consideration. I'm not the type : I am right and you are wrong. This ends the conversation too fast and I'm not interested as I really want to know what happended in the past. Another short answer could be : God mixed up our languages, you remember Babel tower ? Well, this answer is not good enough. I wanna know WHY and HOW ?

Now, can you tell me what you want to say : "I think it was..."

Regards,

Alexa



P.S. If you want to post some fragments from this post, you can do it, but please add that the original source is Wikipedia. The maps are from Religion and Mythology
http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/religionmythology

I did't put the post in brackets for two reasons : 1. did a selection;
2. Juan loves to have the refference of the text when he answers (if you didn't have the honor yet to meet him, you'll have it soon )

 

[aquaris]

Like they say the earth was destroyed and recreated ....many times....

at least once in the biblical/muslims/jews/ tradtion with reference to Noah...and as I read somewhere else....seven according to Inca..? Maya..? sources....the answer
I think lay somwhere there.....

Imagine ..... the world is again destroyed....and there are very few survivors....
and they get all scattered ...all over the remaining earth....then in due course of time ... another round of rebuilting will start.... at various different places on
earth.. with same survivors....but now scattered all over.... in the initial period.
there would be similarities in what would have been left of the civilization, that is any traditions, language, any sort of remaining culture....but after a few say
hundred years of so.... they will start to deviate....a evolve independently of each other then in a few more centuries.... they might re-discover each other..
like we did... columbus rediscovered America.... But its known that chineese or may be some others were already visiting a different part of whats america today.
hence .... although there may be a singular before destruction civilizational traccess but thing would have been entirely different in each part Now...
thats why we still wonder at the Near similarity of say Pyramids in Egypyt, or in
South America... or as far as China... and a similar One God concept too..

... Like in this article .... every thing seems to boil down to a Turkish Origin....
that is it seems the source was somewhere In Turkey.....and then has spread out..

 

[alexa]

Like they say the earth was destroyed and recreated ....many times....at least once in the biblical/muslims/jews/ tradtion with reference to Noah...and as I read somewhere else....seven according to Inca..? Maya..? sources....the answer...
Imagine ..... the world is again destroyed....and there are very few survivors....

Oh, the flood from Genesis, 1657 AM. Good point !

The flood is also mentioned in Popol Vuh (Plato also gives an account of the Flood and the city of Atlantis in the dialogue). The earliest surviving reference to the Flood goes back to 1900 B.C.

Can you tell me where I can find the infos for Inca one, please ?

 

[aquaris]

while searching around.....

I stumbled upon this site....its very interesting.... especially regarding legends of flood


http://www.nwcreation.net/noahlegends.html

 

[alexa]

Thanks, aquaris, It seems interesting indeed.

 

[juantoo3]

Kindest Regards, Alexa!

Wow, what a post!

I finally understand your interest in morality ! I had no chance, since the beginning to convince you about the earth based religions, had I ?

Well, innate morality (conscience) seems to me related, but I hadn't thought to go in that direction when I wrote my paper. So it is reasonable to say that when I started the other thread, it was on the one hand a separate investigation, and on the other a means of validating (or not) what is included here.

There is always the possibility I have been mistaken, that is why I chose to discuss these issues openly, to bring in other opinions and insights. In that, you have been a great sport! Thanks

 

[juantoo3]

Kindest Regards, aquaris! and welcome to CR!

Like they say the earth was destroyed and recreated ....many times....

at least once in the biblical/muslims/jews/ tradtion with reference to Noah...and as I read somewhere else....seven according to Inca..? Maya..? sources....the answer
I think lay somwhere there.....

It seems I remember reading something to this effect in a Mayan or Aztec history, that the earth was laid waste 7 times. And at least one biblical scholar I refer to often, states that in Genesis (1:1?) that the world was not formed void and waste, but that it became void and waste. An interesting view, but one I am not prepared to discuss with any depth.

Thanks for participating!

 

[aquaris]

thank you juantoo3 ....

One more theme which is persistent in nearly all these myths/legends/stories is that
The God or higher being destroyed the world because the people were wicked ,cruel, and disobeying to the God So as a punishment the flood was sent...in some instances
it was first Fire then earth quake and then Flood...

The point is ....It too points to a similiar ... single begining.. ...that is there was
one civilization on the earth ....and if there was One civilization then it may have just One language. and its only after the Flood or destruction and after which
every one was scatered.... this Myth/legend/ story evolved differently in the different survivors .

 

[alexa]

After checking the link for the floods, it really seems that was only one, as the stories are very similar. The most accurate one is from the Bilble. So, finally different survivors could have different stories, but close enough for the same event.

Something about Turkish origin bothers me. I think prof. Albright wants us to believe it. I have to check !

 

[juantoo3]

Kindest Regards, Alexa and Aquaris!

I haven't a lot of time, but a couple of directions perhaps worth looking into:

Bob Ballard, the oceanic explorer famed for finding the Titanic, apparently made a dive in the Black Sea and found the ruins of a city a couple of years ago. The media made a big hype for a moment and then hushed because it wasn't quite what they thought, but it is intriguing just the same. I watched a program about it last week, on NOVA I think.

Another direction to look, if you have time and energy, would be to find Glen Morton's personal website and the information he catalogues there. It has moved from the address I have, but I have found the new site recently (should have had sense enough to save the new address!). I haven't been through all of his material, but he has done quite a bit of research both on the physical aspects of a worldwide deluge (according to him, it is not possible) and on prehistoric man such as Neandertal and Cro-Magnon, including a critique of the find of a hybrid Neandertal/Cro-Magnon child skeleton that was found. Some really great stuff! And he still considers himself a Christian (although some I know might take issue with such a claim...).

Anyway, those are the directions I had thought to look before I got caught up in the needs of life at this moment. It is not likely to ease up until almost Christmas. But I try to take a minute and look in from time to time from school and work, but those computers are not registered to this site, so I can't post if I wanted to. I don't think it would be prudent anyway.

I look forward to any more research you do! I think you can see I find this subject absolutely fascinating!