Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>]

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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> >
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>
>
>
> --
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> Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
>
>
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