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Bill Cosby - NAACP leaders stunned by remarks of prominent comedian



 
 
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  #521  
Old June 3rd 04, 06:01 PM
Circe
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Holger Dansk wrote:
On Thu, 3 Jun 2004 08:25:52 -0700, "Circe"
wrote:

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.


That's what putting vowels in a language is.

No, it isn't, but never mind. Written vowels clearly haven't improved your
capacity either to think or reason

Vowel *sounds*, OTOH, had no need to be invented, since any
month-old infant is quite capable of producing them!


Of course there was every need for vowels.


Of course there is a need for vowels. Every language *has* them. Moreover,
vowels *are* represented in syllabic writing systems: the symbol for the
syllable "ma", for example, is different than the symbol for the syllable
"mu", and therefore, the vowel *does* exist in the written language and *is*
represented.

It gave the Greeks an
advantage because they were able to create new words easier.


Again, pure nonsense. The Greeks had a very large vocabulary, that is true.
The fact that they had individuals symbols for vowels in their written
language has absolutely no relevance to the number of words in the language.
If it did, one would expect Latin, which also has vowels, to have at least
as many words in its vocabulary as Greek. This is not the case. Latin has a
*far* smaller vocabulary then Greek. Word formation has absolutely nothing
to do with written language: words are typically formed in the *spoken*
language and represented in *written* language only when their meaning and
usage becomes accepted in the spoken language. There is no point in
committing a word to paper if no one understands or recognizes that word.

In order
to communicate you have to be able to write words down.


No. To communicate, you only have to get your ideas across to another
person. To preserve and pass communication and learning on into subsequent
generation, you need writing. But communication no more requires writing
than eating requires cooking.

Moreover, languages which do not have symbols with one-to-one correspondence
to vowel and consonant sounds are perfectly capable of communication. Are
you now going to claim that the Hebrew Bible is incapable of communicating
ideas because it is written in a language that had no written vowels at the
time it was committed to paper? That ancient Sanskrit and Egyptian
hieroglyphs communicate nothing to us because they have no vowel symbols?
That modern Chinese does not "write words down" because it is a syllabic
system?

With every post, you show yourself to be several thousand times more foolish
and ignorant than the "savages" you so denigrate.
--
Be well, Barbara

All opinions expressed in this post are well-reasoned and insightful.
Needless to say, they are not those of my Internet Service Provider, its
other subscribers or lackeys. Anyone who says otherwise is itchin' for a
fight. -- with apologies to Michael Feldman


  #522  
Old June 3rd 04, 06:11 PM
Holger Dansk
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On 3 Jun 2004 11:12:35 -0500, (Herman Rubin)
wrote:

In article ,
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.


Holger


At most, you can claim that Greek was the first language to
have an ALPHABETIC system of writing with all vowels being
EXPLICIT. One could make a case for this, but at least the
Indian alphabet independently introduced vowels, and I do
not believe that the Persian alphabet of the Behistun Rock,
which does have vowels, is based on the earlier Semitic one.
At least Grotefend did not find that to be the case when he
deciphered the inscription.


"As opposed to other types of writing systems including syllabaries, the
alphabetic principle seems to have been invented only once, by North
Semitic peoples living in Palestine and Syria in c. 1700 B.C. This
alphabet represented only consonants (22 consonants were initially
represented). The principle was diffused rapidly, but as symbols were
passed along, they also changed such that many of today's alphabetic
writing systems are unrecognizable as "daughter" systems deriving from
this one brilliant idea.
The North Semitic alphabet was used to represent Aramaic and Hebrew, and
was borrowed by the Phoenicians in approx. 1000 B.C., being passed on by
them to the Greeks, who added vowels, and thence to the Etruscans in
about 800 B.C. The Etruscan alphabet was the source of the Roman
alphabet that has since been adopted for use in many languages around
the world."

http://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/Fa...itinglect.html

These knuckleheads keep talking about spoken language which began about
30,000 years ago. I wonder if they even know what a vowel is? For
their information, the modern English vowels are a, e, i, o, and u.
These are letters that are written, and they should have learned how to
write some letters in the first grade. Written language began about
3,000 years ago.

We are not talking about some guttural grunting noises made 20,000 or
30,000 years ago. Forget about that doo doo.

