Re: Old Languages

At 3:42 pm -0500 10/10/01, Thomas R. Wier wrote:
>Quoting Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>:
[snip]
>>
>> That Classical Latin distinguished between _recitare_ "to read out
>> aloud" and _legere_ "to observe [a document], to peruse, to read"
>>suggests to
>> me that people did at least read Latin silently 2000 years ago.
>
>[...]
>
>> It's true that in post-Augustan Latin one will find _legere_ also used
>> of reading aloud; but the earlier distinction seems clear enough.
>
>FWIW, there's a short passage in one of Augustine's many works
>where Augustine is going to meet St. Ambrose of Milan, and finds him
>in his study intently reading a book silently to himself, the very
>silence of which surprised him.  Some have taken this as evidence that
>most people did not read silently in the way we take "silent reading"
>to mean today, but rather at best they read whispering it to oneself.
I've known people who read in a whisper to themselves even in these modern
times.

It could just be that St Ambrose was so intent on his studies that he was
utterly silent, no movement at - the sort of silence one can, in a way,
"hear" because of the utter lack of noise.  I remember experiencing that
sort of silence at a parish social many years ago when I lived in the
Midlands in a parish which was _very_ Irish.  Someone was going to sing in
Gaelic. The silence that came over the gathering was so utter in intense it
was almost unbelievable.  The singer was heard - tho I think not many in
that hall actually understood her words - with rapt attention.

In any case, it is clear testimony that Ambrose read silently.

I find it hard to believe that noone could understand the political slogan,
love messages etc scrawled on the walls of Pompeii or understood what
offers local shops were announcing until they had at least whispered the
words to themselves.   Many must surely have understood just by reading the
words as most of us do.

I can understand older, more complicated systems like ancient Egyptian were
more often read aloud, or at least whispered.  But I find it hard,
personally, to believe that scribes who wrote the stuff day and day out
could not also read the writing silently.

I am still curious to know what the evidence is that this was not so.

Ray.


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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                     [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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