Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: Ignorant people & diacritics

From:Steg Belsky <draqonfayir@...>
Date:Saturday, December 4, 2004, 20:24
On Dec 4, 2004, at 5:46 PM, caeruleancentaur wrote:
> Speaking in an historical context you may be right about the > corvée. But speaking in the Biblical context (which I believe we > are doing), "slave" is the word to use. The word "`ebed" > means "slave" pure and simple and that is the word used in the > Bible and so understood for several millennia. Under the Mosaic Law, > slaves had certain rights. As I read the story in Exodus the > Egyptian rulers didn't give any rights to their "day laborers." This > is only one example of many in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures of a > theological concept overriding an historical fact. > Charlie
I respectfully disagree. In my experience, _`eved_ covers all of the semantic range of the English terms "slave", "servant", and "indentured servant". And in the compound _`eved hamelekh_, 'servant of the king', it denotes a high government official. -Stephen (Steg) "verbing weirds language" ~ calvin (& hobbes)