From: owner-ane@ (ANE Digest) To: ane-digest Subject: ANE Digest V1999 #47 Reply-To: Sender: owner-ane@ Errors-To: owner-ane@ Precedence: bulk ANE Digest Wednesday, February 17 1999 Volume 1999 : Number 047 ane Language, methodologies and the case of Greek (was Slavi) Re: ane Eme-sal RE: ane authors and sources Re: ane Language, methodologies and the case of Greek (was Slavi) Re: ane eme-SAL ane Priamos and Aeneas in Hettite sources (long) ane Sad News: Kurt Jaritz ane CALL FOR PAPERS- 14th Annual Middle East History & Theory Re: ane Eme-sal Re: ane eme-SAL ane rush brush, reed pen (Aramaic) ane RAI XLV Instructions for Contributors ane l'Annee Philologique on the Web Re: ane Language, methodologies and the case of Greek (was Slavi) Re: ane Languages in development (was: Slavi) Re: ane authors and sources ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 13:03:44 +0200 (EET) From: ioniccentre@hol.gr (Isidoros) Subject: ane Language, methodologies and the case of Greek (was Slavi) Friends, People, not excluding linguists, mean words differently, I often have to remind myself, and words about words may not be exception to this. Yet, Alexi Manaster's reductionist antithesis to the "methodological question" Andre Desnitsky raised over a distinct place for Latin during the Middle Ages must surely spring out of very significant differences which inform two varied historical linguistic traditions, and may not be due to just any perceived singular lapsus in anyone's learning. There must be a hidden side to a reaction such as this. Linguistics is a multi-valent relativistic science, and only copyists may agree in classifying langs in exactly the same way. Language taxenomy is, or ought to be, considered by no means any manner of "settled" business. And if the differences are not so much of terminology, then communication in exploring them may be the only available means to a true understanding. One must wonder therefor if the two, or the three - given John Leaky's parathesis on the subject - may not by "Latin" mean something different. Methodologically, though the known theoretical model that is used by Alexis may be *schematically* acceptable, and even useful, it is surely understood by all that it is meant to be only a "scheme," a mere, simple, abstract, so that everyone can well see in this why anyone might not agree over specific taxonomies therein. As also why Andre might rightly connote that there are many nuances... peculiarities, etc, that cannot all be reduced to a single, schematic, linear model. It is a matter of tools criteria and of perspective, and I don't know why anyone should disagree with this, Alexis included. For, though, and as Alexis himself pointed out, differences of opinion may be settled by specialists, even specialists, or should one say "serious linguists," might at times have to stoop over already well examined terrain, and reconsider, and redefine, and draw over it a new map, or two, and in accordance with newer, and ever tentative, hypotheses. Hopefully, we are in for a good deal of surprises yet. Now, before I bring this symbolic prayer to closure, might I make a couple of comments in reference to points that were noted on the diachronic development of Greek. I will try to be brief. Andre, re your >modern Greek has been always considered the new form of the same >ancient language I don't know about that "always," and if it was so considered by all, but I do ascribe to your use of the "same." And I, too, do use lower case "m-" and "a-" for "modern" and for "ancient" with Greek -- which I do not, for example, for Old or Middle English; as Greek did not, in my opinion, undergo so very marked changes, and over so distinct periods of time. Actually, its "form" hasn't changed that much at all, and though Homer and Hesiod is beyong the range of the ordinary person on the street, most of the older folk who were, for ages, ear-trained over the Sunday (and not only) Orthodox Christian liturgy *do* largely understand the common meaning which the Evangelists' have imparted since about the turn of the Era. Significant grammatical changes occured in the language between the 4th century BCE and about the 2nd century CE. But with the wider emergence and standardization of writing and of grammar, with the formation of a Hellenistic, and then of a Christian, "Koine" corpus, and eventually with the adoptation and mainainance of the textual and the hynological Christian tradition by the Byzantine State, and the Greek school, the Hellen(ist)ic language has remained surprasingly the same -- well, to our albeit disruptive days. John, re >".. Latin and the Romance languages have continued independent >development to this day. This is markedly different to Greek, where >even the language reformers of the last century felt that Greek was the >same language (even if, in their opinion, it had sadly decayed). Agreed, too, about the "same." As to the "reformers of the last century," well, "decay" may be a value judgment, as you know, which in this case might had rather been not properly justified or warranted. Such reformers as these, that I think you are referring to, essentially lived and were schooled outside of Greece, and within abstractly formalized "Ancient Greek" curricula. Trained largely in Germanic Universities, they approached Greek as an idealized, "classic" language, where the grammar was re-constituted and modeled by them after the language of Ionia-main of some two and a half thousand years - before all of them, and especially before the local populoi who were meant to learn it. In addition, they were methodologically trained, and thus in turn so they trained the local Greek students - the ones to be the teachers of the youth of Greece - to approach the language grammatically and syntactically as if "foreign," proceeded to teach it as such... to the Greeks! *They* knew "the" Greek, and to them the merchants and the farmers and sailors they were now discovering after the demise of Ottoman rule (from the 1830's) were stigmatized by them, along with the language they spoke, as having "decayed." Alexis, interesting and useful the paradigm describing the parallel developments in linguistics and biology, yet may I note that it may be just as misleading, and unnecessary, to inform the good biologist that "Ancient Greek is no longer spoken in Greece" as it would had been for him, or for anyone, to insist that it is? Spoken there is the Greek, as it has developed to our days. But, I am sure we agree on this. With best wishes to all, Isidoros The Ionic Center, Athens ioniccentre@hol.gr ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 11:33:46 +0000 From: "S.J.Sherwin" Subject: Re: ane Eme-sal Giuseppe Del Monte wrote: > > > In my opinion eme-SAL has little or nothing to do with women. The connection > is based only upon an interpretation of SAL = woman, but other readings and > translations of the sign are equally possible. Some scholars see eme-SAL as > a high language, opposed to every-day eme-gi7, the main Sumerian dialect. > Historically it is only the language in which are written the liturgical > lamentations of the gala-priests, whose duties are so summarized by Mark > Cohen: 1) the recitation of compositions at funerals; 2) the recitation of > incantation-hymns to keep away evil demons; 3) the recitation of > lamentations during the razing of dilapidated buildings; 4) the recitation > of specific lamentations on certain days of each month. There, not only > goddesses (Inanna), but also gods speak eme-SAL. > Hope this helps. > Regards, > Giuseppe Del Monte > > -------------- > Prof. Dr. Giuseppe del Monte > Cattedra di Storia del Vicino Oriente antico > Dpt. Scienze storiche del mondo antico > Universitą di Pisa > via Galvani 1 - I-56100 Pisa > Fax 39-050-500668 - E-mail delmonte@lunet.it Having said that, in the myths, for example Lugal-e, An-gim dim-ma, Enlil & Ninlil, Enlil & Sud, where women speak they do so in Emesal. There is definitely a connection. Regards S.J.Sherwin Cambridge, England ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 09:03:12 -0500 From: "Liz Fried" Subject: RE: ane authors and sources > -----Original Message----- > From: owner-ane@oi.uchicago.edu [mailto:owner-ane@oi.uchicago.edu]On > Behalf Of Peter T. Daniels > Sent: Monday, February 15, 1999 11:35 PM > To: ane@oi.uchicago.edu > Subject: Re: ane Kush Midian > > > nyokabi@kingcon.com wrote: > > > > On Sun Feb 14 Peter Daniels wrote: > > > > >nyokabi@kingcon.com wrote: > > > > > >> Although the library at Alexandria had long been gone by > Josephus' day, > > >> don't we have his testimony that he was given the sacred > books from the > > >> temple when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem? All those other Israelite > > history > > >> book mentioned in the Books of Kings and Chronicles, like the book of > > >> Nathan the prophet, for one -- might these not have > preserved alternative > > >> or additional info about Moses? > > > > > >If his claim were true, why wouldn't he have quoted great chunks of > > >them, like Eusebius, Athenaeus, or all the other historians and > > >chroniclers? > > > Do they quote from any of these lost books mentioned in the > OT? I would > > be very interested in any references... > > No, of course not. Before printing, you didn't just put in a footnote > "see Joe Shmo page 10," because you couldn't expect that your reader > would have access to a copy of Joe Shmo. You copied out whatever your > source had to say that was of interest or relevance. That's why we have > all those "Fragmente griechischer Historiker": their works didn't > survive whole, but many of them are found in greater or lesser part in > later authors. > > > As for Josephus, he puts in great chunks of extra-Biblical materials, > > but my notes