Category Archives: Anthropology

The future of the English language.

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The following was sent to me by a friend, the original source is unknown, and google wasn’t much of a help.

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as ‘Euro-English’.

In the first year, ‘s’ will replace the soft ‘c’. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.

The hard ‘c’ will be dropped in favour of ‘k’. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome ‘ph’ will be replaced with ‘f’. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent ‘e’ in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing ‘th’ with ‘z’ and ‘w’with ‘v’.

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary ‘o’ kan be dropd from vords kontaining ‘ou’ and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi TU understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

fin

It is especially funny to me because I have always supported the simplification of the English language, and I’m currently learning German.

Formation of Modern Mathmatics

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Before Western society was introduced to the “Arabic” — technically, the number system originated in India — numeral system, it used the Roman system which uses six symbols to represent a base 10 numeric system (repeats every 10 digits) I,V,X,L,C, and M which referred to the numbers 1,5,10,50,100,and 1000 respectively, and the placement of the symbols determined their value. If a symbol with a smaller value came before a larger, it was subtracted from the larger; if it cam after it was added, so IV meant 4 while VI meant 6.

However, these numbers quickly become cumbersome and are difficult to add: to add the numbers IVXLCMM and CMLXXXII, for example, one would first cancel out any numbers that are subtracted, then grouping like letters, then simplify from the highest to the lowest. Finally after a few minutes of effort it should end up with MMCMXXVI. Obviously, this is hard to do and takes a lot of time to add simple numbers (1944 and 982) and this process becomes even more complex when multiplying.

The second problem with Roman Numerals is that there are no fractions or decimals. Fractions can not be easily written out as 1/4 instead they would have to be written out in words. These factors combine and create bulky and inefficient system that actually hampered the spread and development of mathematical concepts such as pi.

In contrast the Hindu system, which was developed from around 2BC to 5AD in India, had three important innovations that would make it extremely useful. The first is that there was a 0. While this concept is not unique in the world, it did make it possible to do many new things. The second is the placement system: unlike the Roman system where numbers are not grouped, the Hindu system introduced the idea of columns and place values. Thus, by combining the 0 with the concept of base 10, we see the creation of a system where each column is 10 to a power (the 1′s column is 10^0, 10′s column is 10^1, 100′s column is 10^2 etc). To see the importance of this one can imagine a tower of champagne glasses, when the top is filed it over flows and fills the four below it, which in turn fill the 16 below them. Similarly when one column has a value of more than 9 the extra spills over into the next column making simple vertical addition possible. The third innovation that made the Hindu system unique is the decimal place. Unlike the roman system where you would have IV and twenty-two out of twenty-five the Hindu system allows a person to write 4.88. This idea is fundamental for calculating precise numbers, and the creation of many mathematical constants like pi could only be done with a decimal place.

However, even though the mathematical benefits of the Hindu system are obvious, it did not just spread across the world immediately. The numbers were first introduced in the 7th century AD, but it wasn’t until the 12th century AD that the entire system spread to Western Civilization.

The first wave was the numbers themselves which allowed people to write much more succinctly and easily. The Hindu’s had several different number systems over the period where the number system was developed, but the one we are most familiar with, and was absorbed by the Arabs, is the Nagari number system which is very similar to ours. In the system however there are a few modifications from its original form over the years; for example, originally the 1 resembled a 9, the number 4 was represented by an 8, a 5 was represented by a 4, the 6, 7 and 8 were quite unlike any of our current numbers, and the 9 was backwards. The numbers first spread to the Arabs around the 7th century — the earliest and most complete records come from the writings of a man named al-Biruni from the 11th century.

However, the mathematical concepts didn’t follow until the 12th century. A 9th century Arab named Al-Khwarizmi is credited with introducing the concepts of the mathematical possibilities of the numbers through his treatise which was translated into Latin in the early 12th century. After this the numbers quickly spread throughout Europe and the rest is history.

The myth of primitive societies.

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Humans who live in technologically primitive societies aren’t as intelligent as those who live in advanced societies…or so some of histories most influential personalities thought. The reasoning behind their thinking, when it was used as an honest theory and not a egocentric attack on another culture to legitimize their enslavement or destruction, is that primitive societies just harvest what is naturally provided, so while they have to physically work for their resources, there isn’t much innovation in the techniques used to collect and store it, and because there is no innovation the brain doesn’t develop all the skills that it would have if the person was forced to innovate–in short making the person less intelligent.

