Monday 9 January 2012

Unknown African Pygmies?

    It is now time for a more lengthy translation for those who do not understand French.
    At one point I was receiving copies of Bipedia, a small journal of restricted distribution, all issues of which are now, fortunately, on the web. It is produced by François de Sarre in order to advance what I can only describe as a crackpot theory of "initial bipedalism". However, for various reasons, it has also become a forum for others who are not crackpots (at least not in my opinion), but are interested in the presence of various unknown bipedal primates ("abominable snowmen", if you like). Unfortunately, they have christened their field of research, hominologie, which literally means, "the study of man", and for the objects of their study, have coined the term, hominien. Again, this is unfortunate, as it invites confusion with "hominine", which is the scientific term for man and his nearest relatives: the primate sub-class which includes Homo sapiens. Be that as it may, there does not appear to be any English equivalent to this neologism. Therefore, in this article, the term, "hominian" means what it means in the article, and nothing else.
    It is well known that East Africa abounds in legends of a race of pygmies which preceded the current inhabitants, and the legends may be based on fact. But the following article involves the possible current existence of such pygmies - humans, not animals - in the savanna woodlands of the Central African Republic (CAR). As French is the official language of the CAR, I have retained the French spellings of place names, but have transcribed the native word, toulou into the more English, tulu. The summary of the original article is in English, and I have left it as is. The rest is in French, and once more, I have sought accuracy rather than elegance. Those who which to check it up can find the original article here.

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