never included if he attributed them to any sacred sources. > > A fortiori, if he had "Book of the Wars of the Lord" or one of the > others before him, he would have excerpted it! Does this mean that Josephus and the original writers of the Pentateuch had different sorts of audiences in mind? Josephus had a wide audience, or maybe just the king, but of lay people who wouldn't necessarily have had any other books available. Can we infer that the authors of the Pentateuch were writing for a closed circle of people all of whom had equal access to the same books? Liz > -- > Peter T. Daniels > grammatim@worldnet.att.net > ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 09:29:00 -0500 (EST) From: manaster@umich.edu Subject: Re: ane Language, methodologies and the case of Greek (was Slavi) On Tue, 16 Feb 1999, Isidoros wrote: > Friends, > > People, not excluding linguists, mean words differently, I often have to > remind myself, and words about words may not be exception to this. Yet, > Alexi Manaster's reductionist antithesis to the "methodological question" > Andre Desnitsky raised over a distinct place for Latin during the > Middle Ages must surely spring out of very significant differences which > inform two varied historical linguistic traditions, and may not be due > to just any perceived singular lapsus in anyone's learning. There must be > a hidden side to a reaction such as this. [snip] There are plenty of disagreements in linguistics about many issues. But as I said what I said here earlier on this topic is what I learned in my very first elementary courses and I know of no modern linguistic work that would contradict it. If someone else does, e.g., yourself, I'd be very interested to hear that. AMR ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 15:51:54 +0100 (MET) From: Tomas.Marik@ff.cuni.cz Subject: Re: ane eme-SAL In the case of eme-SAL we are in a very unfortunate situation, in so far as this "dialect" is attested from Old Babylonian copies of texts that can hardly be dated before the 21st century BC. Only cultic songs are written entirely in eme-SAL, otherwise it is restricted to direct speech of women and godesses. Except for eme-SAL vocabularies all instances are literary compositions and so we can say that insofar we have almost no evidence that it was ever spoken in everyday life. This has led e.g. M. L. Thomsen in her grammar (285ff.) to call it in her grammar (285ff.) a "literary dialect". From ordinary eme-gir it differs only on the phonological and probably also lexical level (in cases were the phonological connection with the eme-gir form is not obvious) - a special eme-SAL grammar does not exist, therefore in this case it would be perhaps more appropriate to speak of a "literary style". Actually it seems to be not much more than a special women's and eunuch's pronunciation of eme-gir. The question is, where did this "style" come from, whether a sociolect of women and eunuchs in Mesopotamia was ever spoken or whether we have to deal with a literary invention. The case of prakrit and sanskrit is no exact parallel. Diakonoff (AS 20, 114) compares it to the "women's language" of Chukchee. Tomas Marik tomas.marik@ff.cuni.cz Institute of Ancient Near Eastern Studies Prague ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 16:02:24 +0100 From: Banyai@t-online.de (Banyai) Subject: ane Priamos and Aeneas in Hettite sources (long) A while ago I made an intriguing statement, intended to underline my thought, mythos is rather a state of mind of the reader than a real difference between documents to be called historical or mythical. I answer in first line the question of Professor Del Monte about the existence of Hettite documents featuring two individuals with simmilar names, one knew as Priamos and Aeneas. I have to make preliminary following points: 1. the Pylos tablets preserve a number of names, clearly of Anatolian typus, the most interesting of them reads - Pijamaso. This corresponds the first particle in such composite names as Pijama-Inaras or Pijamaradus. My supposition is that the name Pijamaso later evolved to the classical P(r)iamos (Pijamaso = Pijamos). Another interesting feature of the Pilos name is the ignoration of the second part of the surely longer composite name of the individual. Hettite Pijama might, on the other side, allready render an original Prijama, since the Hettite often left aside R following on a consonant. 