From: owner-ane@ (ANE Digest) To: ane-digest Subject: ANE Digest V1997 #107 Reply-To: Sender: owner-ane@ Errors-To: owner-ane@ Precedence: bulk ANE Digest Thursday, April 24 1997 Volume 1997 : Number 107 ane Wardini on Proto-languages Re: ane Wardini on Proto-languages ane Job: OT - UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS ane Re: trees, proto, and others ane Re: trees, proto, and others Re: ane Re: trees, proto, and others Re: ane Re: trees, proto, and others ane Focus... ane Egyptian Civ texts Re: ane Wardini on Proto-languages Re: ane Focus... ane Northern Cal. ARCE/UCB Lecture by Donald Redford ane Thera and Egypt ane Question: PIE root Re: ane Thera and Egypt ane Thera/Lorton question ane A "3-D lattice" linguistic taxonomical scheme ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 05:58:36 -0400 (EDT) From: manaster@umich.edu Subject: ane Wardini on Proto-languages Elie and everybody, maybe I should assert less and ASK more. So, since this is the crucial issue, instead of telling you that the top node in the Semitic tree has to be Proto-Semitic, I thought I should cast that as a question: what do you see as occupying that position? Your remarks about Turkic, which I have just reread, seem to suggest that one can have a family tree WITHOUT protolanguages, and since I dont see how that can be in either the case of Semitic or Turkic, I thought I'd stop pontificating (for a while anyway) and ask whether I am reading your remarks correctly on this point and if so, how that works. A. Manaster Ramer ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 15:22:38 +0200 From: Elie Wardini Subject: Re: ane Wardini on Proto-languages >Elie and everybody, maybe I should assert less and ASK more. So, >since this is the crucial issue, instead of telling you that >the top node in the Semitic tree has to be Proto-Semitic, I >thought I should cast that as a question: what do you see >as occupying that position? Your remarks about Turkic, which >I have just reread, seem to suggest that one can have a family >tree WITHOUT protolanguages, and since I dont see how that can >be in either the case of Semitic or Turkic, I thought I'd stop >pontificating (for a while anyway) and ask whether I am reading >your remarks correctly on this point and if so, how that works. > >A. Manaster Ramer Let me see: 1) Should we take the genetic/ family tree metaphor conceretely and follow it to its extreme? 2) Does language development necessarily follow principles based on a genetic view of language? 3) If we can attest cases where a language does split and becomes two distinc variants (e.g. Turkish, French etc.) does this imply that all attested languages are the result of such splits? 4) can there be several ways in which languages develop and change interacting and varying from time to time and language to language? my answers would be *no* to the first three and *definitly* for the fourth. What about nodes and family trees. based on the evidence we have, some aspects of languages seem to point in the direction of genetic realtions, e.g. the similarity of Semitic languages. Until I can find another explanation, I should postulate some sort of genetic relationship. Yet this does not mean that I have to follow the family tree metaphor blindly. So there may have been an "original node", or they may not have been. I have no problem when some try to reconstruct what they would percieve to be close to the "original node" i.e. proto-language. Doing so these poeple have developed an instrument, for their purposes called "Proto-Semitic", i.e. an approximation of the original node as evidenced in our data. While I question and am criticl to the validity of this assertion, I still see that what is called "proto-semitic" is usefull for comparative purposes. So what I do? I use the instrument while modifying the model. i.e. I do not believe that "proto-semitic" is any closer to real life than laboratory tests are. They are nevertheless useful. The problem seems in the definition of words. the term *proto-language* is developed in a system where one believes in genetic language families. Yet for many such as myself, we have taken this word to describe what we would see as linguistic traits, based on the evidence, postulated to have been common to these languages in earlier stages of these languages. So we have really redefined proto-language, leaving out the genetic element. The crux then: How have these languages come to have these linguistic similarities? Some would swear by Stammbaum, others see the problem but have no asnwer (I find myself here), while others deny the Stammbaum completely, there are surely other views too. My contention is that we do not need to maintain or deny a common origin in order to do good work in historical and comparative linguistics. As long as we keep to historically attested languages and