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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 r

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.

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.