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  • From: James Read <J.Read-2 AT sms.ed.ac.uk>
  • To: Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: B-Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Hebrew as a holy language
  • Date: Fri, 22 May 2009 12:39:07 +0100

Hi,

thanks for this Yitzhak. You have provided something which finally be answered to.

Quoting Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>:

On Thu, May 21, 2009 at 6:45 PM, James Read wrote:
Thanks for trying but this is not what I class as evidence. My basic
opinion is that if you wish to be taken seriously in a discussion then
you need to provide primary data which back up your assertions. Citing
secondary sources as an authority just doesn't cut any ice around here.

Hi James,

Citing sources does cut the ice around here. You really can't expect
people to start and reinvent the wheel each time. A good source can
give you a good background of what the various views of a particular
text where over time, and what various objections have been raised.
Really, these texts have been studied for thousands of years. Don't
you think it is wise to at least read up on the various ways the
languages and texts have been viewed over time, rather than try to
work it all on your own from scratch?


Of course, the reading of secondary sources can be useful it they reference the primary sources well. Reading secondary sources that comment on primary source evidence can help you understand the data relevant to the debate and the various interpretations and help you form an opinion. The method of the objective scientist is not to accept received wisdom but to put everything to the test so as not to run the risk of making misguided conclusions based on unfounded assumptions.

However, quoting secondary sources and the primary sources they quote is one thing. Telling a person to go away and read a book is a bout as useful as me replying 'go away and read Genesis' with no indication as to which part of it I feel will help you better understand the issues being discussed.


In ancient times, languages were classified together based on
historical relationships, and vice versa. You can see this in the
Table of Nations, where the two are essentially implied together.


Well, yes and no. It is not entirely clear that the author's intention was to suggest families of languages in any way.


But modern linguistics classifies languages based on linguistic
criteria alone. In Indo-European linguistics, sound changes have
proven very useful for this. However, in Afroasiatic linguistics,
where the languages were spoken in much nearer proximity to
each other for long periods of time (unlike Indo-European
languages that were spread out), this is not as useful.


Yes. Linguistics can be useful. But as with any approach you need to recognise its limitations before you start making conclusions and presenting them as an absolute truth.

If in a few thousand years time somebody had no evidence other than a few manuscripts from South America and North Africa he would conclude that the South Americans came from Rome and that the North Africans all came from Mecca. Anybody who quotes secondary sources as authorative without showing that they have considered things objectively and aware of the limitations and possible problems with the theories presented *cannot* be taken seriously in any kind of objective discussion of this kind.


You can read here (Alice Faber's article in Hetzron's The
Semitic languages) on the classification of Akkadian as
separate from West Semitic:
http://books.google.com/books?id=RWhvl4hD7S4C&pg=PA7

Because West Semitic languages contain innovations not
found in East Semitic, and East Semitic has innovations not
in West Semitic, we theorize that each developed on a
separate path rather than from the other language. The
main question is what to decide as an innovation. Hetzron
suggested two principles:
a) archaic heterogeneity. Basically, the more heterogeneous
a language appears to be, the more archaic it is presumed to
be.
b) shared morpholexical innovations. The morpholexicon is
the "lexicon" of the morphemes of a language. So in English
verbs, you have "ask", "asked", "asks", giving you -0, -ed,
and -s as the morpholexicon of the verb. If two languages
show the same innovations in the morpholexicon as
compared with another, they are presumed to be related in
a genetic subgrouping to which the other language is not.
They are useful because they are least susceptible to
borrowing and relate to the structure of the language itself.
In other words, the main principle driving the innovations
in the morpholexicon is analogies among forms in the
language. Another unrelated language will have different
forms and therefore will not generate the same analogies
and innovations.


Again, at first glance this might seem like a good method that provides conclusive results. But that's more than a little naive. There are far too many variables to make these kind of conclusions with any certainty.

This is why some people prefer to include in the consideration the things written in the ancient sources.

e.g. if in a few thousand years somebody reads an account about how the Spanish collonised South America the researcher could decide to conclude that the South Americans once had their own indigenous language and spoke a Latin based dialect as a result of the colonisation.

The main point at the end of the day is that we can only have any kind of constructive and objective discussion by bringing the data to the fore. Assuming that something is true just because person X who you, for whatever reason, choose to respect is not the kind of argument that is likely to convince me. I think (hope) Karl will back me up in this stance.

James Christian





Yitzhak Sapir
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