Biblical Hebrew Forum

[James Christian <jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>]

An even more interesting example are the Slavonic languages Russian and
Ukrainian. Both cultures now have a Gregorian calendar even if the church
dates are still Julian and yet Ukrainian has maintained Slavonic month names
where Russian has Latin based ones.

James Christian

2010/1/19 K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>

> Stoney:
>
> On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 1:19 PM, Stoney Breyer <
> stoneyb AT touchwoodcreative.com> wrote:
>
> >   Karl:
> >
> > You write:
> >
> > German is a better example, why I used the word “tend” instead of saying
> > “never”. Even there, does this represent a change over from a lunar month
> > system to a solar one?
> >
> >
> >
> > I reply:
> >
> > Nobody knows. But if it does, again, so what? Is the change a grassroots
> > movement?
> >
>
> If this is a replacement of a solar month system for a previous lunar
> system, then there can be a system similar to what is found in many places
> today, where a local lunar calendar with its names co-resides with the
> international solar calendar with its Latin based names. If the German
> example is similar with that, then as international trade became more
> important, the local lunar calendar could have been forgotten. The same
> thing is happening around the world—the local calendar is maintained for
> religious and/or social customs, but the day to day life is lived in the
> Latin calendar. I live in one such milieu.
>
>
> > You write:
> >
> > Modern English is a creole, a mixture of Old English and medieval French,
> > with a massive dollop of Latin with other languages mixed into the mess.
> > Only a fairly small percentage of modern English is from Old English,
> mainly
> > words that are in the most common spoken use.
> >
> >
> >
> > I reply:
> >
> > So what? The “native” name was replaced by a foreign name; it doesn’t
> > really matter whether the new name derived from the clergy or the
> Conqueror,
> > in either case it exemplifies what Randall suggested.
> >
> >
> >
> It isn’t “so what?” because the majority of English vocabulary is either
> directly from Latin or mediated through French. A far smaller percentage is
> Old English. Since the French used the Latin names for the month as their
> “native” names, for them it was not a replacement. Because a creole is a
> mixing of languages, and because the Latin/French portion is larger than
> the
> Old English, this is not an example of what Randall suggested.
>
> Another reason could be the same as I suggested for German above.
>
> >
> >
> > Stoney Breyer
> >
> > Writer/Touchwood Creative
> >
>
> But the Hebrew example is neither a replacement of one calendar by another,
> nor a creole, therefore for the names to be replaced within Hebrew raises
> questions.
>
> Karl W. Randolph.
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