2. the Tawagalawas letter, concerning mainly an individual called Pijamaradus, and all the Pijamaradus affair, has to be dated to a somewhat later time point as presently done (reign Hattusillis III or even of Mursilis II - early Tutchalijas IV), that is Tutchalijas IV and later. My grounds are in short: the Milawatta letter, the only one letter concerning Pijamaradus signed by a Hettite king, dates to the time of Tutchalijas IV. Last one seems to be the same Hettite king who intervened against the activities of Pijamaradus directed from the teritory Miletos and later excusing himself (for this?), as for a youth sinn, by the Ahhiawa king. He seems, according to the Milawatta letter having been the one, on whose intervention in consequence of the Pijamaradus affair the father of the present-day Mil. king was replaced and now is reminding him the grounds leading to this. The reason, why one still preserved the link between Hattusilis III/Mursilis II and Pijamaradus is the presence of a Manapa-Dattas in the Pijamaradus story (associated originarilly with Mursilis II). One might hold against this that names usually were repeatedly used in second generation, thus could be this M-D a contemporary of Tutchalijas IV. There are also major difficulties with the interpretation of the Tawagalawas letter. The period of Mursilis holds the throne of Wilusa (which one reasonably equates with Troy) occupied by a Guggunis (classical name Gyges!) and later by an Alaksandus, while the Tawagalawas letter clearly points on Pijamaraus as someone having legal rights to the throne of Wilusa, but lost him against a Hettite candidate. The king of Ahhiawa and of Hatti wouldn“t want to renew the conflict and break the status quo about this city, Pijamaradus might become some reparation instead. The Alaksandus contract says the relations between Wilusa and the Hettite empire were allways cordial and loyal, thus make a Hettite intervention before this time point impossible. Equally the reign of Pijamaradus in Wilusa in the time of Mursilis II would be impossible. Manapa-Dattas can not be the same individual one knows from the Mursillis II anals. Following these preliminary remarks, one might return to the Tawagalawas letter: Pijamaradus is presented in the entourage of his son-in-laws - an unknown Atpaas, king of Miletos and Ahhiawan vasal-king- and of Hawaiannis, whose name strongly resembles the classical Aeneas. Pijamaradus is an earlier (?) Hettite vasal, in the mean time run over to the Ahhiawa king, reason of the Hettite intervention in Wilusa, in the name of earlier acquired Hettite rights over Wilusa (since the time of the Alaksandus contract). It is clear Pijamaradus is an Anatolian, a former royal majesty, having lost all his former posessions. Revealing is under these circumstances the passus about Wilussa. I surmise Pijamaradus sought new allies later, after being dropt by the "Greeks", perhaps the Phrygians. Many other "mythical" figures, for exemple such involving the migration of the Etruscan from Lydia, Memnon, Kyniras, Euripilos and so on may be found in the contemporary literature. Best regards, Banyai Michael Leonberg Banyai@t-online.de ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 09:03:47 -0600 From: "Charles E. Jones" Subject: ane Sad News: Kurt Jaritz From Hannes Galter by way of Jack Sasson comes the following sad news. =============================== Please let the Assyriological community know that Dr. Kurt Jaritz (1926-1999) has lost his fight with cancer, late in the night of this Monday past. Dr. Jaritz taught in the Dept. of the History and Culture of the Ancient Near East at the University of Graz (Austria). He is mostly known for his work on Kassite history and culture. He trained several generations of Austrian Assyriologists and, in those difficult years of the 1970s, he continued to do his work and teaching, resisting efforts to shut down the department. If you wish to send condolences, please write his wife, Ute Jaritz Naglergasse 57, A-8010 Graz AUSTRIA You may also write me: email: hdg@urania.at fax: 0043-316-814257. and I will forward your message to her. Hannes D. Galter ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 09:07:24 -0600 From: "Charles E. Jones" Subject: ane CALL FOR PAPERS- 14th Annual Middle East History & Theory Forwarded on behalf of the undersigned, to whom responses and inquiries should be directed. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx CALL FOR PAPERS- 14th Annual Middle East History & Theory, Apr. 10-11 Middle East History and Theory Conference at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies of the University of Chicago April 10-11, 1999 Keynote Address: Professor John L. Esposito, Director Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University The Middle East History and Theory Conference provides a forum for students and faculty in the social sciences and humanities to present papers treating Middle Eastern/Islamic history, culture, society, and politics from the 7th century to present. Graduate Students are particularly urged to participate: both individual papers and pre-arranged panels can be accommodated. A one page abstract and curriculum vitae must be received by Friday, FEBRUARY 19. Working papers must be received by Friday March 20. FREE ACCOMMODATIONS are available on a first come, first serve basis, so it pays to send your abstract in ASAP to: Scott Lucas & Rochdi Younsi MEHTW Coordinators Center for Middle East Studies University of Chicago 5828 S. University Ave. Chicago, IL 60637 OR TO sclucas@midway.uchicago.edu Further information is available at either of these addresses. