62: Ancient Chinese in the Americas, and Chinantec (not in my recent print-only book)
Published on the 12th of April 2025, published in the UK like all my publications. This article is separate from any of my other work published elsewhere including from material in my recent print-only book, like all articles on this website, all of which are only available on the online pages of this website. This article contains no sub-sections, but begins with a discussion on possible ancient Chinese voyages to the Americas as mentioned in Rene Noorbergen’s book Secrets of the Lost Races, and descriptions of the Grand Canyon as given in that book, followed by Chinese-looking markings in the Americas, the possibility that Chinese railroad builders could have had older connections to the Americas, and followed by a comparison of 5 Proto-Chinantecan words with 5 Mandarin Chinese words, which have phonetic but not tonal similarities, followed by some notes and the reference to where these Proto-Chinantecan words were originally published by Calvin Rensch. Note that in the paragraph below some quotes are also included from the book Secrets of the Lost Races and the book is also cited in the text of the following paragraph. This article contains 1209 words. Other things are mentioned and talked about in this article which are not summarised in this first paragraph. This article is dedicated to the people of China and to my family and other loved ones.Note that the name of this article and of some others was changed somewhat in April 2025 so that this article is not confused as being a part of my recent print-only book, titled: Similarities in Quechua and Finnish language words newly noticed in March 2025 and not previously published, and other connected topics not previously published; book published only in print format and not in other formats; book published in the UK. Note also however that only one out of the 62 articles on this website have ever been published in any other location and that generally when I publish something, it is only in one place, despite that I use different formats and ways of publishing depending on what I am publishing. Note that I hope to soon publish an article on yet more Quechua-Finnish similarities which I have found in April 2025 and thus did not put into my book published in March 2025, this article will only be published on archive.org
In March of 2023, I sat outside and read a little of a book, titled Secrets of the Lost Races, by Rene Noorbergen. In March of 2025, this year, I finished the book, and one of the things that really sparked by interest was the mention of ancient Chinese travellers to the Americas. The book mentions the Shan Hai King, a classic of Mountains and Seas, which is an ancient Chinese geographical survey attributed to “The Great Yu”. If Rene Noorbergen is correct in the interpretation given in Secrets of the Lost Races, then the Shan Hai King contains ancient Chinese geographical information about what is now the United States, as well as Mexico. Remember “Mexico” when I talk about Chinantecan-Chinese similarities shortly. According to what I understand from information in Rene Noorbergen’s book, the Grand Canyon is also described in the Shan Hai King, as “luminous”, “a stream flowing in a bottomless ravine” and as “the place where the sun is born”, (the three quotes in quotations marks are as given in Secrets of the Lost Races).
The author Rene Noorbergen then discusses other aspects to this picture, including the possible existence of Chinese symbols and writing among indigenous American petroglyphs. I have done some independent research on this, and am not convinced however, even though certain petroglyphs, could, perhaps, both make sense as indigenous American symbolic systems and as Chinese writing, I think it unlikely that any of these examples are specifically Chinese and not Native American.
There are of course theories, that buildings and things we attach to the 16th century or later, may be older than they seem. During the “colonisation” of what is now the western United States, a large number of Chinese people were employed, famously for example, in the building of the railroads and their related infrastructure in the western United States. I have wondered in the past few years, whether or not some of these Chinese people in the United States could have already been there as part of a continuation of more ancient Chinese contact with the Americas.
A linguist friend who speaks several indigenous northwest Pacific languages in Canada, did, which I have mentioned elsewhere, tell me that one of the first nations he works with, have oral folklore concerning Polynesians or at least Polynesian-like peoples visiting the northwest Pacific in the past. This is not surprising really; there are also plenty of linguistic similarities between Polynesian languages and various Indigenous American languages too, which I have discussed in detail elsewhere.
With Chinese being a tonal language, or family of tonal languages if we refer to Chinese as a whole; I wondered whether or not any of the tonal languages in the Americas might share some similarities with Chinese. I decided to look at whether or not there were any similarities between Chinese and the Chinantecan languages, the Chinantecan languages being a family of languages spoken in the highlands of Mexico, known for having a large number of tones. I was wondering whether or not, as well as matches in consonant and vowel sounds, that the Chinese low tone words might be equivalent to low-tone words in Chinantecan, but thus far I have been unable to connect the specific tones. Nevertheless, the five connections below, numbered one to five, show four Proto-Chinantec roots compared with four Mandarin Chinese roots. As you can see, there are similarities in some vowels and consonants, but few similarities in the specific tones:
1. Proto Chinantec *siaʔ - plant, source (presumably neutral tone), Mandarin Chinese shú – wood (second tone, rising)
2. Proto Chinantec *zuˑᴴ water (preumably high tone), Mandarin Chinese shuǐ water (third tone, falling and rising)
3. Proto Chinantec *hníˑᴸᴴ cloud (presumably low-high tone), Mandarin Chinese yún – cloud (second tone, rising)
4. Proto Chinantec *hᶙᴸ – seed (presumably low tone), Mandarin Chinese huā – flower (first tone, high)
5. Proto-Chinantec *giáˑᴴᴸ – “seven” (presumably high-low tone), Mandarin Chinese qī – “seven” (first tone, high)
Note that I am not entierely sure of the values of the tones as written in Chinantecan languages, and have no easy-to-follow explanation so far. Note that I have discussed Chinantecan languages elsewhere, including that they can be whistled and their tones, I have also discussed Chinese elsewhere. Another article I wrote which discussed different aspects of these languages in a different way to how they are done in the article in front of you, is my article on this website titled: 34: Arawak and bird language (pertaining to Arawak and other languages), available at this web address: https://www.bookofdunbarra.co.uk/website-articles-30-45/34-arawak-and-bird-language
The Proto-Chinantec words above are sourced from Rensch, Calvin R. 1989. An etymological dictionary of the Chinantec languages: Studies in Chinantec languages 1. (Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Texas at Arlington Publications in Linguistics, 87.) Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Texas at Arlington.