Getting back on topic...
http://hnn.us/comments/73376.htmlWalum Olum forgery (#73376)
by Myron Paine on January 2, 2006 at 7:18 PM
Proclaiming that the Walam Olum is a forgery may be premature when Oestreicher's references, evidence, and logic are investigated further.
Oestreicher left out of his references two men who had researched the Lenape and their language for many yearss before him:
George E. Hyde, wrote Indians of the Woodlands, 1962. Hyde used the Walam Olum and other oral hisgtories to describe the ancient Lenape migration from Canada through Michigan, into Ohio, where they joined the Iroquois to fight the Sioux, and then on to the east coast.
Oestreicher appatenty did not know the ancient Lenape history when he cited Ojibwa, Shawnee, Sioux, and Iroquois loan words as evidence that Rafinewques used any available Indian word to make up a story (#49 p. 8 )
A more viable hypothesis for those same loan words is that they were learned by the Lenape during decades of interaction with the named tribes. Thus the Walam Olum appears to be valid ancient history.
Reider T. Sherwin wrote The Viking and the Red Man in eight voumes from 1940 through 1954. Sherwin, who knew and Old Norse dialect, focused on the Algonquin Language. His eight volumes contain more than 15,000 comparisons between Algonquin "words" and Old Norse phrases. Sherwin believed the Walam Olum was in the Old Norse language, with the title morphed from "Maalan Aarum," meaning "engraved years."
A reader familiar with Sherwin can observe that Oestricher used modern Lenape definitions to condemn Rafinesque's use of many words. But Old Norse definitions for the same words are strong evidence that Rafinesque was trying to faitfully translate the confusing text he had.
Using Sherwin's comparisons of Algonquin, Old Norse, and English to translate the Walam Olum was conceived as an independent test of its validity.
Strong positive testimony was found in the first verse of Chapter 3. All the Walam Olum words could be found in Sherwin's Algonquin listing. The associated Old Norse words sounded similar. The English meaning was similar.
But, it the first line, an equivalent word for "rushing waters" was not there. An intensive search of Sherwin's eight volumes looking for "rushing waters" in English, finally paid off. The companion Algonquin word was noted. The equivalent Old Norse word was shown in a phrase with words in front and behind. Those front and behind words sounded similar to the visible Walam Olum words. Somewhere, in over sixteen (16) generations of oral history, the Walam Olum word for "rusing water" went missing!
The Walam Qlum can be restored using Sherwin's comparisons.
Because the Walam Olum can be translated with a historic language, the Walam Olum is a hisotric document.
Indian Loan words are testimony that the Walam Olum describes the history miagration of the Lenape.
Based on the evidence, Rafinesque is not guilty of a forgery.
Mow there are much more productive hypotheses to pursue.
One viable hypothesis is that the Walam Olum is a valid oral history orighinally spoken in Old Norse. This hypothesis implies that the last seven verse in Chapter 3 describe the Norse people of Greenland walking to America on the ice.
That hypothesis is worth of pursuit.
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My question is: Assuming Paine, Hyde, and Sherwin are correct, are these languages similar because the Algonquins were speaking old Norse or the "old Norse" were speaking Algonquin? Could they have been multi-lingual? Could they have been the same language in total?
