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

Padraic Brown wrote:

> > Neither of which I really could imagine, IMHO.  The first requires a
> > kind of social organization that simply did not exist, and the second=
,
> > while being much more probable, IMO does not explain why future
> > generations would, with the spread of education, not attempt to spell
> > phonemicly (as the idea of a "proper" spelling system is an invention=
 of
> > the last 300 years or so -- it certainly didn't exist then to any
> > measurable degree).
>
> I guess what I'm saying is that it might have become a kind of
> affectation.  It's been mentioned that there was a literacy rate of abo=
ut
> 5% at the time (probably a lot higher as time progresses).
No, that's just it:  5% was an upper limit. I mean, it *could* have been
more at certain periods, but the society at the time simply had a lot
more important things to deal with than literacy (like barbarian invasion=
s,
wars with Persia, palace coups, etc.).  The empire was growing much
*poorer* as time went on (due to lots of causes, but mainly overtaxation =
and
civil wars) and so it would have been increasingly harder for people to
afford an education, despite institutions like the grammatici (I *think* =
that's
what they were called).

> If the
> literate of the Proto-Judean period affect the -m based on written Lati=
n;
> this will not necessarily have an effect on the illiterate.  Especially=
 if
> the affectation is purely orthographic.  Over time, and with improving
> education, this affectation can spread and eventually become standard, =
if
> it were pronounced.  (cf. the axian/ascian business in English, whereby
> the once popular axian has been relegated to low class dialect, if I
> understood the discussion aright).
But the question of sociolect doesn't have anything to do with
the effect an orthography might have on the spoken language.
Acsian and ascian coexisted, in different dialects, for hundreds
of years, until the rise of the standard language fostered the sense
of "lesser speech".  "Ask" won out, not because it was the form
used in writing (both forms are attested even to this day), but
because it was used in the dialect in and around London, on
whose dialect the Standard was based.   The Standard was just
one of many dialects, and was not "chosen" because it was better,
but simply *was* the form used by the =E9lite (who lived around
London).

> As for a standardised spelling: I am not a Jew, but I gather that Jews =
set
> great store in the proper recording of the Law, and such.  Might that n=
ot
> be an impetus for some kind of standaridisation in spelling?  All this
> assuming that, like the Alexandrian and other Jews, they were not using
> Hebrew.  Or is that all out of kilter?
Well, if I remember correctly, it was more important to copy the text *ex=
actly*
as it had been handed down to you, no matter whether or not it spelled
"Elohim" five different ways (which I find unlikely, as Hebrew was fairly
consistently phonemic).  If you got a word wrong, you had to bury it or
something (at least, I think that's what's Medieval monks did;  not sure
if there's any correlation).

> As for my comparison with American (or any modern) users of Latin:  The=
re
> are very few people anymore who have been exposed to spoken Latin (thos=
e
> that have are, generally, Roman Catholics over the age of 55 or so), so
> all of the "Latin experience" for the rest of us comes out of books.
> Hence, we pronounce final M's.  Now, I understand that Judean is
> ultimately derived from Proto-Romance, like French or Spanish; and thus
> will not have inherited an M or even perhaps a nasalisation from that
> source.  Now, what happens when the literate Judeans early on get their
> hands on Latin texts?  Perhaps they'll see the M's and adopt the practi=
ce.

Okay, let me draw an analogy for you here, and assume for the sake of
argument that literacy does increase over time (though as I've stated I h=
ave
great doubt about this).  Centuries ago, in say the mid 1700s, the vast m=
ajority
of people in the English speaking world were illiterate, with (and I admi=
t I'm
guessing here) no better than, say, 30%.   At that time, there were still=
 *plenty*
of texts that used the third person singular present ending -(e)th.  Now,=
 by this
time the change from -(e)th to -(e)s had become almost complete in both t=
he
Standard language and most dialects.  Now consider:  what did all those l=
iterate
people do with the -(e)th?  Did they think "Wow, that's a neat ending; I =
think I'll
start using that"?  No, of course not.  They basically ignored it.  It's =
an archaism,
something that you should recognize as a form used by stuffed-shirts to s=
ound
haughty, but not something that you should use in normal discourse (e.g. =
Jefferson
uses "hath" in the Declaration of Independence to add just that kind of o=
fficiality
to it, IMO).  And that in a society where vastly more people (six times o=
ur
number for antiquity) would have been literate (just enough) to produce s=
pelling
pronunciations.

Yet that is exactly analogous to the question of Latin <-m>:  both the -(=
e)th
and the -m were part of an inflectional morphology no longer felt to be r=
elevant
to the speech of contemporary speakers.  They were both archaisms, things
that had to be recognized so as to read the "Classics", like Virgil or Ci=
cero
(just as we do with Shakespeare and Chaucer) but not something you'd want
to start using yourself.

=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
ICQ#: 4315704   AIM: Deuterotom
Website: <http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."

There's nothing particularly wrong with the
proletariat. It's the hamburgers of the
proletariat that I have a problem with. - Alfred Wallace
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D