Collective nouns, sometimes humorously referred to as terms of venery, are words that denote a group of people, animals, or things. They represent a fascinating aspect of language, capturing the subtle characteristics, behaviours, or cultural associations of the groups they describe.
Collective nouns have existed for many centuries, although it would not be accurate to assume that the earliest recorded use of a collective noun marks its actual origin. There may have been earlier references in now lost texts. In other words, it is often impossible to determine precisely when a collective noun came into use or how it evolved over time.
Despite their widespread presence, collective nouns are largely absent from technical or scientific discourse, as well as from formal linguistic and literary studies. However, they offer a unique window into the history and development of language, as well as into our cultural and social attitudes toward the natural world. As a linguistic phenomenon, collective nouns provide insight into the human psyche and our relationship with the world around us, reflecting our appreciation for its beauty and complexity.
This book presents a comprehensive list of English collective nouns along with their Sanskrit origins.
SUSANTO SEN is an etymologist, philologist, statistician, researcher, and inventor based in Bangalore, India. He completed his schooling at Kendriya Vidyalaya, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and earned both his graduate and postgraduate degrees in Statistics from Bangalore University. He holds more than 80 granted patents, primarily in the fields of discovery, customisation, and search and recommendation.
To discuss the origin and dissemination of language, the primary focus should be on etymology and not archaeology, palacontology or genetics. The elaborate reasons for this are provided here forth.
Archacology and palacontology deal with recovering and interpreting material remains, building architectures, lost civilisations, and biological, ecological, and fossil remains. The older the remains the more deteriorated these become and sometimes the entire evidence is irretrievably lost due to natural degradation or man-caused destruction. Then, only a very minute fragment of our material history survives. For a theory to be proved or for a hypothesis to be tested regarding history or prehistory, there are at least three conditions that need to be fulfilled, namely, the data about the theory or hypothesis should be sufficiently large, unbiased, and representative. In archaeological and palaeontological studies, all these three conditions are flouted.
It can be vaguely estimated that less than one in a billion things of the past survive for a long duration. The duration in question could span from a few years to billions of years. As we go further back in time, an unimaginably large number of things become lost. It would be impossible for me to retrieve the toys that I played with in my childhood because almost all of it is discarded, recycled, or destroyed, and so are most of the articles I had used in my daily life whether it be my school books, toothbrushes, ceramics, or many other things. The things that have remained with me are the articles of current regular utility and some durable objects.
In a longer span of time, the number of things lost is even greater, and there comes a point of time in history when not even a single trace of existence of something remains. There is no standard rule which can determine that that time was five years ago or a million years ago. A material object could be lost at any time for reasons that anyone can guess. As we tend to go far back in time, a great number of things are lost, and hence the condition of a ""sufficiently large"" dataset is not complied with in archaeological and palaeontological studies.
Things could naturally degrade in the course of time, or humans could be responsible for their destruction. Things that are extremely durable or which have been preserved in an extraordinary manner are the only ones that survive the test of time. Religious and civilisational factors too affect the survival of objects. A powerful fanatical religion or civilisation can entirely wipe out a race of people, their culture, language and belongings. Thus, both nature and humans can cause bias in what eventually remains till the end and hence the second condition of an ""unbiased"" dataset is not complied with in archaeological and palaeontological studies.
Nature and humans can destroy entire civilisations, thereby eliminating their culture and language. Even animals and plants have faced complete extinctions due to natural and human forces and many of their remains do not exist because the conditions in nature did not support their preservation. We only know of the material things that we find preserved or the things which were durable enough to survive a long time. The rest will never be known. And so, there is no representation of things that are completely lost. Thus, the third condition of ""a representative"" dataset is not complied with in archaeological and palaeontological studies.
It may be argued that archaeology and palaeontology are equivalent to forensic science, implying that the conclusions drawn using its methods of analysing through minimal evidence would be meaningful. There are subtle similarities and also differences in the way these subjects are conducted. Archaeology/ palaeontology and forensic science are similar because of their reliance on meticulous excavation and analysis of physical evidence to reconstruct past events. The subject of forensic archaeology applies archaeological techniques to investigate crime scenes, especially to recover and examine human remains to determine the circumstances of a death. Archaeology, palaeontology and forensic science aim to piece together a story from material remnants, albeit from different timeframes: the distant past for archaeology and palaeontology, whereas the recent past for forensic science. But the conclusions derived from these three fields of study are not always accurate or correct. We may be influenced by the movies and crime series we watch that can make us think that the success rate of finding the culprit using forensic science is always 100 percent. But in real life, forensic science too has its limitations like archaeology and palaeontology. The forensic evidence is not always conclusive because it may not be sufficient enough or many times evidences are unintentionally tampered with and someone who is innocent could be wrongly convicted while the real culprit could take enough precautions to escape being caught. So, when it comes to accuracy, archaeology, palaeontology and forensic science could all be on the same page.
Contrastingly, archaeology and palaeontology could also be compared to Tasseography, Le., the practice of divination by reading remnant tea leaves in a cup. This comparison can be somewhat meaningful because all these subjects use guesswork or speculations. Speculations can be accepted in any scientific field with the understanding that there can be scope for alternative speculations. Speculative theories increase the extent of the study and provide openness so much so that further evidence could strike down, alter, or concur with such speculative theories. However, a speculative theory should not be construed to be a valid theory without further supporting evidence.
Even with these drawbacks in archaeology and palaeontology, it may be argued that skeletal remains can survive for a very long duration and their DNA can tell something substantial if not the whole story. But this may not be always true. Bones degrade over time, and it could take as little as six to thirty years for it to completely degrade. In about 200 years, a bone will likely be entirely disintegrated into dust, with the organic collagen within it breaking down, leaving behind the brittle mineral framework that will eventually crumble and deteriorate further due to environmental factors such as weathering and exposure to moisture. The rate of bone decomposition is affected by climate, soil conditions, microorganisms, and exposure to scavengers. In rare occasions, a bone is preserved in optimal conditions due to the surrounding sediments. The surrounding minerals slowly substitute the bone's mineral matrix and create a fossil. Fossil bone is made up of the original bone structure, but the original material of the bone is entirely replaced by a process called petrification. The organic matter exposed to minerals over a long period turns the bones into a stony substance. This also implies that it is highly unlikely that the DNA of a fossilised organism is preserved. Even if a slight amount of DNA exists in fossils, the success rate of extracting it is often low, DNA degrades all the time in living things, and more so in dead organisms.
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