The book published by the Armenian Assembly titled A Study of the Origins of the HAI, the First People amply justifies the above citations.
In an astonishing style of total originality that imitates no one, Professor Pilikian has asked an unexpected simple question; When an Armenian affirms in his own Armenian language – Yess Hai em = I am HAI (pronounced as “high” in English, the word for Armenian in the Armenian language), what does it all mean truly? The Question takes Professor Pilikian onto a unique journey of scientific discovery throughout ancient history, beginning with pre history, and by using Quantum Mechanics CERN methodology … bombarding the word HAI as an atomic nucleus (albeit a linguistic one!) with a stream of electrons (albeit semantic ones!) discovering new subatomic particles (albeit language Quarks/Photons!) that enlighten the very origins of mankind and language. There simply is not another book like it.
Professor Pilikian defines for the first time in Linguistic theory a remarkable new concept he calls a Linguistic Fossil precisely on the natural history paradigm proving the Darwinian evolutionary theory, although he disagrees with Darwin’s contention (for not being scientific enough!) that mankind arose on the flatlands of the African Savannah. Professor Pilikian demonstrates that the First humanoids could only become people in a mountainous landscape (of the Armenian Highlands) the mysteries of which are vital challenges for the development of human intelligence, hence brain-size, thence the emergence of Language itself.
The Professor’s collection of linguistic fossils enlighten and frequently prove linguistic evolution and language connections subtending thousands of years of proto and pre history. It is the only theory which is not contingent on historical time – viz. it does not matter whether language arose 200,000 years ago – currently the totally hypothetical un-provable so-said scientific dogma – or 10,000 years ago, the hypothetical date of the first settled agricultural economies.
Pilikian’s discovery of extraordinary linguistic fossils throws light on the very nature of the emergence of Human language. I felt the privilege of being ‘shown’ this world historical priceless fossil by the Professor himself at a press conference, announcing it to the world, and here it is in Professor Pilikian’s own words from a mind blowing press release exploding like a nuclear device in your own hands;
This unique fossil found of all languages in the world only and only in the Armenian language preserves tens of thousands of years of historical evolutionary development of mankind, incredibly, from the very first moment of linguistic consciousness and subsequent language-creation – the basis of modern linguistic theory is that the very first words created by a humanoid community describe social identity and sexual function – which is captured historically and preserved in this fossil, not only as cognate words, but even incredibly, miraculously, and predictably theoretically as the mini-evolvements of the very same first root thus;
Ai (pronounced as in the English first pronoun I) is what I call the archetypal quantum vowel phoneme – the scream of life both in pain and pleasure, without the discovery of which the human language would simply be impossible, in other words, all human languages (Indo-European, Semitic et al.) constitute peripheral developments from the centre of the first archetypal ‘circular’ A-vowel.
When Ai is emphatically stressed as a Saussurian signal of individual and then tribal identity – I am H-Ai meaning “I am a member of the set of the Hai-tribe-people (= I am an Armenian, in modern Armenian)” it extends naturally into Ai-r, which in the Armenian language means man/male. Most ancient historical countries/cities are referred to just like the British Isle of Man.
In exactly above sense, Ire-land, Ira-q, and Ira-n contain the Armenian root-fossil Air meaning countries of Man.
Precisely the same word and pronunciation in Armenian also delivers the meaning of Cave, where the homo sapiens first lived, enabling them to construct a settled life, hence the first socio-economic communities.
Air is also the root of the Armenian word Air-ếl, meaning fire-making, the very first technology man learnt (according to the classical Greek myth of Prometheus, stealing the Fire, from the gods, to give it to mankind as a divine gift) enabling the potential of all future technological advance.
The further identity-emphasis produces H-Ai-r meaning Father in the Armenian language. The addition of the M prefix, an otherwise well documented phoneme in Linguistics signifying maternal-things, produces M-h-ai-r in Armenian, meaning Mother.
I cannot emphasize enough that all this incredible complexity is miraculously preserved as a linguistic fossil, only and only in the Armenian language, still alive and active in modern Armenian as a semantic fossil displaying human evolutionary history from its very first moment of the linguistic Big Bang, when language, man’s greatest single evolutionary divine gift suddenly exploded, creating human all, precisely as all of the Universe was created by the singularity of the Big Bang.
Thus, in conclusion, the word HAI signifying the Armenian identity in the Armenian language preserves layers and layers of fossil records about the origins of mankind, from what I call the scream of life (Ai) to individual social and tribal communitarian identity (the people of HAI), to cave-dwelling, fire-making technology etc., and last but not least language-creation itself, the greatest and most exclusive gift of Darwinian natural selection and evolution.