basing ourselves on the evidence we have, we can say much about these languages. Limitations should be respected, unless one likes to conjecture. Nothing wrong with conjectures as long as one remembers that they are *conjectures* and does not get upset when they are called *conjectures*. Elie Wardini e-mail: e.d.wardini@easteur-orient.uio.no ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 08:57:10 -0500 From: cejo@midway.uchicago.edu (Charles E. Jones) Subject: ane Job: OT - UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS Forwarded on behalf of the undersigned, to whom responses and inquiries should be directed. =============================================================== From: jrd4@st-andrews.ac.uk (James R. Davila) The following announcement was posted originally on Ioudaios, ANE, and otpseud. Please repost as appropriate. UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS School of Divinity Lecturer/Reader/Professor in Old Testament & Hebrew Applications are invited from established scholars for the above post in the School of Divinity. The appointment may be made at any level depending upon the qualifications of the successful applicant. You will have expertise in the general field and central areas of Old Testament studies and in classical Hebrew. You should have a research record plan which will help to maintain or advance the School's current "5" research rating which displays more than one focal point of research. In addition to proficiency in the more traditional linguistic, exegetical and historical-critical methods, you will be expected to have a facility in one or more of the following: theological, literary critical or social scientific approaches to the discipline. A desire to promote interdisciplinary study would be advantageous. The appointment will be tenable from September 1997 or as soon as possible thereafter. The salary will be at an appropriate point on the academic scale. Please quote ref: CB180/ADVO Further particulars and application forms are available from Personnel Services, University of St Andrews, College Gate, St Andrews, Fife KY16 9AJ (tel: 01334 462571 (24 hrs), fax: 01334 462570, e-mail: Jobline@st.andrews.ac.uk). We regret applications cannot be made by e-mail. Completed applications accompanied by a CV and letter of application should be returned to arrive not later than 13 May 1997. The University operates Equal Opportunities and No Smoking Policies. Additional information should be posted on the Divinity School web page within the next couple of days: http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_sd/home.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 16:40:06 +0200 From: "Dominique.Thillaud" Subject: ane Re: trees, proto, and others At 0:45 +0200 23/04/97, Elie Wardini wrote: >What we are trying to do is not try to reconstruct a static language >situation, but rather a situation similar to a caleodoscope in continuous >flux and change. A situation of which we have only fractions of evidence. >In such a situation I believe that caution with theories is wise. Yet this >does not mean that we need not construct tools in order to analyse the data >we have. Here a reconstruction of what could be close to traits that can >have been common in earlier stages of a certain set of languages (commonly >called Proto-language) could be useful. > >Thus even if Proto-languages originally were inteded to reconstruct a real >situation, we can modify the theory, yet still use the tool, i.e. the >proto-language for the purpose of study and comparison. We need not retain >more from the theory than is necessary. Je suis completement d'accord. En reponse a une question d'Alexis, je peux dire que j'utilise personnellement dans ma recherche une theorie arborescente avec une racine: l'eurindien (indo-europeen dans mon idiolecte). J'en suis tres satisfait comme outil et modele, et je ne me pose pas plus de problemes pour m'en servir qu'un reparateur de television ne s'en pose sur l'electro-magnetisme! >On Wed, 23 Apr 1997, Elie Wardini wrote: > As a result , I believe that we should recognize a proto-language >within the context of falsification theory. In other words, we should use >confirmation to decide if our theories regarding a proto-language are >valid or not. In this way a theory is never really a "fact" it is only a >position to be disconfirmed. In this way we make allowances for new >research which may confirm or disconfirm our present theory. Tout aussi d'accord, cette theorie est un progres remarquable d'un point de vue epistemologique. Dans ce sens, ma metaphore lagomorphique a ete mal comprise: je voulais dire seulement que la decouverte des lievres n'empeche pas les lapins de continuer a exister dans la mesure ou ils ne les contredisent pas! La theorie des ondes n'a *jamais* demontre quoi que ce soit d'errone dans celle de l'arbre: cette derniere est un modele global qui prend en compte un processus evolutif, l'autre est une theorie des 'perturbations', elle est destinee a expliquer pourquoi certaines exceptions apparentes resultent d'un phenomene parasite: des convergences italiques sur une partie du vocabulaire font comprendre le latin 'bos' mais n'empechent pas l'eurindien 'gw' initial de continuer a correspondre au latin 'u'. At 19:46 +0200 22/04/97, Peter Daniels wrote: >Some people--usually not Anglists!