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I started thinking about this after a BBC article last week. [1] The thought that cheese existed before drinking milk was mind-blowing. Lactose intolerance is n

I started thinking about this after a BBC article last week. [1] The thought that cheese existed before drinking milk was mind-blowing. Lactose intolerance is normal, "However, many modern Europeans possess a genetic mutation which allows for the continued consumption of milk into adulthood." Growing up in Geneva, the cultural importance of local French and Swiss cheeses from the Alps and Jura is significant, and dates back to Roman times, according to Pliny the Elder's Naturalis Historia [2]. A lot was happening about 6000 years ago. Cuneiform script was invented about 3200 BC. Egyptian hieroglyphs are from 3400 BC. Noam Chomsky suggested a cosmic ray shower that suddenly delivered language to proto-humans. [3] Suppose language came from one source (the monogenetic theory [4], compatible with the Tower of Babel), at the same time as recorded history began about 6000 years ago (4000 BC). As well as transmitting language from this single source, people would also trade goods and culture, such as cheese recipes. All words for cheese would therefore have a single origin, and people all around the world should have cheese. But we know that this isn't the case. Cheese is very new in China, and lactose intolerance is common. Even the name, "起司 qǐ sī", is from English, unlike the French word "fromage". What I'm suggesting is that because i) we know cheese existed before recorded history, and ii) we know that Chinese don't traditionally eat cheese, then iii) I doubt that there was worldwide trade that spread language, and therefore iv) the monogenetic theory of language wouldn't be true -> the Chinese language was developed independently of Mesopotamian/Phoenician/Latin. Please tell me if you think this is a crazy hypothesis, or if this is something worth researching. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49650806 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49650806 [2] https://peterburk.github.io/pliny/ChaptersHtml/11.%20Book%20XI.%20The%20Various%20Kinds%20Of%20Insects./97.%20Chap.%2097.%20(42.)-Various%20Kinds%20Of%20Cheese..html https://peterburk.github.io/pliny/ChaptersHtml/11.%20Book%20... [3] https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2011/11/man-or-mutant-is-human-language-the-product-of-bizarre-mutation/ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2011/11/man-or-mutant-is-huma... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monogenetic_theory_of_pidgins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monogenetic_theory_of_pidgins

jelliclesfarm 7y ago
Fascinating. Thanks. I want to go down this rabbit hole before making any useful comment. And I am adding this : https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/mumbai/Paneer-and-the-origin-of-cheese-in-India/article14516958.ece https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/mumbai/Paneer-and-the-o... to that list to make sense from my cultural dietary perspective. [..]A complete understanding of dairy traditions all over the subcontinent and Central Asia is necessary to understand the history of cheese — a form of pressed or drained curds brought about by the coagulation of milk proteins — in India.[..] I am going to enjoy reading all of this. Thanks.
tom_mellior 7y ago
> All words for cheese would therefore have a single origin This isn't how language works. Even languages from the same family, including very closely related ones, often have different words for the same concept. Consider that English and French are both Indo-European languages, and that English has a lot of its vocabulary from French, and still "cheese" and "fromage" don't have the same origin. Or consider Spanish, which is closely related to French and Italian ("formaggio"), and which has "queso" (which, again, has the same Latin root as "cheese" does). The English word, like many inherited from French, has a Latin origin but English got "cheese" not via French but via a borrowing of the Latin word into a Germanic language, although Proto-Germanic already had a completely fine word for cheese: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/justaz https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic.... The point being, the evolution of words is not as linear as you seem to think. EDIT: > Suppose language came from one source (the monogenetic theory [4], [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monogenetic_theory_of_pidgins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monogenetic_theory_of_pidgins That's only about pidgins, not all languages by far. You meant this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Human_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Human_language
- peterburkimsher 7y ago
  Thank you for your comments! "justaz" you were saying, language is pretty complicated, so it's not worth making broad conclusions from etymology. Yes, you're right about Proto-Human language - I'd just done a quick search for "monogenesis" and found the wrong page. Would you agree though, that if written language has a single origin, then there must have been an ancient worldwide trade network, through which cheese would also have travelled?
  - tom_mellior 7y ago
    > Would you agree though, that if written language has a single origin, then there must have been an ancient worldwide trade network, through which cheese would also have travelled? The question of language is independent of this question, I think. Even if there was a single origin, cheese might have been invented locally after languages had separated. Moreover, we know that there were ancient worldwide trade networks. The Roman Empire had silk imported from China 2000 years ago. Cheese and cheese recipes could have traveled from Europe along the Silk Road, just as tofu might have traveled from China to Europe. I wouldn't assume that the idea of cheese was unknown in China until recently. For whatever it's worth, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheese#Origins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheese#Origins says: "The earliest ever discovered preserved cheese was found in the Taklamakan Desert in Xinjiang, China, and it dates back as early as 1615 BCE." linking to https://eu.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/02/25/worlds-oldest-cheese/5776373/ https://eu.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/02/25/worlds-oldest-... as the source. So if cheese is historically not popular in China, I wouldn't think that this is because there was no knowledge of cheese in China, I would guess that there are some cultural preferences or other reasons that it didn't catch on. Maybe the Chinese knew that they couldn't digest milk well and decided that milk and milk products in general must be bad for you. I don't know.