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 10:45:17 -0500 (EST) From: manaster@umich.edu Subject: Re: ane Eme-sal There is one thing that IS clear re Eme-sal. It must be historically secondary as compared to Eme-gir, given the phonological rules connecting the two. To my mind, this makes the idea of Eme-sal being sociologically "higher" or the like rather implausible. AMR ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 17:03:45 GMT From: mcv@wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Subject: Re: ane eme-SAL Tomas.Marik@ff.cuni.cz wrote: >The question is, where did this "style" come from, whether a sociolect of >women and eunuchs in Mesopotamia was ever spoken or whether we have to deal >with a literary invention. The case of prakrit and sanskrit is no exact >parallel. Nothing ever is. Why do you think the parallel is not valid? >Diakonoff (AS 20, 114) compares it to the "women's language" of >Chukchee. I'm not sure, but isn't Chukchi women's pronunciation characterized by the systematic (unconditional) replacement of certain phonemes by others? That's definitely not the case in eme.sal. It's much more complex than that. ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv@wxs.nl Amsterdam ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 12:10:26 -0500 From: stephen goranson Subject: ane rush brush, reed pen (Aramaic) In case it's still of interest, for a discussion of the palaeographic conseqences of a hellenistic period change from rush brush to reed pen in Aramaic script: Ada Yardeni, The Book of Hebrew Script (Jerusalem: Carta, 1997) especially p. 157f. Stephen Goranson goranson@duke.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 15:27:41 -0600 From: "Charles E. Jones" Subject: ane RAI XLV Instructions for Contributors At the request of the Boston secretariat, the instructions for contributors to the publication of the Proceedings of RAI XLV are now available with the other documentation on the conference at the Ooriental Institute web site: http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/DEPT/RA/rai/format.html Also available are preliminary announcements: http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/DEPT/RA/rai/45_2ndCirc.html abstracts of papers: http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/DEPT/RA/rai/45_Abstracts.html and the group photograph: http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/DEPT/RA/rai/45_Photo.html - -Chuck Jones- cejo@midway.uchicago.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 15:33:16 -0600 From: "Charles E. Jones" Subject: ane l'Annee Philologique on the Web Forwarded on behalf of the undersigned, to whom responses and inquiries should be directed. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Announcing AnPhilNet: Aph on the Web The editors of l'Annee philologique are happy to announce a free and anonymous APH web site, open to all internet users. The site presently contains 18,000 bibliographic records and abstracts, which are to be published as volume 67, covering publications that appeared in 1996. The database includes a main file containing the APh records in a simple format, along with the list of APh sections and their contents, a list of sigla used as periodical abbreviations, and a list of the periodical fascicles excerpted in the database. The main file can be consulted using the following: an index of ancient authors, the APh's secondary rubrics (which appear in the Deuxieme partie), and an index of words in the titles, the abstracts or the notes. It is also possible to do a multi-criteria search using boolean operators (AND, OR, AND NOT) on a number of indexed rubrics (modern authors, including those of book reviews; ancient authors; record numbers). At present users can work in French or English. The URL for the new site is: http://www.aph.cnrs.fr Questions and comments may be sent to: aph@vjf.cnrs.fr ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 23:36:43 +0200 (EET) From: ioniccentre@hol.gr (Isidoros) Subject: Re: ane Language, methodologies and the case of Greek (was Slavi) Alexis Manaster wrote: >On Tue, 16 Feb 1999, Isidoros wrote: > >> Friends, >> >> People, not excluding linguists, mean words differently, I often have to >> remind myself, and words about words may not be exception to this. Yet, >> Alexi Manaster's reductionist antithesis to the "methodological question" >> Andre Desnitsky raised over a distinct place for Latin during the >> Middle Ages must surely spring out of very significant differences which >> inform two varied historical linguistic traditions, and may not be due >> to just any