---
title: Finding words of Neanderthal origin
description: What words could exist, even today, that the Neanderthals once used? I have no fucking clue, but here's my idea on how to find out.
image: https://sanpedroinfographics.net/hubfs/SanPedroPrints/Website%20Images/favico-1.png
---

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I always thought I would grow out of thinking about this concept, because it's something I want to say I initially conceptualized 10 or more years ago. That said, it's been *fucking killing me* to not dig into this again. Because of that, I wanted to write down my thoughts first, before I am influenced by whatever updates to the research have been done yet. Literally just as a personal bragging point to be like "I SWEAR I THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE" but like, for all I know this is fucking dumb and flawed or already done or whatever.

ANYWAY

The concept, in my head at least, is pretty simple:

The Setup

We have two cultures, and two languages  
[Culture 1] - [Language 1]  
[Culture 2] - [Language 2]

Culture 1 has a thing that *only* exists where they live. We'll call it a 'glorp'. A glorp is a very useful thing, with obvious practical use. 

Culture 2 has no concept of a glorp, never seen one, never heard of it, but would potentially love it if they had access to them

The interaction

Culture 2 is kicked out of their homeland, or decide to travel for other reasons. They end up as neighbors with Culture 1

The loaning

Culture 2 sees Culture 1 using their *glorps*.   
"That shit looks dank as fuck, wtf is that shit?"  
They ask, pointing at the *glorp  
*Not understanding the language, but understanding the concept of pointing, Culture 1 responds "*Glorp*, friend, it's a freaking *glorp, *you folx don't have *glorps?"*

Culture 2, having no previous concepts event related to the glorp or its use, now have a new word in their language. Glorp. 

They then systematically murder everyone in Culture 1 because they are fucking assholes. 

If it's not clear, Culture 1 are the Neanderthals, and Culture 2 are the Homo sapiens. 

As we know that the Neanderthals lived in an area foreign to humans, and would have [potentially maybe I'm wrong], *things* that humans would have not interacted with. Humans without a doubt interfucked with them as we well know, and were dicks and killed them off because we fucking suck. 

That said, I am willing to bet there is *some* word in an older (or even modern) Indo-European language that has its roots as a Neanderthal loanword. 

I would imagine focussing on things that exist in that indo-european range that would not have existed readily or in the same form in the homo sapien homelands. For example, water would be a bad word to look at in my opinion, because homo sapiens would absolutely have a word for that already and a concept of it. That said, maybe a mushroom or something that only exists in a more Boreal area could be a cool place to look?

 This has been my TED talk

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