*corrected/edited*

It has been a few years now since I first proposed my Nostratic language family, spoken across the world’s white-Caucasian population. I preliminarily labelled it as the “Transcendent” Tongues in order to capture broadly its characteristics without the formal knowledge of each branch. Thus far, I have laid out three branches, named somewhat playfully before we get to know more details:

• Trumping-Indo-European

• MegaQuirky/Alarodian

• North Picene?

The largely unclassified North Picene language of ancient Italy is a possible hoax and may never have existed, but there are stelae in existence, including the main Novilara stele, dated to the 1st millennium BCE, that feature an unknown language; North Picene is very different from South Picene, which is an Italic language, much more closely related to Italian and Latin. The Picentes or Piceni lived between the Apennines to the west and the Adriatic coast to the east (Picenum). The original Picenes may have spoken unclassified non-Italic language and then become italicised, giving rise to South Picene. North Picene may have belonged to a unique branch of my proposed Nostratic family. No relationships have been identified from any similar vocabulary, if the language existed at all. If it is a hoax, it still represents a good attempt at imagining a new type of Nostratic language. It is testament to the fact that many philologists and language experts have been sort of wrong about what it means for one language to be related to another, beyond lexical similarities, broad ideology also being a very important factor and feature. Picenes worshipped the woodpecker as a sacred animal: picus means a woodpecker in Latin. Either way, hoax or no, the artefacts are surely conservations of vital intelligence about European heritage: yes, North Picene morphology was developed to mirror the way Europe has developed in faithful accordance with language relativity since the Cro-Magnons, at the very least. In Europe, we have always loved binary opposition more than the rest of the world, which was proposed by Ferdinand de Saussure. It has been suggested that proposed phonological evidence links North Picene to Indo-European -allegedly more closely than to, for example, Etruscan-, which may in turn be evidence of its Nostratic identity.

It’s good to lay out the premise of European culture, with us loving binary opposition more than the rest of the world, preserved via North Picene, as we delve into Caucasian history.

The Nostratic language family probably originated around the Caucasus, judging by the continuous coexistence of MegaQuirky languages and Indo-European languages in the area. It may have been instigated by Caucasus Hunter-Gatherers, their predecessors, or relatives. For me the likely place of origin is CHGs the Caucasus, near to where the Indo-European languages were created 5-10,000 years later; the Nostratic language family was probably instituted around 10-20,000 years ago. Caucasus hunter-gatherers supposedly diverged from their common ancestors with Anatolian hunter-gatherers around 25,000 years ago, probably some time after their split from darker skinned Western hunter-gatherers.

The first branch of Nostratic I propose…

… is what I call “Trumping-Indo-European”. The Indo-European languages are widely accepted to constitute the world’s most spoken language family, with billions of speakers. Today, they can be understood informally as the “Glorious” Tongues, a label which should be very helpful in illustrating what sets them apart. The currently spoken commonly accepted branches are: Albanoid, Armenian, Balto-Slavic, Celtic, Germanic, Hellenic, Indo-Iranian, Italic. As you might have seen above, I have proposed three overarching branches that lie above those which are currently commonly accepted: Western/Centum, Eastern/Satem, Groundbreaking/Anatolian-Tocharian. Scholars stopped believing in the existence of a Centum/Satem genealogical division within Indo-European at the turn of the 20th century. This happened upon Anatolian and Tocharian being discovered, which are not really Centum nor Satem, and a lack of further obvious evidence that the Centum/Satem division was nothing more than a typological quirk. I wish I could reignite the conversation about bigger overarching primary branches of Indo-European. I think that the Centum/Satem division is geneaological, but messy. Messy because Indo-European branches diverged initially on a mere dialectal basis: they were all very proud of their Indo-European identity. The trajectory of Indo-European language diversification has also not been so streamlined and clean: different groups have been in contact and mixed in different ways over the past 10,000 years, meaning that exchanges have been made which blur the lines between Centum and Satem. Yet language genealogy is not just about the obvious things to study, i.e. lexicology/semiosis, morphology, phonology… and ideology -yep, very important actually- is critical too. For example, Nostratic languages can be easily identified with their a) sophisticated and well-developed lexicology; b) acutely refined, structured, robust morphology; c) smooth and refined phonology, and their d) ambitious, upward-looking ideologies. It’s a shame that it’s too abstract for many people, because the field of philology and comparative linguistics has been stunted. So the genetic division between Western/Centum, Eastern/Satem and Groundbreaking/Anatolian-Tocharian is still there/was still there when Anatolian-Tocharian was still spoken.

