Urban legend

 

Credit: Cfitzart

This is probably true. Enjoy! From Gemini.

Is it really true that the Aboriginal language Andiljangwa has 3,500 grammatical cases? The source is the Guiness Book of World Records!

This is a classic case of a "linguistic urban legend"! While it sounds like an incredible feat of the human mind, the claim that any language—including the Aboriginal language Anindilyakwa (often spelled Andiljaugwa in older texts)—has 3,500 grammatical cases is factually incorrect.

Here is the breakdown of why this number exists in the Guinness World Records and what it actually means.

1. Where did the "3,500" come from?

The source of this confusion is likely a misunderstanding of polysynthesis. Anindilyakwa (spoken on Groote Eylandt) is a incredibly complex language where a single word can function as an entire sentence.

Instead of having thousands of "cases" (which usually apply to nouns, like he/him/his), the language uses a massive system of prefixes and suffixes on its verbs. These markers track:

• Noun Classes: There are five different genders/classes.

• Person & Number: Who is doing what to whom (subject and object).

• Tense & Mood: When and how it is happening.

If you multiply all the possible combinations of these prefixes and suffixes together, you can mathematically generate thousands of unique forms for a single verb. A Guinness researcher likely saw a figure for the number of prefix combinations and labeled them as "cases," which is a very different linguistic concept.

2. The True Record Holder

If we look at actual noun cases (the way a noun changes its ending to show its role), the numbers are much smaller:

• Tsez (Caucasus): Often cited as having 64 cases (though many are combinations of spatial markers).

• Tabasaran (Caucasus): Famously held the Guinness Record for decades with 48 cases.

• Anindilyakwa: Actually has a relatively standard number of cases for an Australian language (roughly 10 to 15, such as locative, ablative, and allative).

3. Why is Anindilyakwa so famous?

Linguists consider Anindilyakwa one of the most difficult languages in the world because of its morphological density.

Example: A single word can mean: "He-will-again-bring-it-back-to-the-two-of-them-tomorrow."

Because the language uses a "base-5" (quinary) counting system and requires every number to "agree" with the noun class of the object (e.g., the word for "one" changes depending on if you are counting turtles or trees), it creates a level of complexity that is genuinely mind-boggling—just not in the form of 3,500 cases!

Summary

• Is it true? No. No language has 3,500 cases.

• Is it complex? Yes, it is one of the most complex languages on Earth.

• The Error: Guinness likely confused "verb prefix combinations" with "noun cases."

It's a great example of how a technical linguistic fact can be "lost in translation" when it hits mainstream trivia books!

Dreamtime

 

Credit: Kevin Cho 

I asked Gemini about the oldest surviving human traditions. Supposedly, Australian Aboriginals have stories which go back tens of thousands of years. I admit that I´m skeptical. So much romantic BS have been written about Native tribes that I wouldn´t be surprised if somebody debunks this 20 years from now. But sure, here is the information (I´ve heard some of it before):

Is it possible to know which religious or cultural tradition is the oldest? That is, the oldest of those which still exist today?

Determining the "oldest" tradition is a bit like tracing a river back to its source—it depends on whether you are looking for the oldest continuous practice, the oldest organized religion, or the oldest written scriptures.

Because cultures evolve, merge, and change names, there isn't one single winner, but rather several "finalists" depending on how you define the terms.

1. The Oldest Continuous Spiritual Traditions: Indigenous Cultures

If we define "tradition" as a set of spiritual beliefs and cultural practices passed down through generations, Indigenous Australian and San (Bushmen) traditions are the oldest.

• Aboriginal Australians: Their spiritual connection to the "Dreamtime" and their oral histories have been maintained for over 50,000 to 65,000 years. Recent archaeological evidence suggests they have passed down stories of sea-level rises and volcanic eruptions that occurred tens of thousands of years ago.

• The San People (Southern Africa): Genetic and archaeological data suggest the San have lived in Southern Africa for at least 20,000 to 30,000 years, maintaining a shamanistic tradition that involves rock art and trance dances.

2. The Oldest Organized Religion: Hinduism

In terms of "major" world religions with a structured system, hierarchy, and massive following, Hinduism is widely considered the oldest.

• Age: It has no single founder and roots that stretch back over 4,000 years.

