Re: Just a Little Taste of Judean (Part 2)

On Sun, 11 Apr 1999, Raymond A. Brown wrote:

>
> What you'd have to do if you insist on the final -m is to explain why
> Judeans who aren't, as you say, native Latin speakers, have restored a
> sound long lost to the spoken language.
Why not for the same reason we (English speakers) do?  We don't say
"sanctu sanctoru", we say "sanctum sanctorum"; "quorum" not "quoro".
Perhaps the Protojudeans could pick it up from written Latin?

> If you want the -m then it can only come about if we imagine that for some
> reason a group of Aramaic (or Aramaic & Greek) speaking Judeans decide to
> learn Classical Latin from written form only and then, for some strange
> reason, they or their descendants actually start speaking it.  I'm finding
> that a difficult scenario to envisage.
Well, if they eventually end up with a "standard form", I see no reason
why it couldn't be applied at least to the spelling.

So that makes for two possibilities: they pick it up from written
(Classical) Latin and end up pronouncing it (perhaps only in elevated
registers?); they pick it up from written Latin, spelling it but leaving
it silent always.

Padraic.

>
> Ray.
>