History of English (My Notes)

This page is just a compilation of my notes on the History of English (both - the language, and the people). This is going to be a work in progress for a considerable time. It's currently about 80% complete.

Read on, if you have:

1. A lot of interest in understanding, how English developed as a language, and as a culture.

and 

2. A little patience.

History of the Alphabets (My Notes)

 This is a side note to the larger project of noting down the History of English.

1. The Etruscan language had no ‘b’ sound, no ‘d’ sound, and no ‘g’ sound. Linguists call these sounds ‘voiced stops’ and apparently Etruscan did not use voiced stops at all in the language. Now there are unvoiced versions of these sounds. The unvoiced version of ‘b’ is ‘p.’ And the unvoiced version of the ‘d’ sound is the ‘t’ sound. And the unvoiced version of the ‘g’ sound is the ‘k’ sound. And the Etruscan language had all of these unvoiced sounds – the ‘p’ sound, the ‘t’ sound, and the ‘k’ sound. Remember that the third letter in Greek was gamma and it had the ‘g’ sound. So the third letter ‘gamma’ was pronounced by the Etruscans with a ‘k’ sound because they didn’t have a ‘g’ sound. And that is ultimately how the Romans inherited it. And that is why the third letter became the modern letter C in Latin and was used to represent the ‘k’ sound just as the Etruscans had used it.

But whereas the Etruscans didn’t have a ‘g’ sound, the Romans did have a ‘g’ sound. So they eventually had to create a new letter for the ‘g’ sound which became the Roman letter G. And that is why the uppercase C and the uppercase G resemble each other. 

And there was also a reason why the new letter G was placed in the seventh position after the letter F. The seventh letter of the Etruscan alphabet had the ‘Z’ or ‘zed’ sound which the Etruscans had borrowed from the Greeks. But unlike Greek and Etruscan, early Latin didn’t have the ‘z’ or ‘zed’ sound. So the seventh letter – called ‘zay’ by the Etruscans – was unnecessary in Latin. So the early Romans got rid of ‘zay’ and put the new letter G in its place. Of course, the letter ‘zay’ would reappear during the classical Roman period when the Romans started to borrow a lot of words from Greek, and they suddenly needed to represent the ‘z’ sound again. So at that point, they reintroduced the letter Z or ‘zed’ and put it at the end of the alphabet.

Also, note that the Romans tinkered with the letter F as well. Up to this point, the sixth letter of the alphabet represented the ‘w’ sound in Greek and Etruscan. The Romans moved this sound nearer to the back of the alphabet and that freed up the 6 letters. Now the Greeks and the Etruscans didn’t actually have an ‘f’ sound in their respective languages. The Greek had a ‘pf’ sound that was probably a sound that was in transition from the original ‘p’ sound to an ‘f’ sound. Greek had invented a new letter called ‘phi’ (they probably called it /fee/) to cover that in-between ‘pf’ sound. And that was as close as the Greeks came to an ‘f’ sound. But the Romans did have an ‘f’ sound in Latin. And that Greek sound ‘phi’ was by this point being pronounced simply as an ‘f’ sound just like we do today in words like phone and philosophy because that sound had completed its transition to the ‘f’ sound by this point. So the Romans had to find a way to write the ‘f’ sound since the alphabet they borrowed from the Etruscans did not have a letter for the ‘f’ sound. So they used that sixth letter which had previously represented the ‘w’ sound but was now free. So our modern letter F with the ‘f’ sound was born. And the Romans decided to use that letter for native Latin words. But for those Greek words which were being borrowed into Latin, they chose to use the ‘PH’ combination to represent the original Greek letter ‘phi.’ So that is why we still have that ‘PH’ spelling for the ‘f’ sound in Modern English. It represents words that were borrowed into Latin from Greek which had that original ‘phi’ letter to represent that in-between ‘pf’ sound.

Early Indians (My Notes)

 Written in very lucid prose, the book covers the story of the first Out-of-Africa (OoA) migrations to India (and beyond) to early Indians who were followed by people from the Harappan Civilization and finally the Vedic period. While the subject matter may feel a little dry at times, Tony has done justice by not overcomplicating things and explaining the results of the deep research in mostly laymen's terms.

It's a must-read for anyone with even a minute interest in the history of Melluha, Aryavarta, India.

I also read some of the detailed critiques of this book, but most of them sounded unjustified to me, as the book never claims any of the assertions these critiques came to refute. On the other hand, any claims made were very matter-of-fact and in quotes of deep research papers. In many places, where the study is inconclusive, the book doesn't shy away from mentioning the same. Most critics seem to have written blogs just for the sake of it, without even reading or grasping the message from the book.

The statements are not based on some flimsy evidence but on 1. Archaeological, 2. Genetic, 3. Linguistic, 4. Philological, 5. Geological AND 6. Epigraphic research.