• Evolution: It emerged from the Vedic period (c. 1500–500 BCE) but incorporates prehistoric Dravidian and Indus Valley Civilization elements that are even older.

• The "Eternal" Nature: Many Hindus refer to their faith as Sanatana Dharma (the Eternal Way), viewing it as a timeless truth rather than a historical movement.

3. The Oldest Monotheism: Judaism and Zoroastrianism

If you are looking for the oldest tradition based on the worship of a single God, there are two main contenders:

• Zoroastrianism: Founded by the prophet Zoroaster in ancient Persia, it dates back to roughly 1500–1000 BCE. It introduced concepts like heaven, hell, and the battle between good and evil, which heavily influenced later Abrahamic faiths. While its population is small today (the Parsi community), it still exists.

• Judaism: While the biblical patriarchs date back to roughly 2000 BCE, the formalization of Judaism as a monotheistic religion occurred around the 9th–6th century BCE. It is the oldest of the three major Abrahamic religions.

4. Summary Table of "The Oldest"

Category	Tradition	Estimated Age
Oral/Cultural	Aboriginal Australian	50,000+ years
Organized Religion	Hinduism	4,000+ years
Monotheism	Zoroastrianism	3,000–3,500 years
Written Scripture	The Vedas (Hinduism)	3,200–3,500 years

---

Why is it so hard to pin down?

The main problem is syncretism. Religions don't usually "start" on a specific Tuesday; they evolve. For example:

• Shinto in Japan has prehistoric roots, but it wasn't "organized" until much later.

• Hinduism today looks very different from the Vedic religion of 3,000 years ago.

When we look at these traditions, we aren't seeing a static museum piece, but a living "ship of Theseus" where the parts have been replaced over millennia while the identity remains the same.

Are you looking for a tradition with a specific "start date" or founder, or are you more interested in the survival of ancient oral myths?

How do we know that Aboriginals have traditions of ancient sea-level rise and volcanic eruptions?

We know this because of a fascinating field of study called geomythology, where scientists compare ancient oral traditions with geological data like sonar mapping and carbon dating.

The evidence isn't just "vague myths" about water; it involves specific geographic details that were only true thousands of years ago.

1. Verification of Sea-Level Rise

During the last Ice Age, sea levels were much lower, and Australia’s coastline extended kilometers further out. Around 7,000 to 18,000 years ago, the ice melted and the seas rose, swallowing vast areas of land.

• The Depth Check: Researchers have identified at least 21 locations around Australia where Aboriginal stories describe a coastline that hasn't existed for at least 7,000 years.

• Specific Geography: For example, the Yindjibarndi people have a name for Fitzroy Island (gabaɽ) that literally means "lower arm" of a mainland promontory. For this name to make sense, the sea level had to be at least 30 meters lower than it is today—a condition that last existed roughly 10,000 years ago.

• The "Walking" Stories: Numerous traditions across the continent describe ancestors walking to islands (like Kangaroo Island or the Tiwi Islands) that are now separated by deep, treacherous water. Geological records confirm these "land bridges" were submerged exactly when the stories say the "water came in."

2. Verification of Volcanic Eruptions

The most striking example is found in the Gunditjmara tradition in South Victoria, regarding a creator being named Budj Bim.

• The Oral Record: The story describes a giant who transformed into a volcano, with his teeth becoming the lava and his hair the smoke.

• The Scientific Match: In 2020, geologists used argon-argon dating on the lava rocks at Budj Bim and found the eruption happened approximately 37,000 years ago.

• Human Witness: Archaeological evidence (stone tools) found beneath the volcanic ash layers confirms that people were living in the area at the exact time of the eruption. This means the Gunditjmara have maintained an accurate account of a specific geological event for over 1,500 generations.

How has the information stayed accurate?

Western scientists were initially skeptical, believing oral stories "decay" after a few centuries. However, Aboriginal culture uses highly structured memory systems:

• Cross-Verification: Stories are often owned by specific families; others are not allowed to tell them, which prevents "telephone-game" style distortion.

• Ritual Repetition: The stories are tied to "Songlines"—physical paths in the landscape. To remember the story, you must walk the land, using the rocks and mountains as "mnemonic pegs" to trigger the next part of the history.