Holger

http://www.mindspring.com/~holger1/holger1.htm
  #523  
Old June 3rd 04, 06:36 PM
Bob LeChevalier
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Holger Dansk wrote:
God help you. You are so messed up mentally. Get straightened out
quick. Life is too short. You will live it without even knowing what
was real and what was not. It seems that it may have been caused by too
much lying and being around people who do a lot. After a while, you get
to where you don't know what is real and what is not. In other words
you get out of contact with reality. Get away from the people that you
have been coming in contact with. Talk to a psychologist and/or a
psychiatrist that knows what they are doing. Not one of these damn fool
black nitwits that went to the University of Wedowee, or whatever. Make
sure they got their degree/degrees from a school like Emory Univ, Duke,
Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Princeton, Univ of GA, etc., etc. Get at
least 3 recommendations from physicians and 3 from others.


Hope you are talking to a mirror when you say that.

lojbab
--
lojbab
Bob LeChevalier, Founder, The Logical Language Group
(Opinions are my own; I do not speak for the organization.)
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:
http://www.lojban.org
  #525  
Old June 3rd 04, 06:45 PM
Holger Dansk
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On Thu, 03 Jun 2004 13:38:45 -0400, Bob LeChevalier
wrote:

wrote:
Reading and writing were invented by whites and Asians.


Really? Got any names?

Guess those people in Upper Egypt weren't reading and writing.


South of the Sahara they were running around chasing wildebeest, etc.

lojbab


Holger

http://www.mindspring.com/~holger1/holger1.htm
  #526  
Old June 3rd 04, 06:47 PM
Bob LeChevalier
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Holger Dansk wrote:
[obviously smoking something]
On Thu, 3 Jun 2004 08:25:52 -0700, "Circe" wrote:

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.


That's what putting vowels in a language is.


Nonsense. That's is what putting vowel symbols in an alphabet is.
Alphabets are orthogonal to language (or maybe one could say that they
are orthographic to language %^)

Vowel *sounds*, OTOH, had no need to be invented, since any month-old infant is
quite capable of producing them!


Of course there was every need for vowels.


They were already present, so there was no additional need.

It gave the Greeks an
advantage because they were able to create new words easier.


The Greeks gained no ability to create new words by adding vowel
symbols to their alphabet.

People make new words without any alphabet at all, and an alphabet
doesn't make it easier.

In order to communicate you have to be able to write words down.


Really? You mean no one on earth communicated until 3000BC? You mean
that the American Indians could not communicate, since they had no
written language? Or to you think they just walked around saying
"How!" all the time.

And God help you if you are ever struck deaf. All of those people who
use American (or other) Sign Language, which has neither vowels nor
consonants must not be communicating.

Not just make sounds like savages sending drum messages through the jungle.


There are drum languages which indeed serve to communicate. But that
has nothing to do with what you are discussing.


--
lojbab
Bob LeChevalier, Founder, The Logical Language Group
(Opinions are my own; I do not speak for the organization.)
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:
http://www.lojban.org
  #527  
Old June 3rd 04, 06:47 PM
Circe
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Holger Dansk wrote:
On 3 Jun 2004 11:12:35 -0500, (Herman
Rubin) wrote:
In article ,
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.


At most, you can claim that Greek was the first language to
have an ALPHABETIC system of writing with all vowels being
EXPLICIT. One could make a case for this, but at least the
Indian alphabet independently introduced vowels, and I do
not believe that the Persian alphabet of the Behistun Rock,
which does have vowels, is based on the earlier Semitic one.
At least Grotefend did not find that to be the case when he
deciphered the inscription.


snip quote which has no relevance to the subject at hand

These knuckleheads keep talking about spoken language which began
about 30,000 years ago.


Blink Bob and I (and Herman) have referred to languages like Hebrew,
Sanskrit, and Chinese. We have not remotely suggested that any of those
languages is 30,000 years old.

Bob and I *have* stated that vowel sounds are a component of all human
languages and have therefore presumably been present in human language since
its earliest development. There is *no* exstant human language that does not
consist of both consonant and vowel sounds, whether it was ever committed to
a native writing system by its speakers. It is highly unlikely that any
human system of verbal communication could have been produced without the
existence of vowel sounds given that no language exists now that does so.
Whether or not the vowel sounds are represented in *writing* has nothing,
therefore, to do with whether vowel sounds are present in language.
(Hawaiian was never committed to a native writing system, for example, yet
it clearly has plenty of vowel sounds in it!)

I wonder if they even know what a vowel
is? For their information, the modern English vowels are a, e, i, o,
and u.


