[b-hebrew] theories and standards

Isaac Fried if at math.bu.edu
Mon May 18 09:03:13 EDT 2009


It was in my opinion uni-consonantal.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On May 18, 2009, at 8:21 AM, James Read wrote:

>
> Hi,
>
> that's an interesting thought. If it was bi-consonantal with 22
> different characters we would be limited to 22*22=484 basic roots. But
> with triconsonant we have a maximum possible range of 10,648. There is
> a massive amount of redundancy in this figure, though, because usually
> about 2,000 core roots account for about 70% of any particular  
> language.
>
> James Christian
>
>
> Quoting belaga at math.u-strasbg.fr:
>
>> Not so fast, please.
>>
>> I do not want to take sides in this dispute.: the problem of the
>> emergence of natural languages has been rightly called recently "the
>> most difficult scientific problem".
>>
>> However, Biblical Hebrew (the main topic of this forum), and some
>> Semitic languages with it, do possess some unique, fundamental, and
>> "primeval" feature not shared by other languages: the three consonant
>> sturcture of verbs which, from the mathematical point of view, is at
>> least as optimal as the command structure of any artificially  
>> designed
>> Assembler language:
>>
>> http://padis2.uniroma1.it:81/ojs/index.php/cogphil/search/authors/ 
>> view? 
>> firstName=Edward&middleName=G.&lastName=Belaga&affiliation=Universit% 
>> C3%A9%20dfe%20Strasbourg
>>
>> Dr. Edward G. Belaga
>> ******************************************************
>> Institut de Recherche en Mathématique Avancée
>> Universite Louis Pasteur
>> 7, rue René Descartes, 67084 Strasbourg Cedex, FRANCE
>> tel.: 333 90 24 02 35, FAX: 333 90 24 03 28 , cellular: 336 76 29  
>> 63 04
>> e-mail : edward.belaga at math.u-strasbg.fr
>> ******************************************************
>>
>>
>>
>> Quoting James Read <J.Read-2 at sms.ed.ac.uk>:
>>
>>> Sure. I get the logic. You could also make an argument based on  
>>> Adam's
>>> name. But these arguments are by no means conclusive. Although,  
>>> these
>>> concepts do not translate well into all languages that is not to say
>>> that there could not have been an prior language where this play on
>>> words also worked. It works in English (man and woman) and all we  
>>> have
>>> to do is translate Adam's name into English and we could make an
>>> argument for English being the 'mother' of all languages and the
>>> language that was spoken in Eden.
>>>
>>> Also, even if we were to actually know what language Adam and Eve  
>>> were
>>> speaking in the garden of Eden that would in no way make it the
>>> 'mother' of all languages as if other languages descended from  
>>> it. The
>>> account of Babel does not describe a gradual process of linguistic
>>> evolution. It describes the very sudden and instantaneous  
>>> confusion of
>>> everybody's language so that each were using a completely different
>>> set of words. There is not even an undertone that these languages  
>>> are
>>> all etymologically related in some way.
>>>
>>> James Christian
>>> The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
>>> Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>
> -- 
> The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
> Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
>
>
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