---

Aboriginal people hold a story about a 37,000-year-old volcanic eruption

This video explains how researchers and Gunditjmara elders worked together to scientifically date the Budj Bim eruption, confirming it as one of the oldest witnessed events in human history.

The Others are coming (part 1)

 

So I finally managed to get ChatGPT to speculate a bit. Could legends about mysterious "ancestors" or "Others" (or, you know, hairy giants and stuff) be actual memories of encounters between Homo sapiens and entirely different humans species? Heeeere we go! 

Examine Denisovan influence on religion/myth (speculative but interesting)

Good — this is necessarily speculative, but it can be done responsibly, by keeping three things separate:

1. What we know from genetics and archaeology

2. What we know from comparative mythology and anthropology

3. What we can cautiously hypothesize at the overlap

I’ll be explicit at every step about where evidence ends and inference begins.

---

1. What we know with high confidence (the non-speculative base)

A. Denisovans were not marginal

From genetics alone:

• Denisovans interbred multiple times with Homo sapiens
• Over a wide geographic range
• They contributed adaptive genes, not just neutral DNA
• In some populations (Australo-Papuan, Negrito), Denisovan ancestry is substantial (3–5%)

This implies:

Denisovans were ecologically, cognitively, and socially significant, not isolated brutes.

They were likely:
• Skilled foragers
• Long-term landscape dwellers
• Possessors of complex cultural knowledge

---

B. Denisovan admixture correlates with very early migrations

High Denisovan ancestry appears in:
• Sahul (Australia–New Guinea)
• Wallacea
• Philippine Negrito populations

These regions preserve:
• Extremely old settlement layers
• Some of the earliest continuous human cultures on Earth

This matters for myth.

---

2. What we know about myth transmission (still solid ground)

A. Myths are conservative

Comparative mythology shows:

• Core mythic structures can survive:
– Tens of thousands of years
– Radical cultural change
• Especially in:
– Small populations
– Oral cultures
– Stable ecologies

Australian Aboriginal songlines are the classic example.

---

B. Myth encodes relationships, not history

Myths rarely say:
• “We met Denisovans”

They more often encode:
• “There were Others before us”
• “They were powerful”
• “They taught us”
• “They retreated underground / into the past / into spirit realms”

This is a global pattern.

---

3. A recurring mythic pattern that matters here

Across Denisovan-admixed regions, we see remarkably similar motifs:

A. The “First People” or “Other People”

Common features:
• Lived before modern humans
• Closer to animals and landscape
• Possessed great power or knowledge
• Often:
– Hairy
– Dark
– Large
– Non-verbal or differently verbal
• Eventually:
– Disappeared
– Became spirits
– Went underground

Examples:
• Australian Aboriginal “Dreamtime ancestors”
• Philippine forest beings
• Melanesian ancestral spirits
• Himalayan yeti-like traditions (regionally Denisovan-adjacent)

This does not prove Denisovan memory — but it is compatible with it.

---

4. The most cautious hypothesis (what scholars will sometimes say privately)

A restrained hypothesis:

Early Homo sapiens may have incorporated living Denisovans into their mythic cosmologies as a category of Other-than-human persons.

Not monsters.
Not gods.
But another kind of people.

This would explain:
• Why they are often morally ambivalent
• Why they are landscape-bound
• Why they fade into spirit categories rather than enemies

---

5. Denisovans as proto-“spirits” rather than gods

Important point:

There is no reason to think Denisovans were worshipped as gods.

But they could have been:
• Remembered as:
– Ancestors
– First inhabitants
– Teachers
– Dangerous neighbors

Over time, memory compresses:

Living people → remembered people → ancestral beings → spirits

This process is well-documented ethnographically.

---

6. Totemism and deep-time human plurality

Your earlier interest in totemism matters here.

Totemism:
• Blurs human/animal boundaries
• Emphasizes descent and kinship
• Treats “kinds of beings” as relational

If early Homo sapiens lived alongside:
• Denisovans
• Possibly Homo floresiensis / luzonensis

Then:

Human plurality may be one of the conditions under which totemic thinking emerged.

Totemism may encode:
• “We are human, but not the only kind”
• “Other beings are kin, rivals, ancestors”

That is a profound religious insight.

