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karl fungus posted:What sort of advantage does an abjad have over an alphabet? Do you just write it faster? It doesn't have an advantage really. See, abjads developed first because consonants are the most important thing to get right and if your language is being spoken all around you it's easy for your intended readers to know what it should look like. Problems come in mostly, for our purposes anyway, from having no loving clue what the vowels were supposed to be for languages last spoken thousands of years ago. And of course, they're harder for new users of writing to learn - but where they developed originally you weren't likely to be literate unless you were already fairly high class or involved in important religious duties. Nowadays most abjad writing systems tend to have auxiliary means of communicating the vowels that can be used to mitigate such issues. So all the flaws inherent with abjad writing is why the only major languages today using them are Arabic and Hebrew, with the two very minorly used abjads for Syriac and Samaritan composing the rest. Both Arabic and Hebrew have means for indicating vowels directly, and it's of note that all 4 extant abjad systems exist pretty much due to religious connections.
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Oct 5, 2014 05:34
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Arglebargle III posted:Emperors will walk a thousand miles and cobblers will be kings. A whole lot of people will pursue Lu Bu. poo poo will get crazy, is what I'm saying. 
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Oct 5, 2014 06:18
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homullus posted:Why didn't the Greeks just take the Phoenician system letter-for-letter? One (compelling, to me) theory is that the Greeks turned the Phoenician syllabary into an alphabet not to keep track of accounts or laws, but expressly to write down Homer, because vowel quantity matters for scansion of epic hexameter. Everyone I've known has been a little contemptuous of the Homer theory; it's interesting to find someone who likes it.  As to why the Greeks alphabetised instead of being syllabic, I'll just add that the time Greek did use a syllabary, it was really bad. Linear B records do all sorts of loving stupid things, because it was a syllabary that the illiterate Greeks tried to cram their language into and it's a bloody awful fit. Here's an example, from KN E 777: ko-no-si-ja ki-ri-te-wi-ja-i You see that 'ja' ending, and that 'jai' ending? In terms of the actual Greek being represented, the 'ja' is 'jai', and the 'jai' is '(j)ahi'. The jai isn't jai, and the thing that isn't jai is jai. (Specifically, this refers to nominative feminine plural Knossian women who have an -ai ending, then dative plural Kiritewiahi who need their -hi ending). This silly bullshit is why we can't remove all those hyphens between every stupid Linear B syllable, and instead waste masses of ink/space/data on them. Sleep of Bronze fucked around with this message at 09:00 on Oct 5, 2014 |
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Oct 5, 2014 08:57
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Sleep of Bronze posted:Everyone I've known has been a little contemptuous of the Homer theory; it's interesting to find someone who likes it. I was contemptuous at first as well. It sounds so unlikely, but: -- the Phoenicians saw what the Greeks did with alphabetic writing, and didn't "advance" to it; the Etruscans later saw what the Greeks were doing with their alphabet, and adapted Greek alphabetic writing right back to syllabic writing. Clearly the other two cultures did not see a need for remembering what the vowels were, and in fact Phoenician trade flourished in this time without them -- On Cyprus at the time, they had a syllabary that DID record Greek vowels. If just the vowels were important, they could have used that system. What it could not do was consonant clusters (imagine "glows" and "gallows" in English being spelled the same), and Greek has a lot of those. -- Phoenician is written right-to-left. Alphabetic Greek was initially written boustrophedon (writing alternating left to right and right to left, with no spaces for word breaks or clauses). Did the Greeks just deviate from Phoenician writing out of ineptitude or on a whim, or did they conceive of writing in a different way? The snake-like writing of early alphabetic Greek looks more like the record of a continuous flow of sounds coming from somebody's mouth -- speaking of speaking, many of the earliest Greek inscriptions are recorded on objects as if the objects were speaking ("I am the cup of Nestor..."), in keeping with the notion of alphabetic writing being used to record speech -- exactly zero(!) early Greek alphabetic inscriptions deal with economics or the polis or accounts or the law, unlike Linear B; there are scribbles and names and even some graffiti, suggesting penetration of literacy beyond the ruling class, and inscriptions on cups and statues, objects only the elite could afford. Much of it demonstrates ownership ("So-and-so dedicated me..."). Much of it, including the scribbles and graffiti, is whole or fragmentary dactylic hexameter, the meter of Homer. Why does so much early Greek alphabetic writing scan, if you're recording Greek to facilitate trade? On top of THAT: -- comparing what early Greek alphabetic writing looked like to Phoenician over time, it looks like the Greek alphabet was adapted from the Phoenician syllabary around 800 B.C. -- the evidence in the surviving text of Homer (descriptions of warfare, no mention of literacy, et cetera), the evidence outside of Homer (artistic or literary references to things that we know happened in the Homeric Cycle somewhere), and the Greeks' own thoughts on Homer's date all put him around 800 B.C. Independent of the alphabet-for-Homer argument, we may even know the name of the man who invented the alphabet: in Greek mythology, Cadmus (not a Greek name, interestingly) is credited with adapting the Phoenician letters. tl;dr version: the Greek alphabet 1) is noticeably different from other writing systems before and since, in ways that make it easier to write down Greek poetry, 2) appeared right around the time Homer (as we know it) was composed, and 3) while a lot of our earliest examples of Greek alphabetic writing read like poetry, none of them are laws or accounting. You can say the alphabet was for trade, but the earliest stuff that's survived won't back you up, and then there's no explanation for why it's an actual alphabet in the first place.
