Re: Lico, leicio, licio, hoffi, coffi. Was: Okay, so it *didn't* work

----- Original Message -----
From: Dan Sulani <dnsulani@...>

> On 8 Jan, Steg Belsky wrote:
> > Oh no!  It's more fodder for the Celtic-Semitic Connection Hypothesis!
Right... in a long post I posted years ago about Orin Gensler's latest work
on
this.

> > If i remember the "Bran teaches Will(?) to read Welsh" scene from _The
> > Grey King_ in the _Dark is Rising_ fantasy book series, {w} in Welsh is
> > pronounced /u/?  Which would make {Wlpan} something like /ulpan/ - and
> > /ulpan/ is Hebrew for "intensive language-learning program"!
It was borrowed from modern Hebrew. <G>

Dan writes:
>     Actually, I think that the connection is probably due to a _modern_
> Celtic-Semitic connection!  ;-)  IIRC, a number of years ago, the Welsh
> were very impressed by the Israeli success at reviving Hebrew as a
> modern spoken language via the "ulpan" system (essentially, a total
> immersion technique, with emphasis on acquiring the lang through speaking,
> rather than reading [ reading is not neglected altogether --- after all,
> nobody wants to turn out classes of functional illiterates! It's just
that,
> in an "ulpan", reading and writing are usually relegated to secondary
> importance].)
>     Anyhow, their people got together with our people in order
> to learn the system, so as to be able to adapt it to their needs in Wales.
> It's quite possible that they borrowed the Hebrew name along with the
> techniques.
>     BTW, "ulpan", coming from the root aleph-lamed-fe (= to highly train,
>  to be an expert) means essentially a place where an expert "does his
> thing". It is used mainly to describe an artist's studio,
> a media-broadcasting studio, an "ulpan" language-learning classroom,
> and in its Aramaic form, "ulpana", a high school for religious girls.
We were told on our first day that Wlpan, spelled in phonetic Welsh, was
a borrowing from the Hebrew system of teaching living languages.  We had,
basically, almost total immersion after a few weeks.  It couldn't be total
immersion in the beginning... Heini Gruffydd and Steve Morris had too
many jokes to tell in English.  But it was held every weeknight for two and
half
hours at University College of Swansea, so it was pretty intense!

You're right, Dan!

Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/teonaht.html