Addendum on 19th Mar, 2024: Latest study

Here are my take-aways from this book:
* 300,000 years ago - age of the earliest remains of Homo-Sapiens found in Morocco
* 70,000 years ago - earliest traceable OoA migrations
* 65,000 years ago - OoA migrants reach India but face archaic human population mostly in Central and Southern India, whom they try to avoid and move across to SE Asia, East Asia, and Australia. (Note: Europeans do not exist yet)
* 40,000 years ago - Neanderthals go extinct
* 16,000 years ago - Modern humans reach the Americas
* 9,000 years ago - Largest agricultural settlement begins (between Indus and Mediterranean) found in Mehrgarh, Baluchistan
* 7,500-4,500 years ago - Early Harappan era
* 4,000 - 3,000 years ago - Steppe pastoralists bringing Indo-European languages and culture

- Conclusive DNA evidence that all modern humans outside of Africa are descendants of OoA migrants.
- This is proven by:
A. mtDNA evidence
B. Y-Chromose evidence
C. Climate evidence from deep-sea rocks

Also, note that this period was mostly glacial. Migratory animals would lead humans to follow them. Also, due to glaciers, crossing today's rivers/lakes/seas would have been far easier.
- Until about two million years ago, there was no Red Sea and animals could just walk across b/w Africa & Asia - today separated by the Red Sea. Homo erectus likely was one of the last mammals to walk across this route. The Red Sea was formed by the Red Sea Rift, caused by the divergence between the African Plate and the Arabian plate. The rift started about two million years ago, and since then Africa has been moving away from Arabia at the rate of fifteen millimeters every year. It still continues to widen.

- Ancient DNA shows that the Harappans harbored significant Iranian agriculturist ancestry.

- After Indo-European-language speakers reached south Asia, the language of the Harappans became limited to south India, while the culture and myths of the Harappans melded with those of the new Indo-Aryan-language-speaking migrants to create a unique, syncretic tradition that is today seen as an essential part of Indian culture.

- Languages are not always spread by large-scale migrations. There are instances when languages are spread more by contact or elite dominance rather than large-scale migrations.

- Latest DNA evidence not just proves the correlation between cultures but also the direction of these migrations.

- Here comes the controversial fact: "The strongest signals of elevated Steppe ancestry were in two groups that were of traditionally priestly status, expected to be custodians of texts written in Sanskrit."

- Close resemblance between Rigveda text and archaeological findings. Ex. Burials mentioned in Rigveda, Horse sacrifice ritual (also similar to Ashva-medha ritual described in Valmiki Ramayan) found matching in Sintastha sites from Steppe region.

- First Steppe migrations into the Indian subcontinent could have almost coincided with the decline of the Harappan Civilization.

- The main gods and goddesses of the Rigveda – Indra, Agni, Varuna, and the Asvins – find no representation in the vast repertoire of Harappan imagery. The converse is also true: the Rigveda is of no help in trying to interpret the dominant symbols and imagery of the Harappan culture – such as the ubiquitous seals that display a unicorn-like animal with what looks like a brazier or manger in front; the script; the Great Bath of Mohenjo-Daro and its significance; and so on.

- The Rigveda denounces ‘shishna-deva’ (literal meaning: phallus god or phallus worshippers), while Harappan artifacts leave no one in doubt that phallus worship was part of its cultural repertoire.

- Clear evidence of deliberate destruction of phallic symbols and idols both in Dholavira and other sites after the civilization declined. Book 7, 21.5 of the Rigveda says ‘may not the “shishna-deva” approach our holy worship’, and Book 10, 99.3 describes how Indra slew them.

- Phallic (debatable) pillars found in Dholavira. You can google the images.

- The horse is rarely to be found in the Harappan Civilization, neither as skeletal remains nor as images on seals and artifacts, while it is very prominent and ubiquitous in the Rigveda.

- Rigveda to be somewhere between 2000 BCE and 1400 BCE.

Conclusion: Indian ‘pizza’ got made, with the base or the foundation being laid about 65,000 years ago, when the Out of Africa migrants reached India. The sauce began to be made when the Zagrosian herders reached Balochistan after 7000 BCE, mixed with the First Indians, and then together went on to build the Harappan Civilization. When the civilization fell apart, the sauce spread all over the subcontinent. Then came the ‘Aryans’ after 2000 BCE, and cheese was sprinkled all over the pizza, but a lot more in the north than in the south. Austroasiatic and Tibeto-Burman-language speakers. And then, much later, of course, came the Greeks, the Jews, the Huns, the Sakas, the Parsis, the Syrians, the Mughals, the Portuguese, the British, the Siddis – all of whom have left small marks all over the Indian pizza.

The theory that incoming ‘Aryans’ imposed the caste system on the population when they arrived in the subcontinent has been proved wrong by a genetic study published in 2013

One of the most interesting revelations about the river Saraswati: Harahvaiti river in Afghanistan which the ‘Aryans’ may have become familiar with on their journey into India through Afghanistan. (It is a common practice for the letter ‘h’ in Indo-Aryan to be interchanged with the letter ‘s’ in Indo-Iranian and vice versa, well-known examples being ‘Hindu’ becoming ‘Sindhu’ and ‘Sapta Sindhu’ becoming ‘Hapta Hindu’, in Avesta.