Has anyone ever noticed that the Mayan word for one (hun) and the Latin word for one (unum) seem very similar?
I personally think that this may be evidence of an ancient civilization like Atlantis.

There is actually a very interesting article in the march issue of American Scientific which talks about this very phenomenon. They talk about colors(colours for my brittish friends ), but it applies to all aspects of language.

Did you know that most languages have extreamly similar names for colors? And the naming practices effect how we see the world. There's a tribe in Australia who doesn't have words for left or right, they only have the abslouts. For instance, they wouldn't say "there's a fly to the left of your nose", they'd say "there's a fly north of your nose". This effects their whole concept of direction a lot. When an arrow is drawn facing left, and they're asked to reproduce it, they will draw the arrow in it's original direction depending on where they're standing. For instance, if they turned 90 degrees, they would draw the arrow up or down, depending on which way they turned.

But hun sounds a lot more like our one to me, and our language is based on latin. The English didn't even know about the Mayans when their language developed. Some concepts just seem to be hardwired into our brains, and we attribute certain sounds to concepts. Blurrrrfffffoooo. What'd ya think of?

Originally posted by junglejake
There is actually a very interesting article in the march issue of American Scientific which talks about this very phenomenon. They talk about colors(colours for my brittish friends ), but it applies to all aspects of language.

Did you know that most languages have extreamly similar names for colors? And the naming practices effect how we see the world. There's a tribe in Australia who doesn't have words for left or right, they only have the abslouts. For instance, they wouldn't say "there's a fly to the left of your nose", they'd say "there's a fly north of your nose". This effects their whole concept of direction a lot. When an arrow is drawn facing left, and they're asked to reproduce it, they will draw the arrow in it's original direction depending on where they're standing. For instance, if they turned 90 degrees, they would draw the arrow up or down, depending on which way they turned.

But hun sounds a lot more like our one to me, and our language is based on latin. The English didn't even know about the Mayans when their language developed. Some concepts just seem to be hardwired into our brains, and we attribute certain sounds to concepts. Blurrrrfffffoooo. What'd ya think of?

I did notice the similarities between hun and one, but I think there is a greater similarity between hun and un (French, or Latin unum without the -um singular suffix). I was also considering universal concepts (like color) with equal or slightly greater weight over Atlantis, but I forgot about that when I made the initial post.

Over Atlantis? Ya lost me there.

As far as language goes, though, generally, all world languages are very similar, from what I've read. I'm a programmer, and my experience with programming languages tells me that this is a valid point. If you know one, you know them all. They just use slightly different words, and they go more into depth in certain areas. You can guage a lot based on a culture's lanugage, and how many different words they have for one concept. The eskimos have I don't remember how many words for snow.

Now, how many words does English have for peace? I honestly don't know, so I might have just asked a loaded question I'm going to have to deal with on other threads. But I'm still going to ask it, because to deny a possible arguement against my opinion would be intellectually dishonest to myself.

Now that i think about it, that "over atlantis" thing was'nt clear. I meant to say that I thought that a universal language idea was much more likely than an ancient civilization like Atlantis, and that I completely forgot to mention that in my original post. Also, junglejake, I can't think of many words for peace in English.

Hmm.

Going off memory here, so we know that's faulty but...

Isn't PAX Latin for Peace?

Isn't PAX the Mayan God of Peace?

Someone know the answer to this?

SPiderj

Originally posted by Spiderj
Hmm.

Going off memory here, so we know that's faulty but...

Isn't PAX Latin for Peace?

Isn't PAX the Mayan God of Peace?

Someone know the answer to this?

SPiderj

I actually don't...yet, but I'm reaching for a book...Shoot, it only has Aztec and American Indian Gods, not the mayans.

I do have to say, I'm really glad to see a thread on linguistic psychology here on ATS. I find the concept facinating, but not many others do. way to go, Phoenix!

I saw a link on the web for a site about "son pax"(The sound of peace, whatever that's supposed to mean). It said that pax was the mayan word for music and peace.

I do have to say, I'm really glad to see a thread on linguistic psychology here on ATS. I find the concept facinating, but not many others do. way to go, Phoenix!

I agree interesting post.



Looking through books too I know I've seen it somewhere.

Dang.