---

7. Why this would survive especially in Denisovan-rich regions

High Denisovan ancestry regions share:

• Early settlement
• Long continuity
• Relative isolation
• Oral transmission
• Strong landscape mythology

These are ideal conditions for deep-time memory persistence.

Australia is the clearest case:
• Continuous culture possibly >50,000 years
• Myths explicitly tied to landforms
• Ancestral beings who are not quite human

---

8. Why this did not survive in most of Eurasia

In contrast, Europe and West Asia experienced:

• Massive population turnover
• Agriculture-driven replacement
• Writing
• State religions
• Theological suppression of liminality

Any Denisovan memory there would have been:
• Diluted
• Absorbed
• Or erased

---

9. What this does not claim (important)

This hypothesis does not claim:

• That Denisovans were gods
• That myths preserve literal historical memory
• That we can identify specific Denisovan myths
• That religion “comes from” Denisovans

Only this:

Human religious imagination may partly arise from living for millennia among other kinds of humans.

That alone is a radical thought.

---

10. A philosophical coda (connecting to your interests)

If this is even partly true, then:

• Religion did not begin with:
– Agriculture
– Hierarchy
– Sky gods

But with:

Encounter, difference, and shared mortality

The first religious question may not have been:

“Who made the world?”

But:

“Who are these others, and what are we to them?”

That question never really went away.

---

11. One-sentence takeaway

Denisovans may have left their deepest trace not in our myths as characters, but in the very idea that the world is shared with beings who are like us, older than us, and not fully knowable.

If you want, we could next:
• Compare this with Neanderthal myth residues
• Examine “little people” myths globally
• Tie this to Kālī/Bhairava and liminality
• Or ask whether religion requires plural humanity to arise at all

Just say the direction.

Totemism

 

ChatGPT goes full professor mood in this answer about "what is humanity´s oldest religion". Enjoy the nocturnal lecture!

Can something useful be said about the world´s oldest religion? For instance, Australia´s Aborigines were isolated from the rest of the world around 50,000 BC. This could mean that their totemism is that old, since totemism also exists in the rest of the world. So could totemism be one of the oldest *types* of religion?

Yes — something useful can be said, but only if we are very clear about what kind of claim we’re making. The moment we stop looking for “the first religion” as a doctrine and instead ask about the oldest religious structures, the picture sharpens considerably.

Your instinct about Australian Aboriginal traditions and totemism is basically sound — with some important refinements.

---

1. Why “the world’s oldest religion” is the wrong question

No religion survives unchanged for 50,000+ years. What can persist that long are:

• Religious orientations
• Symbolic structures
• Ways of sacralizing the world
• Ritual logics

So the meaningful question becomes:

What religious patterns plausibly go back to the earliest Homo sapiens?

---

2. Australia: why it matters so much

Australia is uniquely important because:

• Humans arrived ~65,000–50,000 years ago
• After that, no major population replacement
• No agriculture, no state societies
• Oral, performative, place-based traditions

This makes Aboriginal cultures not “primitive fossils,” but deep continuities of early sapiens religious orientation — heavily elaborated, but structurally ancient.

---

3. Totemism: what it really is (and isn’t)

Totemism is often misunderstood as:

“Belief that you descend from an animal”

That’s a caricature.

In its classical anthropological sense, totemism involves:

• Humans, animals, plants, and places forming shared identity clusters
• No absolute boundary between human and non-human
• Social organization mapped onto the natural world
• Ritual responsibility rather than domination

In Aboriginal Australia:
• Totems are tied to landforms and Dreaming tracks
• Totemism is inseparable from place-based cosmology

This is not myth-as-story — it is ontology.

---

4. Is totemism extremely ancient?

Yes — very likely.

Here’s why.

A. Totemism appears worldwide among early-scale societies

Independent appearances in:
• Australia
• Sub-Saharan Africa
• Siberia
• The Americas
• South Asia (tribal contexts)

This is not diffusion — it’s structural convergence.

---

B. Totemism fits forager cognition perfectly

Early Homo sapiens lived in:

• Small kin groups
• Tight ecological niches
• Direct dependence on animals and plants
• No sharp nature–culture divide

Totemism:
• Encodes ecological knowledge
• Regulates hunting and reproduction
• Binds identity to landscape

It is adaptive, not speculative.

---

C. Totemism does not require agriculture, states, or writing

This matters.

