Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Vincent DeCaen <decaen AT chass.utoronto.ca>]

it's a matter of looking at the literature, my friend. i'm not
speculating or making up stuff: it's there in black and white.
indoeuropean scholars *did* resist the obvious connections tooth and
nail. and despite the contradictions, apparent or otherwise, sanskrit
was infinitely superior because of the time depth. also, there was a
huge love affair with german romantics and the vedas: any intellectual
worth anything was studying sanskrit. don't forget also that there's a
big difference between vedic aryans, in their eyes, and the current
inhabitants of india.

what you say by way of objection is strictly speaking true, but hey...
life's like that. it's interesting that for some the primitive nature
of german was an advantage: as a primitive language it was a better
vehicle of poetry and direct inspiration: go figure.

the other business is worth pursuing. can we find commentaries from
the mid 1800s by the biggies like ewald, etc, and those cultivating
his views, that make use of the theory for, e.g., isaiah 53? that
would be extremely interesting.

also, i'm following the vicious debate between ewald and lee: would be
interesting to see how it comes out on this relativity issue. lee was
up in arms at the linguistic free-for-all suggested by ewald.

just some thoughts....

btw, there's an interesting book by Ruhlen, The Origin of Language
1994, that also presents a bit of a j'accuse. but it's not documented
as such.

cheers
V 
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Dr. Vincent DeCaen <decaen AT chass.utoronto.ca>
c/o Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations
4 Bancroft Ave., 2d floor
University of Toronto
Toronto ON, CANADA, M5S 1A1

Hebrew Syntax Encoding Initiative
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca:8080/~decaen/hsei/
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Scepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to
surrender it too soon or to the first comer.     --Santayana