The name Nostratic derives from the Latin word nostrās, meaning ‘our fellow-countryman’ (plural: nostrates). A so-called “Nostratic” grouping was first proposed by Holger Pedersen in 1903, who proposed a common ancestor for the Indo-European, Finno-Ugric, Samoyed, Turkish, Mongolian, Manchu, Yukaghir, Eskimo, Semitic, and Hamitic languages, with the door left open to the inclusion of others in due course. Since Pedersen, “Nostratic” has been defined as those language families that are related to Indo-European – meaning that the grouping centres around Indo-European, which I corroborate. According to Allan Bomhard, Proto-Nostratic would have been spoken between 15,000 and 12,000 BCE, during the Epipaleolithic period, near the end of the last glacial period, perhaps in or nearby the Fertile Crescent. My grouping streamlines the matter somewhat, cutting out Altaic which I don’t believe exists as a language family, also doing away with Afroasiatic and Dravidian – and incorporating minority groupings including Vasconic and Tyrsenian as listed above. I chose the name Nostratic as I think people adhering to the proposal are on the right track – having discerned the existence of the real family at least somewhat faithfully as far as transcendent ideology is concerned.

Beyond Indo-European, I have detected the existence of an important precursor to the world’s most spoken language family commonly recognised today: “Trumpophonism“…

Back in the prehistoric Caucasus, or perhaps somewhere between the Caucasus and the Fertile Crescent, there was disagreement about the “artistic direction”, let’s say, of the relatively newly established Nostratic language family. People to the north developed the habit of riffing on the cultural vision of the tribes to the north of the Caucasus (Sidelkino ancestry supposedly emerged around 14,000 years ago but it’s hard to say exactly who these mysterious inspirational northerners were). Yes, within the early Nostratic (not necessarily still Proto-Nostratic) population, those to the north developed the habit of riffing on the tribes to the north of them. Unfortunately, it irked those the south and they became resentful, leading to the aforementioned disagreement about the direction of Nostratic culture. The southerners were more interested in Anatolia, Iran, South Asia, and the recent establishment of the… MegaQuirky/Alarodian languages, which also entailed the development of the original prestiged “h*rniness“, let’s say. The Alarodian branch includes the likes of: Uralic (Hungarian, Estonian, Finnish), Vasconic (Basque), Tyrsenian/Tyrrhenian (Etruscan), Minoan, Kartvelian/South Caucasian (Georgian), North Caucasian, Hurro-Urartian, Sumerian, Pre-Nuragic Sardinian. The Proto-Alarodians were either Anatolian hunter-gatherers with small additional ancestry from Proto-Nostratic people or maybe more of a mix between AHGs and Proto-Nostratics.

The resentful southerners had the edge of power to wield, and forbade their northern counterparts from proceeding thus. The Nostratic northerners may even have been entertaining interests in diverging and/or getting other ethnic groups wound up about a directional vision the southerners disagreed with. There could have been a war, though of course we cannot really ascertain. Regardless, the southerners ridiculed, shamed, intimidated and eclipsed their northern Nostratic counterparts in whatever way to erase their distinct aspirations. This was the beginning of modern warmongering, or simply cultural malevolence, as we know it today. At some point, this shift gave rise to a new type of Nostratic language: Trumping. These people weren’t very nice in the grand scheme of things, with edgy attitudes towards stature especially, and were of course known for what they did with the tradition of cultural malevolence – however extreme it became, there was certainly at least a culture of psychological torment and warping views. They liked to see themselves as superior, and used their language to distinguish themselves as such, by “trumping” outsiders and even each other. Years later, Indo-European itself would subsequently emerge from the Trumpophone tradition.

What more we can we learn from it?

