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

Steg Belsky wrote:

> This brings up another probably implausible concept i was thinking of
> with Judean....the adoption of articles.  From what other people have
> said, the modern Romance definite articles are descended from words
> meaning something like "this"?
Yeah, from "ille, illa, illud".  My Latin's pretty rusty, but I'm pretty sure
that Spanish "esta" etc. descend from another Latin demonstrative,
"iste".

> I was thinking, would it be possible for articles to just simply be
> adopted from a previously-known language that has them?
> So for instance, using Ray's absolute-plural form _ponteru_....if the
> Hebrew article was adopted, "the *ponteru" would be _happonteru_ (with
> gemination of the P).
> Is something like that happening at all possible?  And if it is, does
> Greek have articles that could be used?
Yeah, Greek had articles even in Classical times (Latin didn't until
Protoromance): /hO/, /he:/, and /tO/ (masc, fem, neut).  If Latin
hadn't developed in Protoromance, Judeo-Romance mighta developed
it under the influence of Greek anyways.  Very plausible.

> >Right -- the literacy levels around that time were something no more
> >than, like, 5% or so, IIIC...
>
> Not trying to self-inflate or anything, but literacy levels among Jews
> have always been substantially higher than in the surrounding
> populations, because of the emphasis in Judaism on the study of religious
> texts, such as the Torah, the Talmud, etc. .  And i seem to remember
> vaguely learning that one of the leaders of Judea during this period
> instituted some kind of public education system....my notes from last
> year aren't that detailed, though, unfortunately.
Well, I wouldn't be surprised, but still the literacy levels would (a)
still be far below what would probably be required for spelling
pronunciations to start being introduced, and (b) they would be in
the wrong language ;-) .  Only the extraordinarily educated individuals
of society would have had been literate in multiple languages (and, as so
many languages had no literary histories to begin with, the unliklihood
is all the greater)

BTW, I'm not quite sure that the Jewish educational establishment
was entirely without precedent.  To be sure, it had good reason to
give special emphasis to literacy, but the Romans during the late
empire had set up grammar schools as part of the general welfare
programs that had been set up for the underprivileged at the time,
much as they set up state run orphanages, and, more importantly,
free handouts of grain for the poor.  I'm not sure exactly how much
of the population received the benefits of this program, but I know it
wasn't limited only to the wealthy owners of _latifundia_ (plantations
not unlike those of the American South during the early 19th century)
or rich merchants, or the traditional aristocracy.


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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
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