jelliclesfarm 7y ago

Fascinating. Thanks. I want to go down this rabbit hole before making any useful comment. And I am adding this : https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/mumbai/Paneer-and-the-origin-of-cheese-in-India/article14516958.ece https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/mumbai/Paneer-and-the-o... to that list to make sense from my cultural dietary perspective. [..]A complete understanding of dairy traditions all over the subcontinent and Central Asia is necessary to understand the history of cheese — a form of pressed or drained curds brought about by the coagulation of milk proteins — in India.[..] I am going to enjoy reading all of this. Thanks.

tom_mellior 7y ago

> All words for cheese would therefore have a single origin This isn't how language works. Even languages from the same family, including very closely related ones, often have different words for the same concept. Consider that English and French are both Indo-European languages, and that English has a lot of its vocabulary from French, and still "cheese" and "fromage" don't have the same origin. Or consider Spanish, which is closely related to French and Italian ("formaggio"), and which has "queso" (which, again, has the same Latin root as "cheese" does). The English word, like many inherited from French, has a Latin origin but English got "cheese" not via French but via a borrowing of the Latin word into a Germanic language, although Proto-Germanic already had a completely fine word for cheese: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/justaz https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic.... The point being, the evolution of words is not as linear as you seem to think. EDIT: > Suppose language came from one source (the monogenetic theory [4], [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monogenetic_theory_of_pidgins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monogenetic_theory_of_pidgins That's only about pidgins, not all languages by far. You meant this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Human_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Human_language

peterburkimsher 7y ago
Thank you for your comments! "justaz" you were saying, language is pretty complicated, so it's not worth making broad conclusions from etymology. Yes, you're right about Proto-Human language - I'd just done a quick search for "monogenesis" and found the wrong page. Would you agree though, that if written language has a single origin, then there must have been an ancient worldwide trade network, through which cheese would also have travelled?
- tom_mellior 7y ago
  > Would you agree though, that if written language has a single origin, then there must have been an ancient worldwide trade network, through which cheese would also have travelled? The question of language is independent of this question, I think. Even if there was a single origin, cheese might have been invented locally after languages had separated. Moreover, we know that there were ancient worldwide trade networks. The Roman Empire had silk imported from China 2000 years ago. Cheese and cheese recipes could have traveled from Europe along the Silk Road, just as tofu might have traveled from China to Europe. I wouldn't assume that the idea of cheese was unknown in China until recently. For whatever it's worth, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheese#Origins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheese#Origins says: "The earliest ever discovered preserved cheese was found in the Taklamakan Desert in Xinjiang, China, and it dates back as early as 1615 BCE." linking to https://eu.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/02/25/worlds-oldest-cheese/5776373/ https://eu.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/02/25/worlds-oldest-... as the source. So if cheese is historically not popular in China, I wouldn't think that this is because there was no knowledge of cheese in China, I would guess that there are some cultural preferences or other reasons that it didn't catch on. Maybe the Chinese knew that they couldn't digest milk well and decided that milk and milk products in general must be bad for you. I don't know.