--go so far as to say that English underwent >creolization with the Norman Conquest. But the result is sufficiently >different >from the defining cases of creolization that it isn't generally accepted. >Certainly what happened to English in 1066, and less so to French during the >period Dominique refers to, is some of what happens in creolization, but the >social situations were different from those that gave rise to Haitian Creole, >Papiamentu, Sango in Centrafricaine, Hawaiian Creole, etc. Je suis tout-a-fait desole d'avoir ainsi heurte la Vieille Angleterre et je m'en excuse. Je ne pensais qu'a une creolisation 'largo sensu', au sens ou on pourrait aller jusqu'a parler d'auto-creolisation d'une langue entre ses diverses strates sociales, surtout pas que les Anglais sont comparables a des negres, leur agreable teint rose quand ils viennent sur la Cote d'Azur m'en est une preuve evidente chaque ete! At 20:04 +0200 22/04/97, Allen Adler wrote: >One teaches Newtonian physics, >even though it has since become wrong and replaced by >more advanced theories such as Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. Je vous trouve merveilleusement idealiste! La mecanique relativiste n'a aucun usage pratique. A part *l'interpretation* du mouvement des astres pour laquelle elle a ete concue, la mecanique newtonienne n'a d'usage *pratique* que depuis tres peu de temps et pour tres peu de gens, ceux qui lancent des fusees. Nous vivons quotidiennement dans un environnement de mecanique *galileenne*! C'est elle et nulle autre qui est toujours utilisee pour toutes les applications terrestres (balistique, etc.). Et encore, des experiences classiques (viser en course avec une balle) ont montre que la plupart des gens en etaient toujours a un stade pre-galileen. Ayant eu a enseigner la mecanique (mathematique) il y a quelques annees, je me souviens avoir dit en preambule aux etudiants de ne jamais oublier que la terre etait plate et que le soleil tournait autour (non, ce n'est pas une folie reactionnaire, c'est la base meme de la relativite restreinte: tous les reperes locaux sont galileens!). Soyez tous beaux et heureux, Dominique Dominique THILLAUD Universite' de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 10:42:22 EDT From: popeye6@juno.com (Jesse S. Cook III) Subject: ane Re: trees, proto, and others On Tue, 22 Apr 1997 13:04:33 -0500 (CDT) adler@pulsar.cs.wku.edu (Allen Adler) writes: > One teaches Newtonian physics, >even though it has since become wrong and replaced by >more advanced theories such as Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. I'm sorry, but that is wrong. Newtonian physics is not wrong and is such a good approximation that it is still very much in use (e.g., in the shuttle program) and has not been replaced by relativity or quantum physics. Quantum physics is only applicable at the atomic level and lower. Relativity is only applicable at the stellar level and higher, but Newtonian or classical physics is applicable at the inbetween level where we are. J. Strother Cook popeye6@juno.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 12:43:47 -0500 From: Peter Daniels Subject: Re: ane Re: trees, proto, and others Dominique Thillaud ecrit: e suis tout-a-fait desole d'avoir ainsi heurte la Vieille Angleterre et je m'en excuse. Je ne pensais qu'a une creolisation 'largo sensu', au sens ou on pourrait aller jusqu'a parler d'auto-creolisation d'une langue entre ses diverses strates sociales, >>>>>>>>>>>>> Something like the other side of the coin of diglossia, wherein social strata of language are kept strictly apart in their domaines of use, and differ in recognizable ways--the most familiar examples being Arabic, Javanese, and Greek. >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Also: surtout pas que les Anglais sont comparables a des negres, leur agreable teint rose quand ils viennent sur la Cote d'Azur m'en est une preuve evidente chaque ete! >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Areyou saying you *like* seeing vacationing Englishpeople turning the color of lobsters? >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Note also the practical demonstration that French typed without any accents at all is easier to read than either treatment of the French accents we usually see-- the one where e-acute becomes i, and the one where each letter turns into an alphanumeric