perceived singular lapsus in anyone's learning. There must be >> a hidden side to a reaction such as this. > >[snip] > >There are plenty of disagreements in linguistics about many >issues. But as I said what I said here earlier on this topic >is what I learned in my very first elementary courses and I >know of no modern linguistic work that would contradict it. >If someone else does, e.g., yourself, I'd be very interested >to hear that. > >AMR Thank you for the compliment; but, no, there is nothing that I should want to tell you, or anyone else, at the elementary course level. As you know, Alexis, language taxenomy is not a matter that is merely introduced at the elementary, but it is a field of ongoing research, of vital and serious discussion, and even in some cases of intense disagreement. In deciding to write the above -- which, BTW, was forwarded before receiving, reading, your reply to A. Desnitsky, or I would had happily withheld or rephrase it -- I was not voicing difference on any structural basics. On the contrary, I was expressing dismay for objections that were raised at that level, feeling that it couldn't had all been but some sort of misunderstanding, that I were hoping, with my expressed wonderment at the seeming paradox, to facilitate in abridging. Andre D., I felt, had a legitimate right to raise the type of question that he did - which was about a taxenomy, and not about the theory of taxinomization - regardless of how one looked at that grouping. Anyway, I am only pleased to see that my pretext in providing a log accross was not needed. Isidoros ioniccentre@hol.gr ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 01:13:38 +0200 (EET) From: ioniccentre@hol.gr (Isidoros) Subject: Re: ane Languages in development (was: Slavi) Well, after being so agreeable :) in the previous post, let me try to pick here an argument ( :-) or at any rate register some objections. Andre Desnitsky wrote: >> What is a language? If we think about a structure consisting of a >> grammar, a vocabulary etc., the genetic relationships among >> languages can be depicted in a rather primitive way, exactly as >> Alexis suggests. In this case modern Greek is totally different from >> classical Greek; Russian and Ukrainian developed from the same >> source conditionally called Old Russian as Italian, French and >> Rumanian did from vulgar Latin. with which Alexis Manaster agreed (!) by >That is all I am saying. Thank you. And in light of this I >am happy to withdraw my earlier critique of your views. Happy am, too, for all the rained withdrawals but, whereas you two may agree about all that you wish, on the parentage of Russian and Ukranian, as, too, of Italian and the like, may I register my objection about that "modern Greek is totally different from classical Greek", as was put by Andre, and even at the "primitive" structural level you chose to strike an agreement. Or was this some kind of a hyperbole, a figure of speech in dramatizing a point, that one ought to let go of? Knowing rather well both ends of the Greek I can make the comparison and attest, for what may it be worth to you, that "it isn't" totally.. etc Somewhat? yes; significantly? maybe; but .. "completely"? No. And I can also make the comparison relatively to, say, the "distance" traversed between some of the other languages in question. I should not want to expand on this, but to add that it may, indeed, be a curious thing that modern Greek might not be any further apart from its classical gendering than is, say, French from Latin. One reason I gave yesterday is that the Greeks for some fifteen, sixteen centuries were eagerly and regularly, religiously, schooled in the two millenia (plus! ;-) Greek Christian liturgy. >> To what extent does cultural identity influence the most formal >> features of a language can be seen on many examples. If we continue >> with the Greeks, the very existence of its "katharevousa" form (the >> official literary language until 1980s) Pardon me, there has not ever been any official "literary" language, in Greece, only an official "bureaucratic" :-) one (and, oops, am splitting hairs, I know, but for the smile of it) and, "until" 1976 >> is due to the idea that >> modern Greeks are the same Greeks as in Pericles' times and their >> language is essentially the same language - e.g., if you take bank >> notes issued in Greece before 1980s, you will see the word DRAXMAI, >> not DRAXMES as it is spoken now. Hmm... All the "value" is in the "DRAXM-" part of it. Whether ending in -AI, or in -ES (-'AI'S, and really pretty much identical) that is but a very small difference, an insignificant, tint Coin-e. Besides, in the classical period are to be found both of the suffixes, even if in variant forms, just as they both continue to be used (in spite of any "officialdom") by various peoples today. On top of this, I don't think that anybody today in Greece