All Human Languages are Human, None are "Primitive"

I used the wikipedian article Tahitian language.

Q I

Can you explain how the duality of patterning allows complex language systems to be built from simple sounds?
https://www.quora.com/Can-you-explain-how-the-duality-of-patterning-allows-complex-language-systems-to-be-built-from-simple-sounds/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

amateur linguist

Mon 23.III.2026

Duality of patterning or double articulation as I have heard it called in previous decades means this.

Let’s first take the sound system of Tahitian.

/a/, /aː~ɑː/, /e/, /eː/, /f/, /h/, /i/, /iː/, /m/, /n/, /o~ɔ/, /oː/, /p/, /r/, /t/, /u/, /uː/, /v/, /ʔ/.

That’s 19 sounds. If Tahitians were apes, this would perhaps allow them 19 messages, plus a few more by gestures.

However, Tahitians are men. From three of the sounds you make ʼUa, from four ʼamu, from three vau, from one i, from two te, from three i’a.

There is a limit to how much you can combine these 19 sounds to, but four sounds with no repetition would theoretically be up to 93,024 words. Add some more of three, two or one sound.

However, the words are not the limit, there is another articulation on top of the previous.

ʼUa ʼamu vau i te iʼa = I have eaten the fish.

ʼUa = perfect
ʼamu = eat(en)
(v)au = I
i = presumably object
te = presumably the
i’a = fish.

Q I

Why can even the most "primitive" languages have the same complex features as those in modern societies?
https://www.quora.com/Why-can-even-the-most-primitive-languages-have-the-same-complex-features-as-those-in-modern-societies/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

amateur linguist

Mon 23.III.2026

There are no “primitive languages” known to linguistics.

There are languages of what some would call “primitive societies” … all human languages have double articulation or as it is also called dual patterning. No language could exist for human purposes where words weren’t made up from sounds, each sound lacking meaning in itself. There would be too few words. In Tahitian, there are 19 sounds (each vowel counted twice, for long and short version). With only 4 sounds and no repetitions, that would be over 93,000 words, add words of three or two sounds and add words of one vowel sound, then subtract words that violate Tahitian phonotactics or simply don’t exist.

Again, the other articulation is needed too, since without it, one could not distinguish “I have eaten the fish” from “you have eaten the fish” except by two totally different words expressing all of it. That would be very many totally different words expressing “have eaten the fish” and “will eat the fish” … with the second articulation, it’s sufficient to substitute “I” for “you” or “have -en” for “will -” and keep both the verb (“eat”) and the object (“fish”) the same.

So, double articulation is needed in all human languages, no exceptions possible. But how “I” and “have -en” is added to “eat” can happen more than one way. ‘Ua before main verb for the perfect, ‘amu for the concept of eat, au or after vowel vau for I is Tahitian. In Latin a short ed- becomes a long ēd- for perfect, the first of these adds “I” by adding “-o”, “edo”, the second adds “I” by adding “-ī”, “ēdī”.

This kind of possibility is not reduced by the people living in a society that’s in the anthropological sense considered primitive.

On the Biblical or Young Earth Creationist view, these societies don’t even correspond to primitive man, since Adam farmed and wasn’t a hunter gatherer. Primitive is a misnomer. They have gone through technology loss, not simply got on from apeman technology but not reached as high as we. But whichever view you take, you have societies that can be classed as “primitive” but no languages that can.

I Use AD and BC (and if that bothers you, maybe my content isn't for you)

Here is a man who has the CE / BCE system, my parenthesis is borrowed with adaptation from his last line:

The Real Reason We Stopped Saying BC
Archaeologist Ed Barnhart | 19.III.2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEhkYWloW3o

1:07 "each had its own system and start date"

No. Ab urbe condita was a fairly unique way of counting and wasn't used in current dating.

You dated things to "the year of Cicero and Hybrida" not to "63 BC" or to "690 aUc".

Greeks, Egyptians, diverse realms of Mesopotamia, all lacked this system. OK, I'll need to make a caveat about Greeks: they had a somewhat close thing to an exception, the Olympiads. But even so, you dated in current dating to "the year of Solon" for 594 BC and not to "third year of the 45th Olympiad" ...