code. Peter T. Daniels ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 12:43:47 -0500 From: Peter Daniels Subject: Re: ane Re: trees, proto, and others Dominique Thillaud ecrit: e suis tout-a-fait desole d'avoir ainsi heurte la Vieille Angleterre et je m'en excuse. Je ne pensais qu'a une creolisation 'largo sensu', au sens ou on pourrait aller jusqu'a parler d'auto-creolisation d'une langue entre ses diverses strates sociales, >>>>>>>>>>>>> Something like the other side of the coin of diglossia, wherein social strata of language are kept strictly apart in their domaines of use, and differ in recognizable ways--the most familiar examples being Arabic, Javanese, and Greek. >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Also: surtout pas que les Anglais sont comparables a des negres, leur agreable teint rose quand ils viennent sur la Cote d'Azur m'en est une preuve evidente chaque ete! >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Areyou saying you *like* seeing vacationing Englishpeople turning the color of lobsters? >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Note also the practical demonstration that French typed without any accents at all is easier to read than either treatment of the French accents we usually see-- the one where e-acute becomes i, and the one where each letter turns into an alphanumeric code. Peter T. Daniels ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 13:05:16 -0500 From: cejo@midway.uchicago.edu (Charles E. Jones) Subject: ane Focus... This is a gentle reminder to those engaged in the thread most recently under the subject "ane Re: trees, proto, and others", that the focus of the ANE list is the Ancient Near East. Please focus your participation with this in mind, and pay attention to whether your response is really a private off-topic comment intended for an individual, or whether it is of interest to the general subscribership of the list. And sign your postings with your name, at the end. Thanks, - -Chuck Jones- cejo@midway.uchicago.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 15:16:36 -0400 (EDT) From: "Holly An' Oyster" Subject: ane Egyptian Civ texts Greetings all. I am cross-posting this to Aegeanet and ANE since I've come to realise that I'm not the only one on Aegeanet who deals with Egyptian material.. I'm designing an Egyptian Civ course to be taught to Undergrads, probably a 200 or 300 level course. (I'm not sure if Grad TA's are allowed to teach 300 level here at Buffalo). I'm having trouble finding a general text book for the course. It seems that most of the ones I'm familiar with are either too old or too dense for UG's. I'd like to hear from anyone and everyone who teaches a general course on Egyptian Civ (NOT the Archaeology of Egypt..that coure is already taught here..) as to what text books you use. I am interested in what texts you may use for the art, but right now I'm mostly concerned with a general society/history/religion overview. Replies off list are probably best. If people are interested, I can post a compilation to the lists later. Thanx in advance, Holly ===================================================================== "We work hard. Archaeology is mostly a sore back and aching fingers. The romance gets into it afterward, when the newstape boys write their stories." --Robert Silverberg, *Across a Billion Years* ===================================================================== Holly An' Oyster Department of Classics SUNY-Buffalo oyster@acsu.buffalo.edu 712 Clemens Hall H(716)885-3788 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 16:02:45 -0400 (EDT) From: manaster@umich.edu Subject: Re: ane Wardini on Proto-languages Elie, thank you for your very helpful and exhaustive answer. Now let me play devil's advocate or Socrates or something. You say the questions are: 1) Should we take the genetic/ family tree metaphor conceretely and follow it to its extreme? 2) Does language development necessarily follow principles based on a genetic view of language? 3) If we can attest cases where a language does split and becomes two distinc variants (e.g. Turkish, French etc.) does this imply that all attested languages are the result of such splits? 