Spiderj

Originally posted by junglejake

But hun sounds a lot more like our one to me, and our language is based on latin. The English didn't even know about the Mayans when their language developed. Some concepts just seem to be hardwired into our brains, and we attribute certain sounds to concepts. Blurrrrfffffoooo. What'd ya think of?

English is a Germanic language. Except for borrowed words, many of the basics are still exactly the same, or a variant.

Most of English's technical words come from French, which is of course a Latin language.

But, since Germanic belongs to the Indo-European family of languages, could it be possible that the connection lies somewhere in the East? That a group from the Indus region migrated to South America, some thousands of years ago??

Simply fascinating!

Ok, I'm going to post something, and will hopefully edit it to add more content later. Waiting for permission to use a U2U.

I did a search on webster.com for synonyms of peace, and only got 2: Peacemaker and pacifier. This shocked and disturbed me at first, then I remembered the origin of English.

The english language developed as a result of Roman occupation of the Brittish Isles. Boudica managed to decimate a Roman legion, but the Romans managed to take the isles, and kill her. (It's an incredible story, check it out on the web or in the april issue of Military History) So the Romans won out, and they instituted a firm handed law there to prevent future uprisings.

Despite this, the English(as they would later be known) peoples maintained their own language, but included many now prevelant latin words in their dialagues. It would be like me saying, Hola, buddy, how you doing? I used a spanish term that has become part of the english language.

However, words at this time, it is believed, weren't added because they were 'cool' or politically correct. They were added because latin words in subjects went into more detail then the brittanic words could.

Why say many, when you mean infinite? If you don't have a word for infinite, infinite would be many beyond human comprehension. Infinite is a subset of the larger term, many. Many words in our language are like that, as they are in other languages.

People generated their dialog based on their circumstances. What needed more clarification for that culture would usually get it's own word, instead of having to use a sentance to describe it. Ex.: There were so many, the number was uncountable and went on for ever, compared to there was an infinite number of them. More to the point for a society which uses the concept of infinity, but useless for a society that doesn't recognise infinity.

And this brings me back to my original post, the few synonyms for peace. Look at history. The English, until recent times, have been at war. Constantly. If it wasn't the french, it was the gothics(and Germans as they'd later be known) it was the Romans, it was the Barbary pirates. Rome was not a peaceful nation, either. And that was the english influence.

So I take back what I said earlier, that you could tell America's policy by the number of synonyms there are for peace in our language. It was developed the way it was because of the constant war at the time of it's birth. Peace was an unknown term to many back then, if you weren't at war with France, it ment you finally had enough resources to go to war with Scottland or Germany.

Quatzequatl brought peace

Quatzequatl may have brought peace, but he was the god of thunder. Also, he had some remarkable resembalances to Greece's phoenix and Zeus...

I looked up "peace" in the thesaurus in Encarta Reference Suite 2003 and got this.

---------------------------------------------------

peace (n)

concord, peacetime, amity, harmony, armistice, reconciliation, ceasefire, accord, goodwill
antonym: war
calm, quiet, stillness, tranquility, silence, harmony, serenity
antonym: uproar
Microsoft® Encarta® Reference Library 2003. © 1993-2002 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Looked up the word PAX on Brainydictionary.com:

Pax
(n.) Friendship, or a friend; -- esp. in the phrases to make pax with, to make friends with, to be good pax, to be good friends; also, truce; -- used esp. interjectionally.
(n.) The kiss of peace; also, the embrace in the sanctuary now substituted for it at High Mass in Roman Catholic churches.
n.) A tablet or board, on which is a representation of Christ, of the Virgin Mary, or of some saint and which, in the Mass, was kissed by the priest and then by the people, in mediaeval times; an osculatory. It is still used in communities, confraternities, etc.

Still looking for the god, the second defination refers to a kiss of peace.

Spiderj

According to my Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language from when I took Linguistics in university, the Mayan language (Maya or Yucatec) was spoken in Guatemala, Mexico, and British Honduras. The language family is/was Penutian.

Not sure if anyone already said this, but I don't want to read the whole thing . Not to be insulting, but of course they're the same. There are alot of languages based off of latin, english being one, Spanish being another...

There's a whole chapter on this in the Atlantis Blueprint too. Sorry Overly looooooooooong to type out. But the KLM letters of both mayan and latin alphabets are almost identical, or something like that.