Post #298276 by bigbrotiki on Tue, Apr 10, 2007 9:18 PM

On 2007-04-09 23:45, PremEx wrote:
Just a thought. Don't make fun of me...

But why! Wouldn't dream of it, because...this is another excuse for me to bring out another pet theory:
Your thought corroborates the following: As elaborated on page 21 of the BOT, there might be a good reason why "TIKI" has such BUZZWORD-power:

In the early 90s, Linguist Merrit Ruhlen traced back all human language to the first word, and the first word supposedly ever uttered by man was "TIK" (which meant "finger","the one", and...well you know):

"Just as archaeologists study fossils and ancient artifacts for clues about mankind's origins, linguistic researchers today are sifting through word roots and grammatical conventions and coming up with some startling revelations about our beginnings. In 'The Origin of Language' noted linguist Merritt Ruhlen takes you on a fascinating journey of discovery back through nearly 100,000 years of human history and prehistory in pursuit of the language from which all modern tongues derive..."

Of course, there are always academic sticklers who want to spoil the fun :( :

"Ruhlen is an controversial figure in the linguistics community due to his vocal support of the Proto World Hypothesis.... Most mainstream historical linguists reject Ruhlen's assumptions and methodology, holding that it is impossible reconstruct a language spoken at least 30,000 years ago, possibly more than 100,000 years ago."

Weeell...says who? :)

"..Ruhlen discusses the exciting new work being done in genetics and archaeology that corroborates much of the controversial linguistic evidence. But more than simply describing his and his colleague's theories, Dr. Ruhlen invites you to share in the joys of discovery..."

To me, this is what it is all about: The joy I get out of unusual, new CONCEPTS, be they scientifically sound or not. THAT is what made another kooky theory, Thor Heyerdahl's KON-TIKI, so popular, inspite of it being derided by all the other migration scholars.(and the fact that he turned theory into practice!)

Ruhlen's theory prooves the archetypal power of the term TIKI---the one---first man---the origin of art---
...so let's see: An ape ate his mate's brain, became smart, and said: "TIK!", and carved himself up a Tiki. Yeah, that's it. And that was all caused by that giant monolith in "2001"? Wow! I think that sounds like perfect menu-mythology! :)

...but, WHY this buzzword hit home especially beginning in the 1950s is still not quite answered with that realization.