4) can there be several ways in which languages develop and change interacting and varying from time to time and language to language? and answer NO to 1-3 but yes to 4. I will not disagree, because of mixed languages like Romany-West Armenian and Mitchif, BUT let me ask you this: Do you not believe that Semitic evolved exactly in the way you describe under (3) as a result of a series splits from Proto-Semitic? And--what do you mean about Turkish? Are you saying that all the modern Turkic languages derive from an attested older stage as opposed from a reconstructed Proto-Turkic? Alexis MR ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 16:13:48 -0400 (EDT) From: manaster@umich.edu Subject: Re: ane Focus... I am prepared to drop the topic, being an outsider to the field anyway, although I would STILL like to hear the answer to the question about how there can be a family tree of Semitic without Proto-Semitic on top (and ditto regarding Turkic), the former being legitimate ANE languages I guess. But I do have a question about OT exegeses having to do with a line in Joseph story if anybody with expertise in that field would be kind enough to help: it is about the interepretation of the phrase n-sh-q `l p-h. You can't ask for more ANE than that, now can you? Alexis MR On Wed, 23 Apr 1997, Charles E. Jones wrote: > This is a gentle reminder to those engaged in the thread most recently > under the subject "ane Re: trees, proto, and others", that the focus of the > ANE list is the Ancient Near East. Please focus your participation with > this in mind, and pay attention to whether your response is really a > private off-topic comment intended for an individual, or whether it is of > interest to the general subscribership of the list. > And sign your postings with your name, at the end. > > Thanks, > > -Chuck Jones- > cejo@midway.uchicago.edu > > ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 14:07:06 -0700 (PDT) From: Glenn Meyer Subject: ane Northern Cal. ARCE/UCB Lecture by Donald Redford The Northern California Chapter Of the American Research Center in Egypt And the Department of Near Eastern Studies, UC Berkeley are pleased to present: ANCIENT EGYPT AND THE SEA PEOPLES a lecture by DR. DONALD REDFORD Professor, Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations Director, Akhenaten Temple Project University of Toronto Date: May 16, 1997 (FRIDAY) Time: 8:00 PM Place: Room 160 Kroeber Hall, UC Berkeley (The Phoebe Hearst Museum is located in Kroeber Hall -- at the corner of College and Bancroft) Cost: $5.00 members of Northern California ARCE and students with ID $8.00 non-members (or two tickets for $15.00) Tickets may be reserved in advance, purchased in advance, or purchased at the door. Reserved tickets and tickets purchased in advance will not be mailed, but will be held at the door. To reserve tickets by phone, call Beth at 415-972-5676 and leave a message stating your name and the number of tickets you want to reserve. To purchase tickets in advance, send a check payable to: ARCE, Northern California Chapter P.O. Box 79 2124 Kittredge Street Berkeley, CA 94704 Attention: Treasurer Please include your name and phone number, and postmark your request no later than May 12, 1997. Do not send cash. Sorry, we cannot accept credit cards. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Apr 97 20:34:36 -0500 From: David Lorton Subject: ane Thera and Egypt About two years ago, a book by Hans Goedicke appeared in print in which he argued that the Tempest Stela of Ahmose reports on the volcanic explosion on Thera; see _Studies about Kamose and Ahmose_ (Baltimore: 1995), chapter 3. I'm wondering if anyone has an opinion on the matter. David Lorton ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 22:51:50 +0500 From: rkm7649p@fred.net (Richard Matlick) Subject: ane Question: PIE root My only access to a Proto-IE lexicon is that at the back of The American Heritage Dictionary. The only other English language PIE lexicon I have been able to find is either too far away or priced beyond my means. I therefore address the following question to PIE scholars on the list. The IE root yeug- has the basic meaning "to join" in AHD but in all the descendant languages listed it has become words with the basic meaning "yoke." I understand that the semantics of the descendant languages can be vague and changeable, but in this case there is such consistency of meaning in the descendant languages that I am puzzled by the meaning of the PIE root given in AHD. If there were speakers of PIE and they were around only 4 or 5000 years ago, it seems to be a good guess that they had the yoke. Egypt had it at that time or earlier, and it would seem to be a fundamental tool of agriculture. So why wouldn't the IE root yeug- be taken to mean "yoke"? The image of the yoke, after all, implies "to join". This is a small point of large importance for me. