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Zev
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 Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 5:42 am Post subject: Re: Arabic word for fat |
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"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:
82399984-7bfc-4663-88cc-8f8abb3438b3@y21g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
[quote]On Jul 30, 6:16 pm, Zev <zev_h...@yahoo.com> wrote:
"Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in message
What language have you ever heard of that doesn>t provide a name for
every phenomenon in its environment, either as an individual word or
as a simple phrase?
English?
I>ll give this to you another way.
What language have you ever heard of that provides
a name for *every* phenomenon in its environment,
either as an individual word or as a simple phrase?
Please explain your answer.
Anything can be said in any language.
Remember, chelev seems to be large masses of fat,
not within muscle tissue.
Other fat, although physiologically identical,
may have been considered something else.
Which they never had occasion to mention?
Are you sure that no part of Ancient Hebrew
has been lost because it had no place in scripture?
The number of Hebrew roots found in the OT
is less than 7000.
Is it so hard to believe that the spoken language
contained a few hundred more?
No, it presumably had as many lexical items as any other language:
25,000 - 30,000 in common use.
Have you not noticed that that is what I have been telling you? We do
not have any other words for "fat" in Biblical Hebrew. The rabbis
wanted to make a distinction between this one and some other one, so
they took another word, not in TaNaKh, and used it for that purpose.
That does not license you to claim that that particular lexical item
was in use in the language in that meaning.
[/quote]
The Rabbis pcked "shuman" for that purpose.
I never claimed that "that particular lexical item
was in use in the language in that meaning".
[quote]If the words for fat in other Semitic languages
are apparent cognates of chelev
and obviously always meant *all* kinds of fat,
that would be another point in your favor.
Even very closely related languages can have divergent vocabulary.
There>s no _harag_ 'kill' in any other Semitic language.
There is in Yiddish though.
Yiddish is not a Semitic language.
Maybe there>s something "Jewish" about it :-(
About what, killing? The God of the Bible certainly seems to have been
in favor of it!
At any rate, if the possibility I mentioned above is not the case,
all is not lost.
You just don>t get your point.
Hunh?
[/quote]
I said:
"If the words for fat in other Semitic languages
are apparent cognates of chelev
and obviously always meant *all* kinds of fat,
that would be another point in your favor".
You said:
"Even very closely related languages can have divergent vocabulary.
There>s no _harag_ 'kill' in any other Semitic language".
My response was that if the "I said" paragraph is not true,
I won>t give the point I offered you.
I mean that you couldn>t use that fact
as proof for your claim.
I don>t mean that the non-existence
of this fact is a proof for *my* claim.
[quote]OTOH, if this is not so, it may be that one of those words
for fat may be a cognate of some Hebrew word,
no longer extant, which in Hebrew meant "all other fat",
and which is used in the other language,
by extension, to mean "all fat".
AND SUCH A WORD HAPPENS NOT TO BE PRESERVED IN ANY EXTANT HEBREW
DOCUMENT, SO IT IS POINTLESS TO SPECULATE ON WHAT IT MAY HAVE BEEN.
In fact, even if we had some way of knowing
that no such cognate exists, that doesn>t prove
that some word for this didn>t exist in Hebrew
which was lost through disuse.
Is that so far-fetched?
That is exactly what I have been saying. But you cannot _then_ assert
that XXX "was" or "must have been" the word for it.
Right!
If my reasoning makes any sense,
There may have been a word for the
'other' fat in Ancient Hebrew,
and even if there wasn>t,
chelev may still have meant *only* large blocks of fat.
Or it may have been distinguished from other kinds of fat on grounds
that you>re totally unaware of.[/quote] |
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Joachim Pense
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 7:08 am Post subject: Re: Arabic word for fat |
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Peter T. Daniels (in sci.lang):
[quote]On Jul 30, 6:16 pm, Zev <zev_h...@yahoo.com> wrote:
"Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in message
What language have you ever heard of that doesn>t provide a name for
every phenomenon in its environment, either as an individual word or
as a simple phrase?
English?
I>ll give this to you another way.
What language have you ever heard of that provides
a name for *every* phenomenon in its environment,
either as an individual word or as a simple phrase?
Please explain your answer.
Anything can be said in any language.
[/quote]
Using an individual word or a simple phrase?
Joachim |
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Zev
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 8:58 am Post subject: Re: Arabic word for fat |
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On Jul 31, 5:24 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
[quote]On Jul 30, 5:48 pm, Zev <zev_h...@yahoo.com> wrote:
On Jul 30, 3:30 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
For that matter, have you ever read Talmud? Would you call rabbinic
disputation something other than the discussions of "sticklers"?
The parts of the Gemara you are referring to
are better called "text analysis".
"Horses sweat, men perspire, ladies gently glow."
[/quote]
That>s an unfair remark.
The Rabbis of the Talmud eked out as much information
as they could from the text at hand,
typically the Mishnah which was under discussion,
by comparing to other texts, and being "sticklers".
There was a reason for being sticklers
and it made sense for the given task.
This thread wasn>t about transliteration.
It was just silly to point out an error
in transliteration by a non-linguist,
without even saying what the error was,
and how it should have been avoided.
It seemed to me, and still does,
that it was criticism just for the sake of criticism.
Do you see the difference now? |
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Peter T. Daniels
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 11:23 am Post subject: Re: Arabic word for fat |
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On Jul 31, 1:00 am, Joachim Pense <s...@pense-mainz.eu> wrote:
[quote]Peter T. Daniels (in sci.lang):
On Jul 30, 6:16 pm, Zev <zev_h...@yahoo.com> wrote:
"Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in message
What language have you ever heard of that doesn>t provide a name for
every phenomenon in its environment, either as an individual word or
as a simple phrase?
English?
I>ll give this to you another way.
What language have you ever heard of that provides
a name for *every* phenomenon in its environment,
either as an individual word or as a simple phrase?
Please explain your answer.
Anything can be said in any language.
Using an individual word or a simple phrase?
[/quote]
There>s a difference between "a name for every phenomenon" and
"anything that can be said." |
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Joachim Pense
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 9:01 pm Post subject: Re: Arabic word for fat |
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Peter T. Daniels (in sci.lang):
[quote]On Jul 31, 1:00 am, Joachim Pense <s...@pense-mainz.eu> wrote:
Peter T. Daniels (in sci.lang):
On Jul 30, 6:16 pm, Zev <zev_h...@yahoo.com> wrote:
"Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in message
What language have you ever heard of that doesn>t provide a name for
every phenomenon in its environment, either as an individual word or
as a simple phrase?
English?
I>ll give this to you another way.
What language have you ever heard of that provides
a name for *every* phenomenon in its environment,
either as an individual word or as a simple phrase?
Please explain your answer.
Anything can be said in any language.
Using an individual word or a simple phrase?
There>s a difference between "a name for every phenomenon" and
"anything that can be said."
[/quote]
Indeed. That>s why I asked.
Joachim |
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