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Oct 5, 2014 20:24
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homullus posted:-- the evidence in the surviving text of Homer (descriptions of warfare, no mention of literacy, et cetera) Not strictly true, though the implication can hardly be that it's widespread. He sent him to Lycia and gave him dire signs, many and deadly, written on a folded tablet, and told him to hand it over to his father-in-law so that he would be killed. Sleep of Bronze fucked around with this message at 01:39 on Oct 6, 2014 |
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Oct 6, 2014 01:32
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Nintendo Kid posted:
I think the system of runes used on the standing stones in ancient Celtic areas have a similar system but I'll have to dig up my class notes. From what I remember it's even weirder.
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Oct 6, 2014 01:34
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fuzzy_logic posted:I think the system of runes used on the standing stones in ancient Celtic areas have a similar system but I'll have to dig up my class notes. From what I remember it's even weirder. The Celtic runes had a full set of vowels in the alphabet, as did the various Scandinavian/Germanic runes. Some inscriptions have been found with vowels missing in places, but that seems to be more of a case of someone not using it well or straight up misspelling.
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Oct 6, 2014 01:40
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Nintendo Kid posted:The Celtic runes had a full set of vowels in the alphabet, as did the various Scandinavian/Germanic runes. Some inscriptions have been found with vowels missing in places, but that seems to be more of a case of someone not using it well or straight up misspelling. You're right; I had it confused with this weird theory regarding the Irish ogam scripts: http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~legneref/bronze/scotogam.htm People get so weird about the old British stuff, it's hard to untangle the neo-pagan magical bullshit from reality sometimes. This particular theory is just bizarre in that I've never heard it referenced anywhere else, and yet it's so detailed and utterly batshit crazy; has anybody encountered it before?
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Oct 6, 2014 01:55
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fuzzy_logic posted:You're right; I had it confused with this weird theory regarding the Irish ogam scripts: Nyland was totally bonkers, that site has a whole elaborate system about the Basque-Berber origins of Biblical Hebrew or something equally pointless. These cranks are kinda sad really, they devote so much time to poo poo that can at best do harm to their discipline of choice. The internet is full of amateur historical linguists with completely absurd agendas, most of them blinkered by religion or nationalism.
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Oct 6, 2014 02:05
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Ras Het posted:Nyland was totally bonkers, that site has a whole elaborate system about the Basque-Berber origins of Biblical Hebrew or something equally pointless. These cranks are kinda sad really, they devote so much time to poo poo that can at best do harm to their discipline of choice. The internet is full of amateur historical linguists with completely absurd agendas, most of them blinkered by religion or nationalism. Looks like this isn't on the curriculum at UC Riverside, but the faculty member is a Prof Emeritus in the entomology department? He has a ton of crank articles on his faculty page from pre-Columbian to African stuff, but this is not the "post your favorite Bronze Age insanity theories" so I'll leave it there I guess. fuzzy_logic fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Oct 6, 2014 |
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Oct 6, 2014 02:20
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fuzzy_logic posted:Looks like this isn't on the curriculum at UC Riverside, but the faculty member is a Prof Emeritus in the entomology department? He has a ton of crank articles on his faculty page from pre-Columbian to African stuff, but this is not the "post your favorite Bronze Age insanity theories" so I'll leave it there I guess. A .edu page isn't always a quality guarantee, no.
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Oct 6, 2014 02:31
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fuzzy_logic posted:"post your favorite Bronze Age insanity theories" I kind of want this. I wish I knew some, beyond the usual aliens/Atlantis stuff.
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Oct 6, 2014 02:42
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Fell Fire posted:I kind of want this. I wish I knew some, beyond the usual aliens/Atlantis stuff.
