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Old June 3rd 04, 04:25 PM
Circe
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Holger Dansk wrote:
On Wed, 2 Jun 2004 16:32:43 -0700, "Circe"
wrote:
Holger Dansk wrote:
On Wed, 2 Jun 2004 13:33:07 -0700, "Circe"
wrote:
Um, are you suggesting that Greek was the first language to have
vowels in it?

I'm not suggesting it but saying that it was.

Nonsense. It is *impossible* to speak without making vowel sounds.
Period. Vowel sounds are a necessary requirement of human speech.
And Greek is hardly the first language invented by humans, let alone
the first language to be represented by writing. Are you suggesting
that the Egyptians (as just one example), who were capable of
representing names like Osiris and Amenhotep in hieroglyphs 2000
years before the Greek alphabet was invented, did not use vowel
sounds in their languages or did not have words? Or that
the Chinese, who have been writing their language down without
interruption since 1200 BC (fully 400 years before Homer and the
dissemination of the Greek alphabet) do not now and did not when
they began writing use vowels when they spoke?

All I can say is that you are *sadly* misinformed.


Greek Alphabets

Apart from using the characters of the Greek alphabets as notations
in my maths and science classes, I don't know how to read Greek.


I, however, *do* read Greek, along with Latin and a smattering of Hebrew.

I can therefore state with absolute authority that spoken Hebrew has (and
has always had) vowel sounds. In ancient times, however, writers did not
represent the vowels with letters on the page; in more recent times,
however, vowels were added to the written language with a system known as
"pointing". Most modern text of the Hebrew Bible include pointe to designate
the vowels, even though the original texts did not have them.

However, I can give you a brief history on the Greek alphabets.

As I have a Master's degree in Calssics, I am well aware of the history of
the Greek alphabet. What the text you quoted fails to note is that prior to
the development of the Greek alphabet as we know it, Greek was written in a
script known as Linear B (in use from 1500-1200 BCE). Linear B, like
Egyptian hieroglyphics and many Asian writing systems, was a syllabic
script. It was, however, Greek, and the words represented include many words
familiar to us from the later alphabetic script. In both cases, the words
had vowels.

I will, however, give you the benefit of the doubt and allow that you may
have been led by the imprecision of the text you quoted to believe that the
Greeks somehow invented the vowel sound, as in the following excepts:

"What the Greeks invented, was their own set of characters and their
introduction to the vowels in the alphabets full of consonants. The
Phoenician and other Semitic languages didn't have vowels."...


"The Greeks made many contributions to the world in addition to
putting vowels in language."


If the writer had simply accurately stated that Semitic languages didn't
have *written* vowels and that the Greeks put vowels into the *written*
language, you might not have been led so far astray. All the Greeks invented
was a method of representing a vowel sound with a written symbol. Vowel
*sounds*, OTOH, had no need to be invented, since any month-old infant is
quite capable of producing them!
--
Be well, Barbara
Mom to Sin (Vernon, 2), Misery (Aurora, 4), and the Rising Son (Julian, 6)

Aurora (in the bathroom with her dad)--"It looks like an elephant, Daddy."
Me (later)--"You should feel flattered."

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