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b-hebrew - Re[2]: Diachronic study (was Purpose for discussion)

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  • From: Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>
  • To: Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re[2]: Diachronic study (was Purpose for discussion)
  • Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 00:21:46 +0100


At 13.41 21/02/00 -0500, Peter Kirk wrote:
>Excuse me, but are you suggesting that philologists and linguists
>should leave discussion of linguistic dating to historians who are
>merely amateurs in linguistics?

Peter, I suggest you read the first sentence of what you are commenting on
again. I don't think you have understood it:

>>This is what may happen when philologists enter a discussion about
>>language datings segments of language on the basis of language alone.

The magic word is the last one: "alone".


Ian


>I see the same line of argument here as in a previous thread: A
>scholar in one field may have good evidence concerning a particular
>problem e.g. dating from his own specialisation e.g. linguistics,
>Egyptology. But he may not be qualified to examine the implications of
>his argument in a different field e.g. Mesopotamian history. Should
>our scholar be able to publish his argument for wider consideration,
>and for properly scholarly comparison with the evidence from other
>fields? Or should he be written off a priori as unscholarly because he
>has not fully examined and tied up the loose ends of the implications
>of his theory in a quite different field, where he is not qualified?
>
>So my plea is, let the linguists present their linguistic evidence
>without requiring them to first show themselves better historians than
>you are. They don't claim to be! Then, if there seems to be a
>contradiction between the linguistic and the historical evidence, both
>parties need to reexamine their evidence and work together to find a
>synthesis. Don't you agree?





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