Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Martin:

On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 6:50 PM, Martin Shields<enkidu AT bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> On 27/06/2009, at 11:11 AM, K Randolph wrote:
>
>> What it means in your dialect is irrelevant to standard English. Since
>> this is a discussion about standard English, we must ignore your
>> dialect. End of story.
>
> Who speaks this "standard English"?

Good question. And deserves an answer.

For me, the understanding is of that variety of a language that is the
widest understood and recognized by practice as the standard by which
all the regional dialects are measured. In England, it is recognized
as the BBC English which, other than a few words and an accent, is
almost identical to American (both U.S. and Canada) plains states
English, which is the language taught in schools and to ESL students
throughout the world. There is no one person who speaks for it.

In contrast, dialects are regional, with quirks and idiosyncrasies not
shared outside the region. No one would call Cockney “standard”, nor
U.S. southern drawl, nor various dialects unique to Boston or New
York, rather they all are recognized as non-standard. And an educated
person will recognize where his local dialect differs from the
recognized standard, and will be able to speak that standard to people
from outside his region.

Those who write dictionaries try to adhere to standard English as
closely as they can. That is, except those dictionaries targeted at
those regional dialects. That is why dictionaries are often a good
source for information on standard usage. The same is true with all
languages.

> Surely everyone's speech is coloured by
> regional idiosyncrasies and variations and that any reference to some sort
> of "standard English" is some sort of Platonic archetype which finds no
> actual manifestation in the real world (in this I think Gabe made a good
> point). All we have access to is the actual manifestations of the language.
> If uncancellable meaning only applies to "standard English" then it is a
> proposition which has very limited real-world relevance to understanding
> language.
>
>From the way the term has been used by Rolf and others in messages on
this list, this is a concept that applies equally to all languages and
dialects. However, those found in Cockney are often different ones
than those found in BBC English. The greater the difference between
the standard language and a dialect, the more the uncancellable
meanings will be different ones.

> And (in an attempt to give this at least some passing relevance to Hebrew),
> why do we suppose that BH should be any different. I think Karl's earlier
> comment:
>
>> Now back to Biblical Hebrew: during the time it was written, from about
>> 1400–400 BC, it remained remarkably stable, with almost no change in
>> lexicography and grammar.
>
> conceals all manner of difficulties which simply cannot allow such a claim
> to be readily made.
>
Oh good, a Hebrew question! Could you expand on this?

I have found literary differences over time, i.e. the application of
linguistic rules varied, but I have seen almost no indication that the
language itself changed during that period.

> ISTM that there is an almost insurmountable difficulty faced by anyone
> proposing some form of uncancellable meaning, since only one exception would
> prove to be the downfall of the theory.

No, it can just as likely be an improper application of the concept,
or in the case of Hebrew, because so many lexemes are only imperfectly
understood, that we often can’t apply the concept.

Which brings up the question, did Rolf properly apply the concept in
his dissertation? I don’t know. But seeing as David Kummerow
misapplied the concept for English language, why should I trust his
analysis concerning something I don’t know? Seeing as David
mischaracterized it for English, inclines me to accepting Rolf’s
dismissal of his analysis as being inaccurate for Hebrew as well.

> OTOH, the identification of some
> terms which may appear to have uncancellable meaning cannot readily be
> extrapolated to substantiate the claim that the principle applies across the
> entire language.
>
The concept of uncancellable meaning applies equally to all languages
and dialects, with the caveat that individual uncancellable meanings
may not be the same ones used in a regional dialect. Nor does this
mean that words are immune to change, rather what is today
uncancellable in the understanding of a term, may no longer be valid
for that term a century later.

> In light of this, what is the uncancellable meaning of "wicked"?
>
A good example of the last point I stated above.

> --
> Martin Shields,
> Sydney, Australia.

Karl W. Randolph.

Ps: I’m not going to play David Kummerow’s game anymore.