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 22:27:40 -0800 From: cbennett@adnc.com (Chris Bennett) Subject: Re: ane Thera and Egypt >About two years ago, a book by Hans Goedicke appeared in print in which >he argued that the Tempest Stela of Ahmose reports on the volcanic >explosion on Thera; see _Studies about Kamose and Ahmose_ (Baltimore: >1995), chapter 3. > >I'm wondering if anyone has an opinion on the matter. > >David Lorton THere was an article in JNES 55 (1996) p1-14 by Karen Foster and Robert Ritner which made the same argument. In a discussion on sci.archaeology, Frank Yurco argued that they had disproved their own thesis by showing that the Ahmose I tempest had effects all over Egypt, rather like the highly unusual storms of summer 1994. I thought that such phenomena might well be triggered by an event such as Thera, so I wouldn't go as far as Yurco and say the case is _dis_proved, but it is a fair point that such storms do not necessarily have to have been caused by THera. A stronger link is the pumice found at Tell el-Dab'a and at other places, apparently in early 18th dynasty layers. HOwever, I believe this pumice is not yet fully published. Since the dendrochronologists and vulcanologists currently seem to be fixing on a date of 1628 for Thera rather strongly (see Kuniholm's paper in Nature last year) it would be rather a problem if Ahmes was a contemporary of THera. Depending on your current dating prejudice for his accession, another 60-100 years at least would have to be added to current NK chronology. My guess is that the result will be that the date of the pumice will be found to be doubtful, so that no clear correlation between THera and a dated Egyptian context exists, at least for the moment. Regards, Chris Bennett [interested observer] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 08:07:00 +0200 (MES) From: Erhart Graefe Subject: ane Thera/Lorton question The most recent discussion as far as I know is: Adam Lukaszewicz, Aegyptiacae Quaestiones Tres, Warsaw University, Institute of Archaeology, Dept. of Papyrology, Warsaw 1995, ISBN83-903062-5-5 with three main chapters: Menophres, Misphragmuthosis, Memnon. In the first, the era of Menophres is discussed: Menophres=Mn.pHtj-raw (Ramses I); second: Misphragmuthosis = Ahmose. It is thought possible that there was volcanic activity several times in the period of the 18th dyn. The Thera explosion took place under Ahmose ca 1525, another preceding one in the 17th century, a third (Goedicke's of 1483) is considered unproven and not confirmed by greek sources as both the other. In the chapter Memnon L. argues that Memnon derives from mrj jmn, epithet of Ramses II. A very interesting publication, a corner stone for further research which cannot be ignored by egyptologists; it combines egyptological and papyrological (classical) evidence. Erhart Graefe grafe@uni-muenster.de ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 10:33:18 +0200 From: anaccash@dm.net.lb (Naccache) Subject: ane A "3-D lattice" linguistic taxonomical scheme Hopefully the list members will excuse me for taking the modest (3 on-list, 1 off-list) amount of requests as an invitation to present my proposal for a linguistic taxonomical scheme to their scrutiny. For the sake of brevity, I will present neither the criticism of the exiting models (the 'family tree' model and its account of time and filiation, the 'wave-theory' model and its account of linguistic change) nor the review of the literature (sociolinguistics, textlinguistics, epistemological bases of biological taxonomy) on which my proposal is based, and will limit myself here to stating that the approach: - is predicated on the modern awareness of the complexity of the linguistic phenomenon. - is concerned with what E. Haugen called 'language ecology', i.e, the relationship obtaining between languages and their users, starting with a concern with the different social modes of reproductions (not replication) of language in space and time, and with the vectors of these mechanisms, the actual 'carriers' of the languages. - as a taxonomical scheme, gives due attention to the Linnean concept that the classification scheme must be elaborated before we can, in a second step, place in the scheme the 'objects' that we know of, and hopefully also those which will become known to us in the future. Comparing my proposed scheme to the traditional 'family tree', we can say that instead of a 2-Dimensional tree with nodes and branches, my proposal consist in a 3-Dimensional lattice consisting of a multiplicity of linked parallel planes. 1 - Each plane represents one category of linguistic instances defined by their sharing in the same social mode of reproduction. 2 - Each plane is in turn organized in two dimensions, the first representing a simple chronological dimension, the second an areal dimension. The scheme can be as detailed as one wishes. For my purposes, I have used the following scales: - The chronological scale is by centuries. - The areal dimension represents the three meaningful human habitats of the Mashriq (the Arabian Peninsula + the Fertile Crescent): urban, rural and steppic, organized along a geographical azimuth. - The categorization, or principle of differentiation used to sift the various attested linguistic instances into comparable categories, is based upon the mechanisms of reproduction of these instances. Here again, the categorization could be taken to various extremes (the