Understanding China’s Qing dynasty heritage is critical for understanding the way geopolitics is functioning at the moment. The Qing legacy is a key factor in the tensions of China’s rise and its competition with the USA and the West. The Qing dynasty was an oppressive regime but one with an exquisite aesthetic. Qing-derived discipline is remembered unfavourably by contemporary China but has also afforded them with some advantages. This need not be ignored by the Chinese Communist Party, and its awkwardness stands to be managed much better. The power of China over fashion, for example, is surely intimately influenced by the Qing legacy, though China had more than one revolution in the 20th century to depose the Qing legacy and adopted communism. This is why Brand of Qing is my first post following my introductory series to The Buzz-Concept Project. The insight this “Project” can afford is powerful, and the Brand of Qing is an interesting cautionary tale as to the reality of the power of Buzz-Concepts.

Here are some more general findings about how Buzz-Concepts work.

I have identified the quantity of four as principal at this current time in human history; the different stages from one to four have been incorporated at different times/points of development in human history.

Originally, after humans first started speaking there was no Buzz-Concept – strictly speaking. Then we became extra interested in survival, and instituted the first Buzz-Concept of survival. We understood that we were transcendent in our wit but we weren’t the biggest, fastest, or even longest-living (probably) specimens in the world -presumably this was back in Homo sapiens’ homeland of Africa- and the Buzz-Concept survival was moulded to facilitate people’s senses of perspective, as well as reasoning skills, survival instincts, community spirit, visionary attitudes, finesse/refinement/sophistication, childbearing security, competitive appetite, historiographical acuity and more.

Eventually, people became interested in the concept of sensuality, and the secondary Buzz-Concept was introduced. Therefore, perhaps, early human language after this point had the Buzz-Concepts:

• 1. Survival
• 2. Sexiness ?!

Level 3 was not introduced until after Homo sapiens migrated to Asia, as the ancestors of all humans except most typical black Africans, including the Bantu ethnicity, also the Khoisan who are believed to be the oldest surviving ethnicity. I have theorised that it was Proto-Mongoloids who developed level 3. This entails formalised concretisation of nationality or tribal/ethnic identity (before nationalities existed). Long before the academic discipline of philosophy existed, tens of thousands of years ago, we had this: concept number 3 = the philosophy of [Mongoloids/Anglophonism/Françaisité/Europaität/Hispanidad/Russkost‘ etc.]. The “buzzy structure” of the resulting “NewMongoloid” language…?

• 1. Sense?
• 2. Collection?
• 3. The philosophy of NewMongoloidism?

Finally, we have number 4, which is about cultural enhancement. It was probably instituted by primitive Caucasians between Eastern Europe and West Asia. An interesting fact is that Greeks like to think pretend/think that they did it, but they didn’t. Many parts of the world have been challenged by the diffusion of “number 4”, and “number 3” come to think of it.

• ENGLISH: 1) success 2) passion (in America this changes to infinity after the Native Americans) 3) the philosophy of Anglophonism 4) sophistication/flexibility/depth
• FRENCH/FRANÇAIS: 1) passion 2) sophistication 3) the philosophy of Frenchness/“Francosité” (made up term) 4) dextérité
• GERMAN/DEUTSCH: 1) Erfolg 2) Fähigkeit 3) the philosophy of Europeanness 4) Sinnlichkeit
• SPANISH/ESPAÑOL: 1) pasión 2) primor 3) the philosophy of Hispanism 4) provecho
• RUSSIAN/RUSSKIY: 1) sovershenstvo/perfection 2) chuvstvennost‘/sensuality 3) the philosophy of Russkost’ 4) utesheniye/comfort

Sometimes, Buzz-Concepts can be cohered as layers – though the buzz dulls by number 3 and I only really term 1 + 2 as the Buzz-Concepts. 3 + 4 are more subtly ingrained. Another way to visualise Buzz-Concepts comes to us the form of the ancient swastika symbol – which the Nazis cunningly appropriated for their own evil ends.

Alternatively, I suggest a spherical model with more flexible and transitory subsections that interplay and overlap in varying ways, and which accommodates a more holistic view of the whole language sphere.

The concept of interrelativity is key for understanding Buzz-Concepts. Buzz-Concepts are strongly guided by interrelativity between human groups, and vice versa.