However, theoretically, in technologically advanced societies, which don’t provide for human needs as readily as harvesting fruits in the rainforest, an individual has to work harder to achieve their goals, so are more prone to innovate just to have the possibility of acquiring even basic things like food, and, as the assumption goes, this must make these people more intelligent and that, over time, they would be also be genetically more intelligent.

While to a point they were correct: a society that innovates would be more advanced and would seem to be more intelligent to some tests. However, if you were to trade a few children and raise them in their new society you would find very little difference intellectually between them and the members of their adopted society.

Although tests were used to prove that individuals from these “primitive” societies were indeed less intelligent, most times these tests were flawed in that they test the wrong things, or were specifically stacked against the taker through cultural biasing.

As a human brain develops, it will develop the parts of it that are needed: for example the brain of a rainforest inhabitant perceives depth differently than someone who lives in open plains, and if you were to have these people switch places, they would both have problems just seeing the environment the same way as an inhabitant would, but over time they would adjust.

Similarly, on tests that resemble IQ tests people from different regions and backgrounds test differently. These test traits such as spacial orientation and problem solving are tested, but on badly designed tests, these are biased towards one way of thinking, and because they are designed to test only one way of thinking, anyone who does differently will fail it. So a person raised in an environment where technological innovation is not needed will use most of their brain-power for different things, so even though they are just as intelligent as other children, they won’t find these tests, as easy.

Modern society has proven that these regionally and societally influenced differences were only in the imaginations of these personalities by allowing people to easily move from one society to another rapidly–individuals of a “primitive” society can easily walk into a “more advanced” society, live for a few years and the return home. Unfortunately, some people like to believe it is still the time of the Conquistadors, and assume that those who are different or less advanced, must be less intelligent, but the assumptions of such differences is more evident of cultural bias than anything else.

Of course, this thinking is nothing that hasn’t been in the mainstream thought for the past half a century, but this post is a direct response to a debate I had with someone recently where they argued that people that live in hot climates were categorically less intelligent than those who live in colder climates because the warmer climates have historically had less technologically advanced civilizations. (For those that care, I won that one.)

Benjamin Whorf’s “Language, Mind and Reality” and egocentrism

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In general, although Benjamin Whorf was obviously well-read and has mastered the use of language, I find him to be rather culture bound and egocentric. Although he is able to construct his writing in such a way as to appear intellectual to the average person by using a large number of obscure and obtuse words, his words say very little. His claims about language are, in general, very egotistical. He seems to think linguists superior to the rest of the world because they understand the concepts of language when no one else has. However, he makes one glaring error: he makes rather biased comments and then blames the failings of linguistics on other disciplines.

Benjamin Whorf claimed that scientific thought is a specialization of Indo-European cultural systems but this view ethnocentric at best, exclusionary at worst. Scientific thought has existed in many cultures throughout history. The ancient Egyptians and Arabs developed mathematics, the Maya had a calender accurate to todays standards, the Chinese developed gunpowder and the Assyrians were the first to smelt iron. Not only did all of these cultures developed great leaps in scientific understanding without having an Indo-European culture, Indo-European culture did not even exist at the point these advances were made. Modern western culture did not develop science nor does it specialize in it anymore than previous cultures, while it may seem to be at the forefront of research in modern society, it is not because of western culture, but rather of the advances that were created previously that allowed western culture to increase the percentage of its population able to devote their lives to science. Even if you were to take his comment to mean that Indo-European languages use the same term to refer to many different things based on perception, he has still made a very exclusionary comment.

He also stated that science finds it difficult to be strictly factual because of the conflicting ways that different disciplines approach concepts linguistically. However, this is not a fault of science but of the relativity that pervades language itself. When a simple word like set can have 119 different meanings how can a complex concept such as space have the same meaning when applied to very different fields. This argument should not be to question sciences factuality as it is, by definition, based in fact, instead it should question the ability of language to support and explain the science. Linguistics, unlike science, is not based in fact. Linguistics is a collection of symbols each with a different meaning that are agreed to represent a theme, object or idea by a group of individuals. Therefore, although there is overlap between the dialects of the sciences, this does not harm the science but rather the interpretation of the science by people from outside the group. Although Whorf uses science as his example and questions science on the basis of different meanings for the same word, this inaccurate symbolism of language is not limited to the sciences. Words like set with 119 meanings or the notorious there, they’re and their evidences that it is not science that causes the problems: current linguistics itself is incapable of adequately transmitting information in any sort of standard form.