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Oct 6, 2014 03:51
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Fell Fire posted:I kind of want this. I wish I knew some, beyond the usual aliens/Atlantis stuff. There were no Greek dark ages, the chronology is just all screwed up! http://www.sis-group.org.uk/ancient.htm
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Oct 6, 2014 03:58
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Fell Fire posted:I kind of want this. I wish I knew some, beyond the usual aliens/Atlantis stuff. Abstract (but substantial) ideas, and not the material world of sense-perception, are the most fundamentally real things.
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Oct 6, 2014 04:08
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cheerfullydrab posted:My favorite is the idea that the Romans were descended from people who fled from Troy after its destruction. This strange theory dates back to the Romans themselves, as attested by one obscure literary source that was written during the reign of Augustus. I wouldn't call Virgil an obscure literary source, either back then or now.
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Oct 6, 2014 05:13
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MothraAttack posted:There were no Greek dark ages, the chronology is just all screwed up! Add that to the Phantom Time Hypothesis ([...]which proposes that historical events between AD 614 and 911 in the Early Middle Ages of Europe and neighbouring regions are either wrongly dated, or did not occur at all, and that there has been a systematic effort to cover up that fact.) and the calendar becomes what...600+ years off? Seems legit.
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Oct 6, 2014 05:26
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Ras Het posted:Nyland was totally bonkers, that site has a whole elaborate system about the Basque-Berber origins of Biblical Hebrew or something equally pointless. These cranks are kinda sad really, they devote so much time to poo poo that can at best do harm to their discipline of choice. The internet is full of amateur historical linguists with completely absurd agendas, most of them blinkered by religion or nationalism. There's a history forum I used to read and occasionally post on that while they have some genuinely smart posters there are also quite a few of these nutjobs that post poo poo like this all the god drat time. For whatever reason they tended to be people from the smallest countries populationwise.
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Oct 6, 2014 06:14
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fuzzy_logic posted:"post your favorite Bronze Age insanity theories" Just go back a few pages and see that map of the world where Korea either directly owned or indirectly influenced loving everything, to me that is the craziest conspiracy I've seen because I thing GF mentioned it's main source was a book of fairy tales. Mustang posted:For whatever reason they tended to be people from the smallest countries populationwise. Small countries seem to have this bizarre form of a superiority complex to make up for their lack of land. For example: Balkan nationalists on the Paradox game forums.
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Oct 6, 2014 07:20
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Don Gato posted:Just go back a few pages and see that map of the world where Korea either directly owned or indirectly influenced loving everything, to me that is the craziest conspiracy I've seen because I thing GF mentioned it's main source was a book of fairy tales. Korea=Corea sea people=c-people???!?
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Oct 6, 2014 09:21
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CoolCab posted:Korea=Corea sea people=c-people???!? 
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Oct 6, 2014 10:19
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CoolCab posted:Korea=Corea sea people=c-people???!? Nice.
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Oct 6, 2014 10:23
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Fell Fire posted:I kind of want this. I wish I knew some, beyond the usual aliens/Atlantis stuff. quote:About the same time that these earthquakes were so common, the sea at Orobiae, in Euboea, retiring from the then line of coast, returned in a huge wave and invaded a great part of the town, and retreated leaving some of it still under water; so that what was once land is now sea; such of the inhabitants perishing as could not run up to the higher ground in time. A similar inundation also occurred at Atalanta, the island off the Opuntian-Locrian coast, carrying away part of the Athenian fort and wrecking one of two ships which were drawn up on the beach.
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Oct 6, 2014 12:23
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Octy posted:I wouldn't call Virgil an obscure literary source, either back then or now. But irony appears to be an obscure art these days.
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Oct 6, 2014 12:28
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And obviously Japan hid it by tricking the west into using Korea to cover up the historical superiority of the Corean people. Do those ultra-nationalist museums hire non-Korean citizens/speakers? 
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Oct 6, 2014 12:34
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Sleep of Bronze posted:Not strictly true, though the implication can hardly be that it's widespread. So that's the big question, right? Are the semata lugra letters? Pictograms? Drawings? I don't think it's a given that they're alphabetic writing, or that the poet even understands literacy. Might be letters! Might be a stick figure of Bellerophon lying dead, with a stick figure of Iobates shrugging his shoulders!
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Oct 6, 2014 17:47
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I think my favourite conspiracy theories about ancient history are stuff like The Passover Plot and people claiming that the Roman emperors secretly invented Christanity as a propaganda tool. The idea is appealing unless you know absolutely anything about historiography or where pseudepigrapha actually come from. Edit: Actually, I think my favourite is the pan-continental universal Goddess religion that the Romans and Christians tried to stamp out. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 18:29 on Oct 6, 2014 |
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Oct 6, 2014 18:22
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Mustang posted:There's a history forum I used to read and occasionally post on that while they have some genuinely smart posters there are also quite a few of these nutjobs that post poo poo like this all the god drat time. Even the Pope has to drunk shitpost somewhere.