It is true that the sphere of every language in the world hinges on some concepts that serve to guide native speakers in their lives, through the ups and downs of one’s lifelong relationship with one’s mother tongue. Before modern society evolved, Buzz-Concepts sort of coded tribal life. Languages have developed in concordance with the nature of their “BuzzWords” or “Buzz-Concepts” (as I prefer to call them due to translation complexities).

It really helps to consider the components of language as “signs” that direct to meaning and significance. This helps us understand the differences between languages. Every single language on Earth has its own differentiated approach to making use of the “linguistic sign”. In fact, this is literally exactly what Buzz-Concepts really are: the concepts that subliminally guide speakers in making use of the network of signs that make up your language. In English, we seek especially to have success, to be successful, in doing so. In French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, native speakers are all ferociously passionate about using their beautiful mother tongues. In Russian, they’re perfectionists when it comes to making use of the linguistic sign. In Chinese, they seek to attain the ideal of efficacy in making use of their linguistic signs. There are so many languages with fascinating ideologies and rationales, with fascinating relationships with their Buzz-Concepts. It is crazy, the world we live in.

In Ancient Egyptian, sense and nuance were inherently primitively philosophical. They loved to philosophise, even before the academic discipline of philosophy had matured. This is how they invented so many useful things, including black ink, toothpaste, makeup, papyrus, the calendar, clocks, pyramids, irrigation, mathematics, geometry, surveying, metallurgy, astronomy, accounting, Egyptian hieroglyphics, paper, medicine, the ramp, the lever, the plough, mills for grinding grain, the police, surgical instruments, wigs, mummification. Hieroglyphs can be understood as “metaphysical language”. Sense/nuance in languages around the world… In English it’s flexible… In Italian it’s refined… In Korean it’s logical… In Russian it’s evocative… In German it’s dynamic… In Arabic it’s profound… In spite of what many assume, the world’s languages can thusly be said to differ greatly on the level of sense and nuance. This is true to the extent that the very experience, nature, substance and meaning of the very concept of language vary around the world, from family to family. Again: considering components of language as signs that conduce to meaning, every single language on Earth having its own unique way or methodology of making use of linguistic signs, Buzz-Concepts guide how it all unfolds. For Africans, the linguistic sign is more tangible and they sort of objectify it. For Native Americans, the linguistic sign is more abstract and fluid. In Europe, we love to attach consequence to the use of language… Sense… In Europe it’s glorified… In East Asia it’s efficient… In Africa it’s treasured…!

Noam Chomsky and his universalists once insisted upon the fundamentalism of linguistic universals, but the opposing doctrine to linguistic universalism, that of linguistic relativism, is more interesting for The Buzz-Concept Project. Linguistic relativism or relativity came to the forefront of linguistics in the form of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in the 1920s. The hypothesis asserts that “the structure of a language determines a native speaker’s perception and categorization of experience.” It was met with widespread criticism and dismissal. Noam Chomsky came into the picture a couple of decades later and shifted attention towards linguistic universalism. Linguistic relativity postulates that one’s experience of life unfolds relative to one’s language, while linguistic universalism dictates that we are all biologically programmed to use language in a universal way.

“We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language” – Benjamin Whorf

“Human beings… are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society.” – Edward Sapir

“A different language is a different vision of life,” said Federico Fellini. Indeed, it is undeniable to me that the features of the language(s) you speak as a native have a profound influence on the precise ways in which you understand the world around you. But unfortunately the field of linguistics is biased from a Western perspective. For example, they have a looser relationship with words in Chinese, and idealise going by concept; they prefer to conceptualise their way through phraseology, which is why Chinese is still written in contiguity without spaces (scriptio continua). The world’s linguistic study is biased towards a prestiged selection of linguistic spheres that aren’t wholly representative and generalisation is relied upon too heavily. Some people and perspectives are neglected and thus our capacity to understand language is tainted by Western bias – also by Indo-European bias, which is the macrofamily major world languages including English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Greek, Farsi and Hindi belong to.

This failure within academia has in fact had colossal sociopolitical implications across the world, especially due to the existence of “Buzz-Concepts”! Western thinkers sit atop this pile for a reason but things have gone too far and entire continents are being stumped here. Buzz-Concept clashing forms a very real barrier to human progress and it’s stunning how much insight you can gain into a culture just by knowing your Buzz-Concepts.