2:00 I'll have wiki correct you on China:

An epoch is a point in time chosen as the origin of a particular calendar era, thus serving as a reference point from which subsequent time or dates are measured. The use of epochs in Chinese calendar system allow for a chronological starting point from whence to begin point continuously numbering subsequent dates. Various epochs have been used. Similarly, nomenclature similar to that of the Christian era has occasionally been used: [list of five alternative epochs] No reference date is universally accepted. The most popular is the Gregorian calendar (公曆; 公历; gōnglì; 'common calendar').

Similarily, there are several Anno Mundi calendars concurrently : Jewish, Samarian, Byzantine. If you like, Yasidi too. It would seem none of them was in current use in BC times. To be fair, AD also wasn't in current use in early AD times.

2:29 I think the earliest reference to Kaliyuga is from 499 AD:

Astronomer and mathematician Aryabhata, who was born in 476 AD, finished his book Aryabhatiya in 499 AD, in which he wrote "When the three yugas (satyug, tretayug and dwaparyug) have elapsed and 60 x 60 (3,600) years of kaliyug have already passed, I am now 23 years old." Based on this information, Kali Yuga began in 3102 BC, which is calculated from 3600 - (476 + 23) + 1 (no year zero from 1 BC to 1 AD).

4:36 Before AD was used for common reckoning of everyday events, we are already in c. 1100 AD.

BC came into common use in the Renaissance.

You haven't replaced it.

If Muslims and Jews are OK with using it, I don't see why they shouldn't use AD and BC too, but if they don't, I don't see why the rest of us should follow suit.

Magister Mortran

@magister.mortran

Muslims have a lunar calendar. Their civilization would need to evolve a few millennia first and develop their own solar calendar system. They use the Christian calendar, because they have no alternative that could work in an agricultural or even industrial society. Their culture stopped evolving at a nomadic, pastoral stage.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@hglundahl

@magister.mortran I'm very sorry, but while I'm not a Muslim, I can't relate to memes about "X stopped developing" ... not even with people I don't particularly enthusiastically like.

For Arabic peninsular nomads, a lunar calendar works fine. Outside that area, they supplement with other calendars (including the standard Christian one) for agriculture.

I'm not sure when they started to do current dating in Anno Hegirae, but it could be some time before Christians of the Latin West took on Anno Domini (while Byzantines were doing Anno Mundi, variously 5500 or 5510 BC for the epoch).

6:39 The Beowulf poet and I have a different view on how we respect pre-Christian cultures.

From you.

Wikis used:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicero

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympiad

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_calendar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali_Yuga

In the quote from the last, I corrected CE and BCE to AD and BC. For convenience, I don't always do that, though.

Conservative Bible Scholars Should Care More About Paganism

I don't say they should be Pagans. But I say they shouldn't ignore it. Like some Protestants will pretend Matthew 6:7 condemns repetitive prayers, because they imagine a typical Greco-Roman prayer was a Hindu mantra. (Or because they mistranslate battalogein). They weren't. The stuttering image (of battalogein) comes from the nervousness of someone negotiating from an inferior position. Here are a few other issues:

'Conservative' Bible methods... are a fraud.
C. J. Cornthwaite | 18 March 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7uMnYmZaTE

As you can note from his title, C. J. Cornthwaite comes from a uselessly hostile pov. But below are my answers to his points:

4:25 Number 44 is not miraculous, it's improved digestive health due to life style changes.*

We don't know if the changes kept up past the inscription or the improvement did.

As to "the god told me" we don't know if it refers to the priest of Aesculapius saying things or if it refers to an inner voice or a dream vision. In the latter cases, there may be some supernatural involved, demons would not be able to instantly cure what's an organic fault, but they would be able and sometimes allowed to tell people what would improve their health.

All the other ones are pre-Christian.

Now, why is this significant?

Because they were Gentiles and the time for their conversion hadn't come yet. God wrought some miracles for people invoking other gods than Him. And when it comes to Aesculapius, he may have been a saint, sth not unlike the metuentes (a theory I also hold about Hippolytus, son of Theseus). So, God could have healed people due to his intercession.

The most famous of the disciples of the family Apollo, Aesculapius, Salus and Panaceia was obviously St. Luke.

4:41 In fact we do.**

There is a work about Doomsday that says that that day of wrath will dissolve the centuries into ashes "on the witness of David and the Sibyl" ...

Dies irae, dies illa
solvet secla in favilla
teste David cum Sibilla.

4:49 The oracle of Delphi, given the stories of Croesus, Oedipous, Orestes, was expert at destroying people's lives with self fulfilling prophecies.