English Conundrums

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A long time ago I found the following poem, and I believe it is the best indicator that the English language needs to be reworked.

The first poem is a modern reincarnation of “The Chaos” (1922) by G. Nolst Trenite, a.k.a. “Charivarius” (1870-1946). The original (which you can read below this one) was a little more Shakespearean.

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh, hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sleeve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation — think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough –
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is just give up!

Here is the original:

Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
Tear in eye, your dress you’ll tear;
Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
Just compare heart, hear and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word.

Sword and sward, retain and Britain
(Mind the latter how it’s written).
Made has not the sound of bade,
Say-said, pay-paid, laid but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
But be careful how you speak,
Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak ,

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via
Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;
Woven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.

Say, expecting fraud and trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,
Missiles, similes, reviles.

Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
Same, examining, but mining,
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far.

From “desire”: desirable-admirable from “admire”,
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,
Topsham, brougham, renown, but known,
Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,

One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.
Gertrude, German, wind and wind,
Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind,

Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.
This phonetic labyrinth
Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.

Have you ever yet endeavoured
To pronounce revered and severed,
Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,
Peter, petrol and patrol?

Billet does not end like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.

Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which exactly rhymes with khaki.
Discount, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward,

Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet?
Right! Your pronunciation’s OK.
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Is your r correct in higher?
Keats asserts it rhymes Thalia.
Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,
Buoyant, minute, but minute.

Say abscission with precision,
Now: position and transition;
Would it tally with my rhyme
If I mentioned paradigm?

Twopence, threepence, tease are easy,
But cease, crease, grease and greasy?
Cornice, nice, valise, revise,
Rabies, but lullabies.

Of such puzzling words as nauseous,
Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,
You’ll envelop lists, I hope,
In a linen envelope.

Would you like some more? You’ll have it!
Affidavit, David, davit.
To abjure, to perjure. Sheik
Does not sound like Czech but ache.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, loch, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed but vowed.

Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover.
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice,

Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, penal, and canal,
Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal,

Suit, suite, ruin. Circuit, conduit
Rhyme with “shirk it” and “beyond it”,
But it is not hard to tell
Why it’s pall, mall, but Pall Mall.

Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor,

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
Has the a of drachm and hammer.
Pussy, hussy and possess,
Desert, but desert, address.

Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants
Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.
Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,
Cow, but Cowper, some and home.

“Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker”,
Quoth he, “than liqueur or liquor”,
Making, it is sad but true,
In bravado, much ado.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.

Arsenic, specific, scenic,
Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.
Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,
Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.

Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle,
Make the latter rhyme with eagle.
Mind! Meandering but mean,
Valentine and magazine.

And I bet you, dear, a penny,
You say mani-(fold) like many,
Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,
Tier (one who ties), but tier.

Arch, archangel; pray, does erring
Rhyme with herring or with stirring?
Prison, bison, treasure trove,
Treason, hover, cover, cove,

Perseverance, severance. Ribald
Rhymes (but piebald doesn’t) with nibbled.
Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,
Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.

Don’t be down, my own, but rough it,
And distinguish buffet, buffet;
Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,
Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.

Say in sounds correct and sterling
Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.
Evil, devil, mezzotint,
Mind the z! (A gentle hint.)

Now you need not pay attention
To such sounds as I don’t mention,
Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,
Rhyming with the pronoun yours;

Nor are proper names included,
Though I often heard, as you did,
Funny rhymes to unicorn,
Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.

No, my maiden, coy and comely,
I don’t want to speak of Cholmondeley.
No. Yet Froude compared with proud
Is no better than McLeod.

But mind trivial and vial,
Tripod, menial, denial,
Troll and trolley, realm and ream,
Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.

Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely
May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,
But you’re not supposed to say
Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.

Had this invalid invalid
Worthless documents? How pallid,
How uncouth he, couchant, looked,
When for Portsmouth I had booked!

Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite,
Paramour, enamoured, flighty,
Episodes, antipodes,
Acquiesce, and obsequies.