lower being the one used in the 'family tree' where all linguistic instances are assumed similar). I have been using a medium level categorization built upon 2 differentiation, the first between oral and written instances, the second between the written instances themselves. This results in 4 categories, or planes, used in the lattice, one for oral languages, three for written ones: a - The lower plane includes the 'vernacular' instances (based on sense 1b of the Webster: a language that is spoken naturally at a particular period: living language), that is, the oral languages whose reproduction mechanism do not require any infrastructure save the basic family unit as a part of a minimal self-contained and maintain community of any habitat. b - The second plane includes the 'administrative' instances, utilitarian vehicles used for accounting and the transmission of functional messages; these instances are characterized by an economy in their formulary and 'reproductive mechanisms'. In ideographic, logographic, syllabic or alphabetic writings they display a high rate of repetition and a very limited syntax. The scribes are asked to be exact, not creative. In this category should be included any language that is written strictly for utilitarian ends, even if the practice is not sanctioned by an Empire. Specially since the development of alphabetic writing systems, linguistic instances used for practical ends have been practiced by, and accessible to, a relatively large number of people, i.e., their demographic base is large, and as a result they have the potential to be used over wide areas. Administrative instances might or might not be developed into the next category. c - The third plane includes the 'literary' instances, characterized by a much wider range of subject matter and a greater emphasis placed upon syntax. The literary instances are taught in scribal schools, and the scribes require a longer and more thorough training, therefore higher social costs. This cost is repaid when the language is used to safeguard the cultural treasures of the community --mythology, wisdom, cultic practices, arts and sciences. In view of the social costs, the demographic base of a literary instance can be small, i.e., a literary instance can be developed in a society with a high rate of illiteracy. Because of their reproduction mechanisms, literary instances evolve much faster than the purely administrative one. Their lexicography, orthography and even scripts are subjected to intense reinterpretation, and, as a result, are prone to change. Literary instances are what was traditionally referred to as 'languages'. They can develop on a restricted regional basis, or they can be adopted far and wide. Administrative instances can be dedicated sociolects of literary instances. The aberrant case of Jahiliyyah Arabic can be accounted by the same reproduction mechanism as the written literary instances, but carried by a group of dedicated mnemonic versificateurs. d - The fourth plane includes the 'canonized' linguistic instances, those instances frozen in time. A given time-defined literary instance becomes, usually for religious reasons, the canon to be kept intact through time, at whatever cost to the community. As a result, the demographic base of an embalmed language can become quite small. Of course mummification is never completely successful, and the canonical language keeps on changing under the daily practice of the scribes, but the original is always there to be used as a recourse against innovators, to prevent inconsistencies and 'error' from the 'perfect' paradigm. Given this preexisting "rhizotic" (reticular) 3-D lattice, it is a relatively straightforward task to place in it the known/attested linguistic instances. If that was all that the 3-D lattice allowed, it might not be worth the effort to fill it. But it is not all. It allows in addition, or rather essentially, not only a comparison 'ceteris paribus' between the instances, clearly differentiated chronologically, but also, and most importantly, it opens the possibility of following the currents of influence between linguistic instances in the same category as well as in different categories. I realize that, without an actual example, it might not be easy to visualize the 3-D lattice, but I hope that those interested in critically evaluating this proposal will be able to overcome this difficulty, maybe by working out even a simple implementation for themselves. They might then aggree with me that it is a good heuristic tool. Thank you for your patience Albert Naqqaash Lebanese University anaccash@dm.net.lb ------------------------------ End of ANE Digest V1997 #107 **************************** Back issues are available on the Oriental Institute World-Wide Web (WWW) site at: http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/ANE/OI_ANE.html