Re: con-translation (was: Semitic/Celtic Ties)

At 12:36 pm -0500 21/3/99, Steg Belsky wrote:
>Semitic and Rokbeigalmki explanations below:
>
>On Fri, 12 Mar 1999 20:03:45 +0000 "Raymond A. Brown"
><raybrown@...> writes:
>>A Semitic 'translation':
>>"The engraved monument which I set over my resting place in Land of
>>Beauty.
>>THE ENGRAVED MONUMENT.'
>
>>Another Semitic 'translation':
>>'The engraved monument which I, Enete son of Sippai, have erected.
>>THE
>>ENGRAVED MONUMENT.'
>
>Okay....here's my evaluation of the Semitic explanations:
>
>"epioi" - i have no idea what this is supposed to mean, or how they got
>"engraved monument".....the only words i know for "engraved" and
>"monument" come from the roots HhRT and NTzB, respectively.
Yep - in fact I forgot when I posted the original - which you quoted below
- to explain that Gordon was working from a photograph of the inscription
and read the first word as 'epiTi', not 'epioi'.

At that date (3rd cent. BC) the Greek theta was written just like the
omicron (i.e. our upper case 0) with a dot in the centre.  Gordon IIRC
discusses the letter but is certain that the photograph shows a clear dot
there.  Steiglitz followed Gordon's reading of the inscription.

However, I saw and was allowed to handle the actual inscription itself when
I visited Crete in 1971.  At that time I had not come across Davis'
translation so  assumed the first word would be 'epiTi'.  I was most
surprised to find that it is not so.  I examined the word _extremely
carefully_ and I have no doubt at all that the word is 'epioi', which, as
you say, is meaningless from a Semitic point of view.

I was going to mail a postscript to point out my omission - but then I
thought "One of our Semticists is bound to query this. I'll wait & explain
then."  Ah well, so now you know  :)

[? = aleph; H = heth; T = teth; ` = ayin; S = tsade]

Gordon read it thus:
h-ptH = the engraved monument
z-jtnt = which I have set
`-nHt-j b-?rS jpj = over my resting place in Land of Beauty

Steiglitz read it thus:
h-ptH = the engraved monument
z-jtnt = which I have set   OR  z-jTn?t = which I have erected
Enete Bar-Sippai

>"zETanTE" #1 - the first one seems to interpret this as some equivalent
>of the Hebrew _zeh ssamti_ ({ss} = sin), "this i put".  So, assuming that
>"epioi" has something to do with monuments, "epioi zeh samti" means "i
>put this monument" or "this monument, which i put".
>
>"zETanTE" #2 - the second one interprets this as the beginning of this
>name, but i don't see how they got "which I" from _zET(a)_.
Hope my transcriptions above help.

>"par siPai" - the first one is more interesting....it explains this,
>neglecting the space, as _b-ars yfai_, equivalent to Hebrew _b'eretz
>yofi_, "in (the) land of beauty".  I like this one :)
Yes - except, unfortunately, the word division does not correspond to the
inscription

>"par siPai" - the second assumes that the {p} is /b/ and the {P} is a /p/
>or geminated /pp/, a continuation from before, _(a/e)nete bar sipai_,
>"Enete son of Sippai".
Yes, indeed.  I find 'par' for 'bar' a bit odd.

>I don't know about the three symbols...they sort of look like they could
>mean "the engraved monument" in some kind of Chinese-style ideographic
>characters, although i don't see why it would use a symbol for "the" at
>the beginning...
Not likely, I think, to be ideographic.  They must, presumably, be
ultimately derived from the old Linear A syllabary which was thought to
have died out well before the end of the 2nd millennium BC.  However, the
continued survival of the related Cyrpriote syllabary well into the
Classical period, means we cannot rule out the local survival of a related
syllabary in Crete.   But it seems to me unlikely that they'd simply be
used to repeat the first word!

>.the Semitic languages i know would say "the-monument
>the-engraved", with a need for either no "the" symbol or two.
>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
[snip]
>
>The evidence is inconclusive, but this may be a Rokbeigalmki legal text
>of a child "divorcing" his/her parents.  It seems to be written in either
>a very degenerated dialect, or it could have been transcribed by a
>non-native speaker.
[Rokbeigalmki translation snipped - but carefully noted :) ]
>
>The THREE SYMBOLS however, *aren't* Linear!
>They're actually Rokbeigalmki letters, probably the signature initials of
>the three people involved, "Mouth", the Artist, and the Child:
Ah - so their resemblance to the Linear A & Linear B scripts is purely
co-incidental.  Or maybe the Rokbeigalmki script is ultimately related to
the early Aegean scripts?

[....]
>
>Therefore, it has been proven that the inscription is actually a public
>record of the child "/&j/"'s divorce from his/her parents, "Ou" Mouth and
>"Au" the Artist, signed with their initials, reading:
>
>_e! (ei!) fyao i zhesh-a - nyih tze bar sidfarit.  ou. au. /&j/._
>
>"(hark)! 'Mouth' and the Artist - not your jumpiest child.  Ou. Au.
>/&j/."
Just as I was getting used to the idea that it was proto-Elet-Anta - darn
it! I'll have to revise things again - and look into the possibility of a
connexion between the Aegean scripts of the 2nd millennium BC and the
Rokbeigalmki script.  No rest for us researchers  :)


>>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>Convinced?
>>
>>Now do better   :-)
>>
>>Ray.
>>
>
>Well, i'm not sure if it's "better", but it sure is different.... :)
It sure is!

>(no new words were coined)
>
>
>-Stephen (Steg)
> "hhalomot zeh b'emet"
Thanks Steg.
Ray.