4 ms·

It would be interesting to explore whether this has any effect on the hypothesis, based purely on letterform comparisons, that runes may be traced to semitic sy

It would be interesting to explore whether this has any effect on the hypothesis, based purely on letterform comparisons, that runes may be traced to semitic symbols, presumably introduced by Carthaginian refugees or, anyway, travellers. (This idea has been dismissed as impossible based on the timeline, as the oldest runes postdate Carthage's demolition by centuries, but that argument depends on assuming we have a complete archaeological record, which we of course do not.) If the older letterforms more closely resemble a semitic form, it would be powerful evidence in favor. If not, things get more complicated.

sillyquiet 4y ago
> but that argument depends on assuming we have a complete archaeological record, which we of course do not. In other words that argument depends on the available evidence rather than speculation, like, you know, how science should be done.
- moloch-hai 4y ago
  Assuming you already have all the possible evidence already leads to falsehoods. Science is about not embracing falsehoods, if it is anything. What you promote is what cemented "Clovis first" for decades beyond its sell-by date, and opposition to the K-T bolide model and plate tectonics. Pretending to know interferes with coming to know. For a more recent example: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012825221001781?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00128... Opposition was sloppy to the point of dishonesty.
kgeist 4y ago
Do you have links to the arguments in favor of the semitic hypothesis?
- moloch-hai 4y ago
  https://theconversation.com/shillings-gods-and-runes-clues-in-language-suggest-a-semitic-superpower-in-ancient-northern-europe-139381 https://theconversation.com/shillings-gods-and-runes-clues-i... might be a good place to start.
  - msrenee 4y ago
    So that's a guy claiming he and another person figured out that the derivation of some Proto-Germanic words came from a semitic language. No published paper, just conjecture. He claims that there are a number of loanwords in Proto-Germanic that came from semitic. The word "loanword" is a link to what you would expect to lead to some evidence for it. Instead, it leads to a website listing a number of different loanwords from various languages. The closest thing on that list is Yiddish and it clearly states they mostly entered the language in the 20th century.
    - peterfirefly 4y ago
      Plenty of publications by Venneman (mentioned on the linked site). The man was a linguistics professor for 30 years. Was he right? Probably not, but definitely not just "a guy" and "another person".
      - msrenee 4y ago
        All I'm seeing on this subject by him is the book mentioned elsewhere in this thread where the summary claims close and sustained contact with the Carthaginians. The only supporting evidence I'm finding for that assertion is that he's devised new etymologies that connect Proto-Germanic to semitic roots. All he does is mention that they've made these connections linguistically. He doesn't cite any peer-reviewed papers on the subject. Just the book. If you click the linked text throughout that article, you'll get a few Wikipedia pages, Encyclopedia Britannica Online, and a few other web pages that don't back up his claims. I'm having trouble taking the theory seriously when he can't seem to pull up any real evidence besides wishful thinking.
        peterfirefly 4y ago
        You can google "Theo Venneman publications". It's not that hard.
        msrenee 4y ago
Bayart 4y ago
Nordic runes have a blatant filiatiation to Italic scripts, especially the Etruscan alphabet. It's rather natural that it would spread from the Alps to the North Sea through the Rhine River. In that sense it's just as much descended from the Phoenician alphabet as the Latin alphabet is. But a direct descent from a Semitic script makes less sense. This being said there are cases of scripts being adopted from afar rather than from a neighbour. For example Transalpine Gaul used a Greek script before the Roman invasion, rather than an Italic one.
- moloch-hai 4y ago
  Yet, we know it is more complicated than simple derivation from Etruscan. So the real question is what else happened.
- wolverine876 4y ago
  From TFA: > Scholars agree that runes were influenced by an older writing system, but just which one, and when, remain the subject of academic debate. One theory posits that the runic alphabet—also known as “futhark,” after its first six sounds—was derived from the alphabet of the Etruscans in northern Italy. Another is that runes were born from the Latin alphabet, following commercial and cultural exchange between Germanic peoples and the Romans.
  - moloch-hai 4y ago
    Apparently, assuming it was "influenced by" only one "older writing system". But there is no basis for any such assumption. It appears to be purely a matter of their own convenience, wholly disconnected from anything in the script.
    - wolverine876 4y ago
      What is your statement based on? Your analysis of runic scripts?
      - moloch-hai 4y ago
jvickers 4y ago
1) Why Carthaginian rather than Phoenician? 2) Given that runes are a form that's optimised for writing on trees, it should not be expected that the oldest runes will be found.
- moloch-hai 4y ago
  Carthaginians were Phoenicians.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - jvickers 4y ago
    I know that. When talking about language and script transmission it makes more sense in my view to talk about Phoenicians rather than Carthaginians, unless there is any specific linguistic difference such as dialect that needs to be taken into account (and in this case I don't think there is any such detail). It seems like an assumption not based on fact to assume transmission via Carthage rather than other routes.
    - moloch-hai 4y ago
      Carthage is much, much closer to Denmark, by sea, than Tyre. That matters because theirs was a maritime empire. If there are any differences between letterforms used in Tyre and later in Carthage, the ones from Carthage are the natural choice to check. You could check the others, too, if you liked.
cmrdporcupine 4y ago
You have a preferred theory already, and you're trying to fit the facts to it. Unwise.
- moloch-hai 4y ago
  No, I just want to know about what the evidence says about it.
  - BirAdam 4y ago
    There is no evidence to support the idea that Phoenician travelers had sustained contact with early Germanic peoples, and especially not enough to significantly influence German language and writing. There is evidence to show Etruscan, Latin, and Greek influence on Germanic language and writing. In human language there are often similarities between unrelated languages and these have myriad possible origins. As such, within the realm of linguistics one needs substantial proof to successfully claim a relationship exists between two otherwise unrelated languages.
    - moloch-hai 4y ago
      Either the physical evidence suggests a connection or it doesn't. It is obviously fallacious to insist there could be no contact between Carthaginian and Germanic populations: boats sail between the Baltic and Mediterranean seas all the damn time. It was only a little time ago that many historians insisted bronze-age tin could not possibly have come from England. ("There's no solid evidence for it!") Then isotope analysis showed that it definitely did. The only correct statement at the time would be that we didn't know whether the tin was coming from England. Accepting the isotopic evidence does not absolve anybody from insisting they knew what they were fully aware they did not know.