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Oct 6, 2014 18:24
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Halloween Jack posted:I think my favourite conspiracy theories about ancient history are stuff like The Passover Plot and people claiming that the Roman emperors secretly invented Christanity as a propaganda tool. The idea is appealing unless you know absolutely anything about historiography or where pseudepigrapha actually come from. The pan-Goddess theory is very strange as the regular routine for most pre-Christian women in the Mediterranean was to sit locked up home knitting until you died during childbirth.
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Oct 6, 2014 19:25
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fuzzy_logic posted:Looks like this isn't on the curriculum at UC Riverside, but the faculty member is a Prof Emeritus in the entomology department? Do you actually mean entomology? Because if so it's not surprising he's a bit suspect on ancient languages. (Entomology is the study of insects...) Edit: re Mediterranean religion, well, yes, but on the other hand as far as we can tell Minoan religion was woman-based. Bare breasted women/goddesses waving snakes, mind, but still women. feedmegin fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Oct 6, 2014 |
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Oct 6, 2014 20:22
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feedmegin posted:Do you actually mean entomology? Because if so it's not surprising he's a bit suspect on ancient languages. There's evidence that women were relatively more important economically in Minoan civilization than in later periods. Which is either an interesting historical question or evidence of a sinister 4000 year patriarchal conspiracy.
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Oct 6, 2014 20:45
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Sleep of Bronze posted:But irony appears to be an obscure art these days. I was tired, shut up. 
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Oct 6, 2014 21:57
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Berke Negri posted:The pan-Goddess theory is very strange as the regular routine for most pre-Christian women in the Mediterranean was to sit locked up home knitting until you died during childbirth. Death in childbirth has been over hyped in modern literature. It happened but it was hardly killing every woman.
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Oct 7, 2014 02:04
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Sleep of Bronze posted:But irony appears to be an obscure art these days.
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Oct 7, 2014 03:29
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So, I'm pretty much entirely self taught when it comes to anything Roman, so is thisOp-Ed piece putting forward a common narrative? Because from what I know about Late Republican Rome and Cicero, it comes off as really simplified, not to mention weirdly self important.
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Oct 7, 2014 07:53
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:really simplified, not to mention weirdly self important. Bingo. American republicanism is not the same as Roman republicanism. It also does not follow that because John Adams, only one of the founding fathers, found inspiration in Cicero does not mean there is an unbroken chain of Republican thought which the author supposedly adheres to.
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Oct 7, 2014 08:28
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quote:The IRS appears to have systematically persecuted conservative dissenters. By the time you get to this line, you can already stop reading. Why yes, the IRS probably should scrutinize groups that openly advocate not paying your taxes. Come the gently caress on. But really the whole point of the article is nonsense; the Republic didn't die because Julius Caesar decided he wanted to rule it all, it died because by it's late stage it had become fundamentally dysfunctional, and powerful men were trying to monopolize power all over the place. Caesar merely followed in the footsteps of Marius and Sulla. Following his assassination, Rome was again plunged into civil war, hardly a ringing endorsement for the existing order. The imposition of the Empire proper under Augustus was pretty damned popular, because it managed to restore stability to a polity that hadn't known it in some time. If you're worried that your precious republic (which America is not, at least not like he means it) is dying, it helps if you examine the underlying structure, not just the dudes at the top who you happen to not like for your own reasons. That aside, I don't know why Americans seem to have such a fetish for the Founding Fathers. The America of 2014 is not the America of Washington et al., and that's a really good thing. Perhaps you should look beyond dudes who lived two centuries ago for some political guidance. PittTheElder fucked around with this message at 08:40 on Oct 7, 2014 |
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Oct 7, 2014 08:37
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Yeah, the whole thing seemed like it was really ignoring the elitist and exclusive nature of democracy in the Roman Republic and the times Cicero violated his principles in the name of political expediency. I would also quibble that most of Cicero's influence on America's constitution mostly came from his influence on the writings of Montesquieu rather than as some kind of glorious direct line of inspiration. I just wanted to see if this kind of narrative was commonly taught since I've picked up most of my knowledge through self directed reading.
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Oct 7, 2014 08:53
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You would think, that being a classics student, he ought to know better, but there you go.
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Oct 7, 2014 12:11
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A lot of classics students and Roman history aficionados are awful conservative shitheads.
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Oct 7, 2014 12:19
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