Wrong again. You confuse the symbol with the symbolized. A vowel is a kind
of sound, distinct from a consonantal sound; the letters you have written
are merely symbols for representing those sounds. Moreover, in English, the
alphabetic symbols for the vowels do not have a one-to-one correspondence
with the *sounds* they can represent: a can be either an "ah" sound or an
"ay" sound; e can be "eh" or "ee" or unpronounced, and so on.

Oh, and you forgot "sometimes y".

These are letters that are written, and they should have learned
how to write some letters in the first grade.


And we all learned to say them years before we learned to write them. Ergo,
there is no relationship between *written* vowels and *spoken* ones. Ergo,
you are full of ****.

But then, we all knew that already.
--
Be well, Barbara

All opinions expressed in this post are well-reasoned and insightful.
Needless to say, they are not those of my Internet Service Provider, its
other subscribers or lackeys. Anyone who says otherwise is itchin' for a
fight. -- with apologies to Michael Feldman


  #528  
Old June 3rd 04, 06:54 PM
Circe
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Holger Dansk wrote:
Written language began about 3,000 years ago.

Wrong again, BTW.

The Sumerians began writing with pictographs around 3,200 BCW (a little over
5,000 years ago). The Egyptians developed hieroglyphic writing around the
same time. People in the Indus valley were writing by 2,500 BC, using both
pictographs and alphabetic symbols for individual characters. See
http://www.english.uga.edu/~hypertxt...y-writing.html
--
Be well, Barbara

All opinions expressed in this post are well-reasoned and insightful.
Needless to say, they are not those of my Internet Service Provider, its
other subscribers or lackeys. Anyone who says otherwise is itchin' for a
fight. -- with apologies to Michael Feldman


  #529  
Old June 3rd 04, 08:15 PM
Herman Rubin
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

In article ,
Holger Dansk wrote:
On 3 Jun 2004 11:12:35 -0500, (Herman Rubin)
wrote:


In article ,
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.


Holger


At most, you can claim that Greek was the first language to
have an ALPHABETIC system of writing with all vowels being
EXPLICIT. One could make a case for this, but at least the
Indian alphabet independently introduced vowels, and I do
not believe that the Persian alphabet of the Behistun Rock,
which does have vowels, is based on the earlier Semitic one.
At least Grotefend did not find that to be the case when he
deciphered the inscription.


"As opposed to other types of writing systems including syllabaries, the
alphabetic principle seems to have been invented only once, by North
Semitic peoples living in Palestine and Syria in c. 1700 B.C. This
alphabet represented only consonants (22 consonants were initially
represented). The principle was diffused rapidly, but as symbols were
passed along, they also changed such that many of today's alphabetic
writing systems are unrecognizable as "daughter" systems deriving from
this one brilliant idea.
The North Semitic alphabet was used to represent Aramaic and Hebrew, and
was borrowed by the Phoenicians in approx. 1000 B.C., being passed on by
them to the Greeks, who added vowels, and thence to the Etruscans in
about 800 B.C. The Etruscan alphabet was the source of the Roman
alphabet that has since been adopted for use in many languages around
the world."


http://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/Fa...itinglect.html

This information is somewhat outdated. The earliest known
alphabetic writing was found on a cliff in Egypt; it is
Semitic, and is about two centuries older than you have
stated. The Semitic alphabets almost only had symbols for
consonants; there are semi-vowels, and some of the symbols
for consonants did get used for vowel modification. AFAIK,
the idea of the alphabet spread and was not invented anew,
although the Indian alphabet has only a small similarity to
the Semitic alphabets, and the Persian alphabet seems to
have even less.

The Semitic alphabets varied in the numbers of characters;
to give an example, the Ugaritic alphabet, which was
modified for cuneiform writing, has 32 letters. Ugaritic
is extremely close as a language to Hebrew; Aramaic is
somewhat different. Aramaic was the lingua franca of the
western half of the Assyrian Empire, and continued in large
measure during the Persian Empire.

These knuckleheads keep talking about spoken language which began about
30,000 years ago. I wonder if they even know what a vowel is? For
their information, the modern English vowels are a, e, i, o, and u.
These are letters that are written, and they should have learned how to
write some letters in the first grade. Written language began about
3,000 years ago.


These are vowel LETTERS, not VOWELS. The English language
probably has two dozen representations of vowels; I have not
made any attempt to count them. Modern Hebrew has quite a
few ways to write vowels as well, somewhat standardized about
1000 years ago.

We are not talking about some guttural grunting noises made 20,000 or
30,000 years ago. Forget about that doo doo.


Chinese has more than 70,000 known characters, and a word
may require more than one character. Counting characters
is not a valid way to judge languages.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
 




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