On Aug 27, 10:13?am, Bill wrote:
I don't know that there is any
real evidence for Viking presence in the Pacific at all.

Yeah but the Vikings were not known for leaving a lot evidence for any
of the places they went. Many of the places they visited we know
about from the original inhabitants accounts. We know they went to
the middle east but don't see a lot of evidence there. We know they
came to N.A. and have very limited evidence there. It's not Spanish
or English explorers that really want everyone to know they were
there. Also, and I'm not disputing the book here but, carbon dating
is a tricky thing especially when dealing with sample that has been
submerged for hundreds of years. There are a lot of factors that can
make the sample appear much older or much younger than it really is by
hundreds of years.

Since you live down that way, have you ever heard anything about a
wrecked Chinese junk in the Sacramento river?

"Chuck Gould" wrote in message
ups.com...
On Aug 27, 10:13?am, Bill wrote:
I don't know that there is any
real evidence for Viking presence in the Pacific at all.

Yeah but the Vikings were not known for leaving a lot evidence for any
of the places they went. Many of the places they visited we know
about from the original inhabitants accounts. We know they went to
the middle east but don't see a lot of evidence there. We know they
came to N.A. and have very limited evidence there. It's not Spanish
or English explorers that really want everyone to know they were
there. Also, and I'm not disputing the book here but, carbon dating
is a tricky thing especially when dealing with sample that has been
submerged for hundreds of years. There are a lot of factors that can
make the sample appear much older or much younger than it really is by
hundreds of years.

Since you live down that way, have you ever heard anything about a
wrecked Chinese junk in the Sacramento river?




No. Lots of wrecked junk in the delta, but no Chinese Junks that I have
heard of.

On Mon, 27 Aug 2007 19:13:20 -0700, Chuck Gould
wrote:

On Aug 27, 8:48?am, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:
On Mon, 27 Aug 2007 07:16:11 -0700, Chuck Gould

wrote:
One interesting
claim (see website) is that the Tartar dialect of Chinese and the
Apache tongue are virutally the same language- so close that speakers
of Tartar and speakers of Apache can converse easily without ever
formally studying the other language. The mathmatical odds that two
societies that had never interacted would independently assign the
same meanings to sounds and structures comprising a language are
pretty remote.

Heh - would you believe that a sub-dialect of Hebrew also closely
matches the native Apache language and hints of other Native American
languages?

That's where the whole American Indians being the 13th Tribe of Isreal
thing came about.

Also, Navajo, if I remember correctly, is supposed to match Tartar
closely.

I'm not a linguistics expert, but I have some questions about the
Chinese Tartar claims.

1 - There are seven different Apache languages and not all of them
"match".

A - A lot of the evidence of this closeness of language is acnecdotal
and not direct.

2 - Chinese Tartars live almost exclusively in Northwestern China and
it would seem unlikely that they would even be on a ship at sea
serving as seamen as they are largely horse nomads with a very sparse
population.

A - There are a ton of different types of "Tartar" groupings, but
mostly it related to Eastern Europe which would also make it seem
unlikely.

3 - The Apache language is closely related to the Athabaskan language
family of languages which has no relation to the language of the
Tartars.

So, where does that leave us.

Wondering what the statistical probablities are that cultures so
distant and removed from one another independently developed such
extremely similar sytems of sound and structure to express thought.

High enough to make it unlikely, I'll admit.

I know there are what they call polyglots - people who pick up on
languages almost instantly. One of my kids is like that - speaks
seven (along with sub-dialects) last I knew. Reading and writing is
another story - only three.

Be that as it may, there is an additional problem. Athabaskan
languages are not tonal in nature while Chinese and Tartar are. The
two systems are not exactly compatiable.

Also, and I might be wrong here, I don't believe there is actual
direct fully witnessed evidence that you can talk to an Apache (or
Navajo) in Tartar. As in fly a Tartar from NW China to Arizona and
have him sit down with the local Aoache Shaman for tea, cookies and
conversation. Lots of anecdotal evidence - nothing direct.

Then you have the problem of commonality. In any multiple language
grouping, there are going to be certain words that are similar. For
example, there are English words that cannot be translated into French
or Spanish - and vice versa. Conversely, there are words in French
and Spanish that closely match words in English. The Dutch and
English settlers during colonial expansion period didn't have much of
a problem conversing with Native Americans.

Then you have the problem of disease. It's fairly well documented
that Europeans brought a number of disease vectors to the Americas
that had decimated Native American populations. I find it hard to
believe that wouldn't have happened with the Chinese.

I thought it was interesting that in comparing the Pro-1421 website
and the "1421 Debunked!" site that the debunking site seems limited to
addressing only a handful of the scores of items supposedly in
evidence to support the Chinese navigation contention.

Have you read the book? It's very interesting.

Yes - it is, but it's very Von Daniken in it's screeching - just
substitute Chinese for Space Aliens and that's about what it is.