sillyquiet 4y ago

> but that argument depends on assuming we have a complete archaeological record, which we of course do not. In other words that argument depends on the available evidence rather than speculation, like, you know, how science should be done.

moloch-hai 4y ago
Assuming you already have all the possible evidence already leads to falsehoods. Science is about not embracing falsehoods, if it is anything. What you promote is what cemented "Clovis first" for decades beyond its sell-by date, and opposition to the K-T bolide model and plate tectonics. Pretending to know interferes with coming to know. For a more recent example: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012825221001781?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00128... Opposition was sloppy to the point of dishonesty.

kgeist 4y ago

Do you have links to the arguments in favor of the semitic hypothesis?

moloch-hai 4y ago
https://theconversation.com/shillings-gods-and-runes-clues-in-language-suggest-a-semitic-superpower-in-ancient-northern-europe-139381 https://theconversation.com/shillings-gods-and-runes-clues-i... might be a good place to start.
- msrenee 4y ago
  So that's a guy claiming he and another person figured out that the derivation of some Proto-Germanic words came from a semitic language. No published paper, just conjecture. He claims that there are a number of loanwords in Proto-Germanic that came from semitic. The word "loanword" is a link to what you would expect to lead to some evidence for it. Instead, it leads to a website listing a number of different loanwords from various languages. The closest thing on that list is Yiddish and it clearly states they mostly entered the language in the 20th century.
  - peterfirefly 4y ago
    Plenty of publications by Venneman (mentioned on the linked site). The man was a linguistics professor for 30 years. Was he right? Probably not, but definitely not just "a guy" and "another person".
    - msrenee 4y ago
      All I'm seeing on this subject by him is the book mentioned elsewhere in this thread where the summary claims close and sustained contact with the Carthaginians. The only supporting evidence I'm finding for that assertion is that he's devised new etymologies that connect Proto-Germanic to semitic roots. All he does is mention that they've made these connections linguistically. He doesn't cite any peer-reviewed papers on the subject. Just the book. If you click the linked text throughout that article, you'll get a few Wikipedia pages, Encyclopedia Britannica Online, and a few other web pages that don't back up his claims. I'm having trouble taking the theory seriously when he can't seem to pull up any real evidence besides wishful thinking.
      - peterfirefly 4y ago
        You can google "Theo Venneman publications". It's not that hard.
        msrenee 4y ago