The oracle of Delphi therefore is a prime indictment in favour of "all the gods of the gentiles are demons" (which apparently isn't quite what the Hebrew says, but still true enough).

4:55 Oh, by the way, the one who made good decisions after hearing the oracle of Delphi, a certain Socrates, did so as setting out to disprove that oracle.

8:11 I would not place Pauline authorship in the category of things where reasonable people would reasonably differ (except Hebrews, where one ancient voice says it's St. Barnabas).***

8:41 I sense it you have a bias against actual believers actually doing scholarship to defend the faith?

9:41 I don't respect someone who claims the pastorals are inauthentic because that° would make the early decades of the Church too hierarchical for Protestant tastes against Catholic hierarchy or anti-Christian counter-apologetic tastes against an early Church having an organised way of transmitting information, as opposed to the telephone game.

---

* Priests of Asclepius, Epidaurus Cure Inscriptions (IG+IV²,1+121)
https://topostext.org/work/648

** By "conservative Bible scholars" I obviously mean Roman Catholics. Most Protestants passing as such even believe Marcan priority (ugh!)

*** Matthean priority is also beyond reasonable dispute between the faithful. It's common ground between Papias, Clemens of Alexandria and Augustine of Hippo.

° That = the genuinity disputed.

Beginning a Video by Shad M. Brooks (To Prove I'm Not a Mormon)

His best known channel is Shadiversity, but he also has "The Latter-day Knight".

ALL Christians teach FALSE GOSPELS except the LDS/Mormons
The Latter-day Knight | 4 March 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZMEfXkZf_U

Matthew 28, verses 16 to 20.

What does "all days" mean?

All days until you die, and then, once again, all days until Moroni dies, and then, a third time, all days from Joseph Smith to Doomsday?

Or does "all days" mean literally "all days" as in no gaps?

2:13 I would say, the Gospel is all that Jesus gave His disciples.

Matthew 28, verses 16 to 20 or John 14, specifically verses 16 and 26 (verse divisions of a Catholic Bible).

2:52 Excellent point.

The Gospel was already known, by oral tradition.

Before you add "this was lost and then restored by Joseph Smith", how about rereading my verse recommendations from Matthew 28 and John 14.

An Apology Owed to Metatron

Metatron Somewhat Incorrect in Detail · An Apology Owed to Metatron

Was I Wrong About This Ancient Roman Fact?
Metatron History | 10 March 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGQk5XQdD2Q

Overall, I think I owe you an apology for 2022.

I wrote then:

16:22 I looked up Varro, De Re Rustica, and you seem to have given a fake or incomplete reference.

First there are three books. Within each book there are both chapters and paragraphs - what you cite is the length of a paragraph, so should have given three numerals.

I have been over 1.1 and it had no § 11, and I have also been over 1.12, all 4 §§.

I would say that you have faked the reference, since 1.12 does talk of healthy and unhealthy places to put buildings.

None of the paragraphs say what you say, though.

I do not know why I said this in total confidence, but I think I came across a translation, and it doesn't translate as on the Lacus Curtius site currently.

Looking it up again:

Advertendum etiam, siqua erunt loca palustria, et propter easdem causas, et quod crescunt animalia quaedam minuta, quae non possunt oculi consequi, et per aera intus in corpus per os ac nares perveniunt atque efficiunt difficilis morbos. Fundanius, Quid potero, inquit, facere, si istius modi mi fundus hereditati obvenerit, quo minus pestilentia noceat? Istuc vel ego possum respondere, inquit Agrius; vendas, quot assibus possis, aut si nequeas, relinquas.

...

Precautions must also be taken in the neighbourhood of swamps, both for the reasons given, and because there are bred certain minute creatures which cannot be seen by the eyes, which float in the air and enter the body through the mouth and nose and there cause serious diseases." "What can I do," asked Fundanius, "to prevent disease if I should inherit a farm of that kind?" "Even I can answer that question," replied Agrius; "sell it for the highest cash price; or if you can't sell it, abandon it."

Sure, you are definitely right as per the site Lacus Curtius.

[Side issue:

6:08 The doctor with the plague mask was not Medieval but 18th C.

My bad, already 17th C.

