Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Oh. And by the way. This thread was about language modelling. It was in
reply to an honest question from a list member about how we go from phoneme
recognition to its graphic representation. If you must express your gripes
could you at least have the courtesy to not pollute a thread with a
non-relevant title and either:

a) post your gripes in the relevant thread or
b) start a new thread with subject griping or something similar

Some of us who spend time contributing to this list hope that what we write
may at some time in the future be of benefit to web-surfers using search
engines to find their questions. What you post goes in the archives. Someone
looking for the answer of how to go from a phonemic recognition to its
graphic representation will now find your nice anecdotal story about a
professor who taught politics using texts from Aristotle and your gripes
about discussions on the list. Web-surfer will probably not be all that
satisfied with the results. i.e. your contribution is worthless.

James Christian

2010/1/24 Barry <nebarry AT verizon.net>

>
>
> --------------------------------------------------
> From: "Randall Buth" <randallbuth AT gmail.com>
> Sent: Sunday, January 24, 2010 2:26 AM
> To: "James Christian" <jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>
> Cc: "Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
> Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Reflection on Randall's Statement
>
> > Well, that means that we who recognize three Akkadian vowels I, A, U (and
> > E +/O)
> > are sitting with the whole field of Semitic studies and 150 years of
> > phonological
> > work. And we/they have recognized that the evidence is compelling.
> > And you are sitting alone trying to believe that any voice from the
> street
> > has
> > equal weight by saying "I don't/can't see evidence". It's not our
> > fault or responsibility.
> > As Sapir said, "It is amazing how far you'd go to simply refuse to
> > even read evidence
> > against your position."
> > And the evidence is massive and far beyond the practical constraints
> > of a public
> > email list. We can summarize for someone, but that person must have a
> > desire
> > to learn.
>
> This reminds me of an experience as  a college freshman, taking, of all
> things, an a "history of political science" course, in which the instructor
> (whom I remember as one of the the best professors I ever had outside of my
> major) taught using classic texts, starting with Aristotle's Politics.
> There was a group of "agenda" students in the class -- chances are if if
> any
> one has been around a university long enough for any reason you have
> encountered the like -- who absolutely insisted that we couldn't know what
> Aristotle really wrote because we couldn't be sure that the knowledge of
> ancient Greek had been accurately preserved.  No amount of evidence would
> convince them otherwise, and they would have gone on incessantly had the
> professor finally not told them (politely) to shut up and not bring up the
> issue again.
>
> That's what I think James is -- an agenda student, and he sure has been
> successful in diverting lots of list energy to considering that agenda.  If
> he really thinks he has something, let him interact with the range of
> published literature and publish his thesis, and see how that fares.  In
> the
> meantime, maybe the list could discuss issues related to biblical Hebrew as
> a language, rather than spelling and historical linguistics?
>
> N.E. Barry Hofstetter
>
> Fecisti nos ad te et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in te...
>    -- Augustine, Confessions 1:1
>
> http://mysite.verizon.net/nebarry/
> http://my.opera.com/BarryHofstetter/blog/
>
>
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