Bayart 4y ago

Nordic runes have a blatant filiatiation to Italic scripts, especially the Etruscan alphabet. It's rather natural that it would spread from the Alps to the North Sea through the Rhine River. In that sense it's just as much descended from the Phoenician alphabet as the Latin alphabet is. But a direct descent from a Semitic script makes less sense. This being said there are cases of scripts being adopted from afar rather than from a neighbour. For example Transalpine Gaul used a Greek script before the Roman invasion, rather than an Italic one.

moloch-hai 4y ago
Yet, we know it is more complicated than simple derivation from Etruscan. So the real question is what else happened.
wolverine876 4y ago
From TFA: > Scholars agree that runes were influenced by an older writing system, but just which one, and when, remain the subject of academic debate. One theory posits that the runic alphabet—also known as “futhark,” after its first six sounds—was derived from the alphabet of the Etruscans in northern Italy. Another is that runes were born from the Latin alphabet, following commercial and cultural exchange between Germanic peoples and the Romans.
- moloch-hai 4y ago
  Apparently, assuming it was "influenced by" only one "older writing system". But there is no basis for any such assumption. It appears to be purely a matter of their own convenience, wholly disconnected from anything in the script.
  - wolverine876 4y ago
    What is your statement based on? Your analysis of runic scripts?
    - moloch-hai 4y ago

jvickers 4y ago

1) Why Carthaginian rather than Phoenician? 2) Given that runes are a form that's optimised for writing on trees, it should not be expected that the oldest runes will be found.

moloch-hai 4y ago
Carthaginians were Phoenicians.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- jvickers 4y ago
  I know that. When talking about language and script transmission it makes more sense in my view to talk about Phoenicians rather than Carthaginians, unless there is any specific linguistic difference such as dialect that needs to be taken into account (and in this case I don't think there is any such detail). It seems like an assumption not based on fact to assume transmission via Carthage rather than other routes.
  - moloch-hai 4y ago
    Carthage is much, much closer to Denmark, by sea, than Tyre. That matters because theirs was a maritime empire. If there are any differences between letterforms used in Tyre and later in Carthage, the ones from Carthage are the natural choice to check. You could check the others, too, if you liked.

cmrdporcupine 4y ago

You have a preferred theory already, and you're trying to fit the facts to it. Unwise.

moloch-hai 4y ago
No, I just want to know about what the evidence says about it.
- BirAdam 4y ago
  There is no evidence to support the idea that Phoenician travelers had sustained contact with early Germanic peoples, and especially not enough to significantly influence German language and writing. There is evidence to show Etruscan, Latin, and Greek influence on Germanic language and writing. In human language there are often similarities between unrelated languages and these have myriad possible origins. As such, within the realm of linguistics one needs substantial proof to successfully claim a relationship exists between two otherwise unrelated languages.
  - moloch-hai 4y ago
    Either the physical evidence suggests a connection or it doesn't. It is obviously fallacious to insist there could be no contact between Carthaginian and Germanic populations: boats sail between the Baltic and Mediterranean seas all the damn time. It was only a little time ago that many historians insisted bronze-age tin could not possibly have come from England. ("There's no solid evidence for it!") Then isotope analysis showed that it definitely did. The only correct statement at the time would be that we didn't know whether the tin was coming from England. Accepting the isotopic evidence does not absolve anybody from insisting they knew what they were fully aware they did not know.