Please don’t monkey with the geyser,
Don’t peel ‘taters with my razor,
Rather say in accents pure:
Nature, stature and mature.

Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly,
Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,
Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,
Wan, sedan and artisan.

The th will surely trouble you
More than r, ch or w.
Say then these phonetic gems:
Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.

Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham,
There are more but I forget ‘em-
Wait! I’ve got it: Anthony,
Lighten your anxiety.

The archaic word albeit
Does not rhyme with eight-you see it;
With and forthwith, one has voice,
One has not, you make your choice.

Shoes, goes, does *. Now first say: finger;
Then say: singer, ginger, linger.
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,

Hero, heron, query, very,
Parry, tarry fury, bury,
Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,
Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.

Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners,
Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners
Holm you know, but noes, canoes,
Puisne, truism, use, to use?

Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual,
Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,
Put, nut, granite, and unite.

Reefer does not rhyme with deafer,
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.

Gaelic, Arabic, pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific;
Tour, but our, dour, succour, four,
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Say manoeuvre, yacht and vomit,
Next omit, which differs from it
Bona fide, alibi
Gyrate, dowry and awry.

Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion,
Rally with ally; yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!

Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.
Never guess-it is not safe,
We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.

Starry, granary, canary,
Crevice, but device, and eyrie,
Face, but preface, then grimace,
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;
Ear, but earn; and ere and tear
Do not rhyme with here but heir.

Mind the o of off and often
Which may be pronounced as orphan,
With the sound of saw and sauce;
Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.

Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting?
Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.
Respite, spite, consent, resent.
Liable, but Parliament.

Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk,
Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.

A of valour, vapid vapour,
S of news (compare newspaper),
G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,
I of antichrist and grist,

Differ like diverse and divers,
Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.
Once, but nonce, toll, doll, but roll,
Polish, Polish, poll and poll.

Pronunciation-think of Psyche!-
Is a paling, stout and spiky.
Won’t it make you lose your wits
Writing groats and saying “grits”?

It’s a dark abyss or tunnel
Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,
Islington, and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Don’t you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father?
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??

Hiccough has the sound of sup…
My advice is: GIVE IT UP!

Diffusion as Evidenced Through the English Language

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I think this selection of words shows evidences the many ways words enter into the English vocabulary.
Itinerary:
Itinerary began as the word itinerarium from Latin which means “account of a journey”.

Mouse:
Mouse began as the Greek word m?s it the evolved over time to be (in chronological order) m?s in Latin, maus in German, m?s in Old English, then finally as mous in Middle English. This word is interesting for two reasons the first is that it has a rather long etymology and the second is that English first borrowed the word directly from Latin and then later borrowed it in a different form from the Germans.

Algebra:
Algebra began as the Arabic word al-jabr and then when introduced into Latin it was rewritten into Algebra where it remains. This word demonstrates how words are many times absorbed into English with only minor modification to fit the alphabet and phonetic structure. The word itself spread with mathematics allowing the word to popularize without much change. This evidences that technical vocabularies have a much easier time spreading in their original form than nontechnical vocabularies. This unchanging vocabulary allows the science to spread quickly and at the same time allows the different groups understand each other allowing scientists to be able to effectively transmit ideas and technology in ways that other groups cannot.

Tea:
Tea is a direct absorption of the Chinese (Amoy) word te. This word evidences the assimilation of words through commerce and trade. The word tea, like algebra, spread with the product it was named for. However, unlike algebra it remained in its original form not for scientific understanding but for marketing purposes. Tea began was a very expensive resource and to change its name would also remove the prior marketing and “buzz” that helped to popularize the product in the first place.

Juggernaut:
Juggernaut began as the word jagannthah from Sanskrit which is the title of the god Krishna. This word demonstrates the frequent perversion that occurs when new words are introduced and removed from their native dialects. The word Juggernaut was assimilated to mean a large and dangerous object because in its native India the word referred to Krishna whose idol would be pulled on a large cart through the streets. Allegedly when this occurred devotees would throw themselves on the ground in front of the cart to be trampled and crushed. This manipulation of meanings also occurred with the words dictator (Latin) and tyrant (Greek) which originally referred to a person appointed temporarily appointed in times of need and a person who came to power through extralegal means respectively. However, they were adopted into English to refer to people who were generally considered evil and cruel.