Totemism works with:
• Oral transmission
• Ritual enactment
• Embodied memory
• Landscape marking

These are exactly the conditions of early sapiens societies.

---

5. Why Australian isolation strengthens the case

Your point here is important, but needs tightening.

Australia does not preserve an unchanged 50,000-year-old religion.

However:
• The structural logic of Dreaming–totemism likely reflects very early sapiens religious grammar
• Later elaborations occurred, but without replacement

So when similar structures appear elsewhere, the best explanation is:

Totemism is not borrowed — it is inherited from a common human cognitive–religious repertoire.

---

6. Totemism vs. other very ancient religious structures

Totemism is probably one of several coeval deep structures, not the only one.

Other candidates of similar antiquity:

A. Animism (technical sense)

• Non-human persons
• Distributed agency
• Spirit-filled world

Totemism is often a subset or specialization of animism.

---

B. Ancestor presence

• Dead remain active
• Place-based ancestry
• No final rupture between worlds

Appears everywhere early humans lived.

---

C. Shamanic mediation

• Altered states
• Spirit travel
• Healing and guidance

Shamanism appears across continents and epochs.

---

D. Sacred landscape

• Hills, caves, water sources as power-nodes
• Ritual movement through space

This may be older than formal myth.

---

7. Why later religions don’t erase these patterns

As societies scale up:

• Totemism becomes mythology
• Animism becomes philosophy
• Sacred landscape becomes pilgrimage
• Spirit possession becomes “mysticism”

But the substrate remains.

Examples:
• Clan animals → heraldry
• Totems → gods’ animal vehicles
• Dreaming tracks → sacred geographies
• Aniconic presence → metaphysical immanence

India is especially clear on this point, as we discussed with AASI survivals.

---

8. What we can responsibly say (carefully phrased)

Here is the strongest defensible statement:

While no specific religion can be traced to the first Homo sapiens, totemism, animism, and sacred-landscape cosmologies represent some of the oldest religious structures known, likely emerging among early sapiens populations before their global dispersal.

Australian Aboriginal traditions preserve one of the clearest, most continuous expressions of this early religious orientation.

---

9. One final philosophical note (given your interests)

Totemism is not “pre-philosophical.”

It already contains:
• Relational ontology
• Non-duality of human/nature
• Ethics embedded in cosmology
• Meaning prior to belief

In that sense, it is closer to certain non-dual traditions than later theistic systems are.

---

Bottom line

• There is no “oldest religion”
• There are oldest religious structures
• Totemism is very likely one of them
• Australian Aboriginal traditions preserve this structure with exceptional clarity
• Similar patterns worldwide point to deep sapiens inheritance, not diffusion

If you want next, we could:
• Compare totemism with early Indian or African material
• Examine why monotheism appears so late
• Connect to non-dual metaphysics
• Or look at what archaeology can and cannot prove about belief

Just say where to go next.

Unite behind the Wokeness

 

Many scientists are Social Justice Warriors. This is what happens to fossil evidence when The Science becomes Woke...

The complex history of returning Mungo Man

The blue mountains

 

- What?

Yowie is the Australian "version" of Bigfoot. Or is he? Kind-of-skeptic Darren Naish reviews a book arguing that the Yowie is - wait for it - a hominoid-looking marsupial?! But sure, that *would* be logical (or "logical") since all large native mammals down under are marsupials. No (non-human) apes ever lived in Australia. 

My impression of the Yowie phenomenon is similar to Naish´s. And I base it on exactly one episode of "Finding Bigfoot"! Yowie reports tend to be far more crazy than the average Bigfoot report, the creature is said to be dangerous, attacks humans and livestock and so on. Judging from the second link (an old article by the very same Naish), Yowie reports are also weird and inconsistent. While the creature is often seen as Bigfoot-like, a closer look at the reports make this aspect much less obvious. Reports range from creatures which probably were misidentified humans to beings which may well be deviant marsupials.

It´s probably some kind of ghost story. In the "Finding Bigfoot" episode (reviewed by me elsewhere), there was a clear paranormal streak involved, with the Yowies even "speaking" in some unknown tongue. If the ghost are real is, I suppose, the 10,000 dollar question...  

Yowies and the marsupial hominoid hypothesis

What to make of the Yowie?