thinks that they are the same as Pericles -- well, except maybe my buddy Agesilaos Periandrou, when was starring in an Agora bust of Aspasia last Spring, but that lapse was purely temporary. (Reincarnations, and after the promisse of Christ, surely there must be contemplating many, though that has not to do with language [well, as is understood commonly] but generally with the whole of the ideolepsia of Western culture.) >Yes, but such weird developments as DRAXMAI are NOT >necessarily connected with the any idea of a linguistic >continuity. Not so sure how "weird" it is but generally shall agree >That is, you can find cases like this where >forms from one (and usually older) linguistic >system intrude into another (in this case, from >Classical or pseudo-Classical Greek into Modern >Greek) intrude? The Greek "system" remains one and the "same," imo -- however one might consider that it's "developed," or that it's variant. And, why pray "pseudo-Classical"? For, there was not any illusion, or any pretension to *reverting* back to a language of the classical period. It is just that, after the formation of the modern Greek State, the European philology professors who taught at first in Greece, knowing the classical, they tried, Prokroustes' like, to "cut" and "customize" the modern form fittingly into some classical "straight-jacket," ehr, costume with which they were "familiar." And, by the way, the "Katharevousa" epithet which was laid on the process, was not any attempt to a "pseudo-Classical," as it was "Cleanse", i.e. to "purge" the modern tongue (and especially "writ") of some of its more autonomously "bloomed" dialectal by-forms (and there were many, as there are many islands, tall mountain ranges, isolated villages) as well as rid, of course, of some of the Italian and "Ottoman" guests' shorter term loans, and standardize it "neatly." >even when no one thinks that the systems are >"the same" or calls them by the same name. (I don't really think I want to, and I won't, ask what means in this instance "same" to you.) >So, while I fully realize that there >was a movement in Greece for a long time to make the >literary language look a bit more Classical, this kind of >thing happens even when people realize that the "classical" >language is a different language and even that their own >language is NOT descended from the classical one. Or, one might even say that it happens at times *especially* when they realize ... But, this, of course, must be here purely a hypothetical abstraction, a theoretical reference to which I, of course, ascribe fully, provided that the "Greek" here is brought in merely as having to name one, or another, example, as sort of a figure of speech, to make a point, generally, while it is well understood that it has nothing to do with this particular language to which it is referring here, only fortuitously! > >AMR Isidoros, at Athens (who, thinking that there is 'nough said on this topic of mod Greek, is not looking forward to responding to any similar entries, and who, since not partaking presently in the "hard core" ANE disc's that are of dear to him -- envious -- for not want of breaking the Law, if even inadvertadly, and as he is believing that there are may not be legitimately any boundaries in an analysis of the ANE "history," ora Exodus, just as there ought not be correspondingly any limits to the academic dialogue and speech -- slips back in to the old pithos' silence.) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 18:41:42 -0500 From: "Peter T. Daniels" Subject: Re: ane authors and sources Liz Fried wrote: > Does this mean that Josephus and the original writers of the Pentateuch had > different sorts of audiences in mind? Josephus had a wide audience, or > maybe just the king, but of lay people who wouldn't necessarily have had any > other books available. Can we infer that the authors of the Pentateuch were > writing for a closed circle of people all of whom had equal access to the > same books? What do we know about the prevalence of literacy in the population at the time the Pentateuch was written -- whenever that was -- or when any constituent documents that might underlie it were written? If there were 5 people in the whole society who could read the scripture, then they would have all been in the same room with the ancient library anyway. If there were thousands, where are all their ephemera? What can be deduced from the various collections of ostraca? Was anyone literate but professional scribes? Also: who had access to the ms. of the Pentateuch? How many copies could there have been? Etc.etc.etc. - -- Peter T. Daniels grammatim@worldnet.att.net ------------------------------ End of ANE Digest V1999 #47 *************************** Back issues are available on the Oriental Institute World-Wide Web (WWW) site at: http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/ANE/OI_ANE.html