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  • From: "K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Blind Faith and Historical Linguistics
  • Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 23:41:30 -0700

Yitzhak:

On 3/14/07, Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com> wrote:
Karl,

If you write me a message, I respond. So, even if you write a long
message full of misinformation, I am still going to respond. This is
not "trying to proselytize" but simply trying to set the record straight
as far as true dependable information is concerned.

As to the Safaitic inscription, there is no place to discuss it further
after it was convincingly shown to be Safaitic.

Convincingly?

1) Safaitic inscriptions are found in Saudi Arabia and some in what is
now eastern Jordan. This one was found in the highlands in the far
northwest corner of Jordan. For a map, see
http://www.satelliteviews.net/cgi-bin/w.cgi?c=jo&UF=-974488&UN=-1450808&DG=HLL

2) The shapes of the letters.

After you found information that the stone had been found in Jordan, I
then went to museum sites in both Jordan and Saudi Arabia to get more
images and information, which information I have repeatedly cited.

...
Similarly, Historical/Comparative Linguistics has nothing to do with
historical claims in the content of the texts themselves.

If it does not take into account the historical claims of when
documents were written, then it has no claim to "historical".

... The place
of Ugaritic in the wide range of Semitic languages has nothing to do
with the historicity of Kirta. The place of the Greek of the Iliad in
the framework of Indoeuropean has nothing to do with the dating or
historicity of the Trojan war.

This is a red herring logical fallacy. See above. The claims are for
when the documents were written, not what they were about.

... Historical/Comparative Linguistics
studies the history of the languages, not history of cultures.

Again a red herring logical fallacy. Who said anything about culture?

... A
language is not cognate if some of the historical claims made in
texts written in the language are validated, dated, or found non
historical, but rather if two languages both show independent regular
sound changes from a common base, the two are said to be cognate
languages. If you have no knowledge or interest in learning about
Comparative Semitics, Ugaritic, and in this case, the Amarna dialects,
then again: it is best not to misinform.

If you cannot respond without twisting what others write (straw man
logical fallacy), bringing in concepts that were not referenced
because they are irrelevant (red herring logical fallacy) or giving
muddle sentences that are not clear (see the above paragraph, what
exactly were you trying to say in the first sentence?), would it be
better that you not put fingers to keyboard? Because of your frequent
logical fallacies and muddled responses indicating that you don't
accurately deal with present discussions, how can we trust you when
you discuss historical linguistics? The following paragraphs I cite as
an examples of further logical fallacies and muddled thinking, which
is why I will not respond directly to them.

An example of misinformation: In your recent response, you suggest
you don't argue against Comparative Semitics, but then go ahead and
claim that only if the historicity of Moses or your theory of relationship
between Moses and the Hyksos (or your claim that a Safaitic inscription
from the early centuries CE is a Proto-Canaanite inscription) are wrong,
could the Amarna dialect and Hebrew be claimed to be different stages
of the same language. This is a direct contradiction to Comparative
Semitics, and Linguistics in general, so obviously you must have some
flawed understanding of what Comparative Semitics is or how it works.
Just as an example, it is possible to describe a situation whereby the
Israelites developed their tongue much quicker than the (Canaanite)
inhabitants of Jerusalem, even though they started out from the same
dialect, so that even though the Amarna dialect of Jerusalem is attested
hundreds of years after your claimed date for the Exodus, the Amarna
dialect still represents an earlier stage of the same language because it
has no independent sound changes from this stage, yet Hebrew does.

Please don't misinform and if the best source of information you have for
Sinaitic inscriptions is a website on stones left by aliens in Scandinavia,
don't discuss Sinaitic. This is not to say that there are no dependable
sources of information on Sinaitic, Safaitic, Ugaritic, Proto-Semitic,
Historical/Comparative Linguistics, etc. that are freely available on the
web. Our discussions are filled with links to them. But you consistently
refuse to make use of these dependable sources or to study these subjects
from dependable sources. While this ignorance of these subjects is
apparently your choice, this is no reason to misinform others in the guise
of a rebuttal of a post I wrote to someone who is versed and informed in
these subjects.

Yitzhak Sapir

If Linear B tablets could be shown to have been written at the same
time as Aristotle, then the languages of Linear B and Aristotle would
be cognates. But because there is no question from historical and
archeological sources that Linear B long predated Aristotle, the
languages reflected in those writings are considered stages in the
development of Greek language. This example is why dating is important
in historical linguistics. How can you study historical/comparative
linguistics without understanding this?

Similarly, the historical data embedded in Tanakh indicates that Torah
was written by Moses, with clues in Exodus that Moses dealt with what
we now call a Hyksos pharaoh, all together indicating that written
Torah predates both written Ugaritic and Tell Amarna letters. The only
evidence you have against these historical claims is theory based on a
faith that many of us do not share. Incidentally, that theory is not
historical/comparative linguistics. If you can't understand these
simple facts, why continue this discussion?

If you can't respond without bringing in logical fallacies such as
straw man and red herring, as well as others, logical fallacies, why
should I answer you?

Maybe I should start ignoring you again.

Karl W. Randolph.




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