The Buzz-Concept Project is a way of examining the diversity among the world’s languages. Through this perspective, you can develop insight into a language you never imagined possible to have.

Every language has key concepts that provide key intelligence about how its speakers and its society function. People have strong cultural appetites when it comes to their Buzz-Concepts, and so beyond linguistic productivity including literature, Buzz-Concepts play an immense role in influencing art and other cultural customs. Like how Ferdinand de Saussure divided language signs between signifier and signified, and divided language into langue and parole, there are two main mediums to interpret Buzz-Concepts from an analytical standing: lexicologically and visually. I would love to produce a full written guide to the world’s languages by analysing Buzz-Concepts, but it’s such hard graft and I still have much more writing experience to amass before I could fulfil my vision. So far I have relied a lot upon visualisation, with my own graphics and other people’s art, to make my way across the world’s Buzz-Concepts. This pathway can be just as tricky as the lexicological strategy, but is more fun, which is why I started The Buzz-Concept Project this way.

You may not realise it, but the way you and your compatriots make use of the lexicon of your native language(s) is underpinned by some connected concepts, the most overarching of which we’ll call the primary Buzz-Concept. The way a language is created from the beginning of its existence is also influenced by these concepts.

The Buzz-Concept of French/français is passion. The French word for ‘passion’ is passion /pa.sjɔ̃/, so the native BuzzWord of French is passion, spelt the same as in English (the English word is derived from French) but pronounced quite differently. French speakers are very passionate about their mother tongue, known as la Belle Langue. French is also even known as “The Language of Love”. French is a Romance language, derived from Latin and related to Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Romanian, and more. Other Romance languages also buzz about passion, but the Buzz-Concept of Latin was excellency.

The Buzz-Concept of English is success, descended from the Latin word ‘successus’, which meant “an advance, a coming up; a good result, happy outcome”. Yet English is not so closely related to Latin, rather being a Germanic language with closer ties to Dutch, German and Scandinavian languages. The Buzz-Concept success is shared across the Germanic languages, though the others mostly use more authentic Germanic terms rather than the Latin-derived word ‘success’ in English (Erfolg in German; voorspoed in Dutch; framgång in Swedish; medgang in Danish – though Norwegian has adopted the English loanword suksess). Modern English is descended from the early variant called Anglo-Saxon or Old English, which was unintelligible for Modern English speakers. This was spoken in the first millennium AD, before English acquired extensive French and Latinate vocabulary, becoming Middle English, after the Norman Conquest of the 11th century. The Buzz-Concept of Old English was instead spede, meaning “success, prosperity, or good fortune“. This term is related to the modern word ‘speed’, as in “God speed”. Within the other Germanic languages, we have the related word ‘voorspoed’ of Dutch (voor + spoed = for-speed). Speakers of Germanic languages focus on success, as communicators and in other ways. Don’t assume that speakers of other language families don’t also strive for success, because of course they do, while Germanic speakers just like their astuteness to lay conveniently on top of what everybody else achieves. For the most part, success is an intrinsic quality of human language; it is a given, you might say. Sometimes Germanic speakers double up over this, often not, sometimes they buckle instead. This dynamic is intentional within the design of the Buzz-Concept success, to force people to learn from experience. The Buzz-Concept success can be straightforward, it can be subversive.

The Buzz-Concept of Hebrew/עִבְרִית/Ivrit is unity/אַחְדוּת/achdut. Explaining why Jewish communities are so tightly bonded, and making the Holocaust seem even more awful -due to Hitler’s mockery of the Buzz-Concept unity. Hebrew speakers don’t lose sight of the fundamental purpose of language as a means of communication within a community. They don’t forget about the interpersonal role of human language.

The primary Buzz-Concept of Japanese/日本語/Nihongo can be encapsulated by the sole character 効 kō meaning “effect, efficiency”. This very easily explains why the Japanese love technology so much, and why they’re so good at making it. The Japanese are also naturally very efficient communicators.

Do you speak any of these languages? Natively? If not, can you identify what your language buzzes about? Are you excited for The Buzz-Concept Project to cover it?