The garments were first mentioned by a physician to King Louis XIII of France, Charles de Lorme, who wrote in a 1619 plague outbreak in Paris that he developed an outfit made of Moroccan goat leather, including boots, breeches, a long coat, hat, and gloves modeled after a soldier's canvas gown that went from the neck to the ankle.
...
The Genevan physician, Jean-Jacques Manget, in his 1721 work Treatise on the Plague written just after the Great Plague of Marseille, describes the costume supposedly worn by plague doctors in Rome in 1656.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_doctor_costume]

Miracles Chapter III, from Another POV

First third of a video by Mr. Zod against CSL as Apologist · Same Video on CSL as Apologist, Roughly Up to Rest of First Half · Coming to Lunatic, Liar or Lord in the End ... and Breaking Off, as Comments Get Invisible · Lunatic, Liar or Lord ... Resuming · Miracles Chapter III, from Another POV

An 1800 BC Babylonian Clay Tablet Solved What Took Google 30 Years..
Spacialize | 11 March 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhv6HYElfyY

"Maybe they are a record of what this universe requires"

Logic and morals seem to fill that criterium too.

If we evolved from Ramapithecus, which couldn't talk, where did we get that from?

The only possible answer is a transtemporal or non-temporal reality that had logic, morals, and presumably "regular numbers" since forever, there was no time when it didn't have it.

But that transtemporal or non-temporal reality is not man as we know.

The question brings us to concepts of God.

Pantheism, Dualism, these are less coherent than Theism.

"Do you believe Pagan myths too?" — I actually do, but not the theology in them

I tried an apologetic method. And it proved Romulus' resurrection?
C. J. Cornthwaite | 2 Febr. 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1Llctl2sKY

I don't think it proved Romulus' resurrection.

First, no one saw Romulus die, as far as I recall, he disappeared in a battle.

Second, no one saw him face to face in normal discourse after this, but one man claimed to have seen a theophany of Romulus in a dream.

It can be mentioned, that overall, divinity obviously excepted, I think Romulus is historic.

Here are a few dates for Jesus' birth in prior epochs:

ab unctione David in Regem, anno millesimo trigesimo secundo; Hebdomada sexagesima quinta, juxta Danielis prophetiam; Olympiade centesima nonagesima quarta; ab urbe Roma condita, anno septingentesimo quinquagesimo secundo; anno Imperii Octaviani Augusti quadragesimo secundo, toto Orbe in pace composito,

Did you notice "from the founding of Rome, the year seven hundredth, fiftieth and second"?

(By the way, Jesus is "traditionally" — prior to modern scholarship— born 1 BC, hence 752 from Rome, while Rome is founded 753 BC).

Third Livy's story about Romulus isn't the oldest version about the founding of Rome. Plenty of time for Quirinus worship to have tampered with the story.

"But probability calculations are meaningless if your method can't distinguish myth from history in the first place."

Your problem is you think the history of Romulus is "mythical" in one of the more prevalent modern senses, i e fictional.

Yes, I am Catholic, in case you wonder.

3:22 "the fictional founder of Rome"

Proton pseudos here.

6:48 At this time, Senators were exclusively taken from Patricians.

8:57 Given the demographics of Rome, at this time, an untutored peasant could have weight even in matters of the greatest importance.

10:51 Alba Longa would have had men of the noblest birth who were untutored peasant ... at this time.

12:10 The Latin would be Caprae Palus for all three texts. Goat's Marsh or She-Goat's Marsh are correct translations.

14:26 This is the version I recalled, I had maybe read Plutarch too.

Livy was part of my Latin.

17:39 We know it's no longer eyewitness accounts in Livy or Plutarch.

Tradition based on such accounts is however an option.

18:31 In the case of the five writers, it is not shared personal history.

But you can't rule out that the tradition they share is historic.

Now, the thing that would be bad for Christianity is not if Romulus is historic, but if Romulus is a god. And this story, taken as fully historical, gives too little indication of that.

• A demon could have fooled Julius Proculus (or Proculus Julius)
• He could have been a shrewd peasant who knew what the Patricians wanted to hear (and what he would be rewarded for)
• The Patrician Senators could even have told him.

Now, we know this because 18:43 we know this is fiction. But if you 18:45 lived in a world hundreds of years later 18:47 where two stories talked about platform 18:49 9 and 3/4, it doesn't mean that there's 18:52 actually a place there where you can go 18:53 to catch a train to Hogwarts.

For Hogwarts, we know it's fiction.

But we know that from the tradition from the first readers.

That's a kind of knowledge of fictionality we do not have for the Gospel accounts, and we do also not have for the Romulus accounts.

Both were from the earliest mentions we have taken as historic accounts.