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There are 22 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: OT, and religeous
From: Chris Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. Re: OT, and religeous
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3. Re: Nasalized fricatives ...
From: Chris Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4. Re: OT, and religeous
From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5. Re: OT, and religeous
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6. Re: Pater Noster (purely linguistically)
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7. Re: Nasalized fricatives ...
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8. Re: OT, and religeous
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9. Re: OT, and religeous
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10. Re: OT, and religeous
From: Cian Ross <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11. Re: Universe_s_ (was: Re: OT, and religeous)
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
12. Re: OT, and religeous
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
13. [NATLANG] Mongolian
From: azathoth500 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
14. Re: Schpamm?!
From: "Thomas R. Wier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15. Re: a "natural language" ?
From: "Thomas R. Wier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
16. Re: Pater Noster (purely linguistically)
From: Isaac Penzev <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
17. Re: Pater Noster (purely linguistically)
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
18. Re: Pater Noster (purely linguistically)
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
19. Re: [NATLANG] Mongolian
From: # 1 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
20. Re: [NATLANG] Mongolian
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
21. Re: [NATLANG] Mongolian
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
22. Re: Pater Noster (purely linguistically)
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 1
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 17:01:19 +0000
From: Chris Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT, and religeous
>>b) God isn't in fact all loving and fair but biased towards one
>>particular ethic/linguistic group
>>
>>
>
>That would be sound only if you think that needing to learn Classical
>Arabic constitutes a bias. Even Arabs have to learn it; nobody *speaks*
>it natively.
>
>
>
Of course this is bias. Is it easier for someone who speaks a modern
dialect of Arabic to learn Classical Arabic, or someone who speaks a
completely unrelated language?
>>c) God wasn't involved in any way, through Jesus, apostles, or anyone
>>else, in creating any bible or mythology on the planet
>>
>>
>
>No religion that asserts divine creation can consistently assert this.
>If God designed the universe and has foreknowledge of what happens in
>it, then he knew that (say) Elmer T. Hickinbotham would write the
>_Book of Eldritch Miracles_ in 1922, which became the foundation of
>the world religions of the 25th century. Indeed, God as Hickinbotham's
>creator is ultimately responsible for all of Hickinbotham's actions.
>
>
>
Asserting that God created the universe isn't the same as asserting that
god is either all knowing or all powerful. Since the concensus seems to
be that the universe is finite, God could just be very powerful and very
knowledgeable rather than truly omnipotent and omniscient. Also, God
could just not care about humanity at all. Thus you can assert divine
creation without saying that God has given us commandments, bibles, etc.
>>d) God is very different from the way he is portrayed in the Bible,
>>Quran etc, and has been involved in the creation of numerous
>>contradictory bibles and mythologies for purposes unknown ie he has
>>purposefully lied on a massive scale to his creations
>>
>>
>
>There is an equivoque here which I've been hinting at above, but this
>is the best place to point it out. Statements cannot simply be divided
>into truth and lies: in particular, the works of poets and playwrights
>and novelists are not true of the Real World, but can't usefully be
>called lies either; indeed, it is a commonplace of literary criticism
>that the purpose of poetry (choosing that as a cover term for the
>other literary activities) is to tell the truth. Similarly, it is a
>commonplace of scriptural criticism that its truth is more like the
>truth of poetry than the truth of technical manuals. The texture of
>the world's scriptures is metaphorical, whether or not the technical
>device of verse is used (and most scriptures comprise both verse and
>prose, at least after the invention of prose).
>
>"The artist says what cannot be said in words, and the writer does
>this *with words*." --Ursula K. Le Guin
>
>"Faith, it is said, can remove mountains; but even the most realistic
>landscape painter may choose to remove a mountain from his painting
>to improve the balance of the composition." --Northrop Frye, paraphrased
>from memory
>
>
>
I'm afraid I'm not convinced by these arguments really. :) People on the
religeous right quote the bible to determine right and wrong, eg as
proof that homosexuality is a sin, so if we accept that the bible is
something like a novel that's just a guide through giving ideas rather
than representing truth directly, then we must also throw out the window
any claim to making moral judgements based upon it as many religeous
people do. Doing so would be equivalent from taking away from a poem
about say a train crash the moral that "trains always crash", which is
clearly completely mad.
>>e) God was involved in the creation of the Bible, but has been
>>misunderstood or misrepresented, ie the original was something that was
>>universally applicable.
>>
>>
>
>Poetry (broadly) is at once universally applicable and entirely local.
>The best of it is the more applicable as it is the more local. This
>is paradoxical, but the whole subject is paradoxical.
>
>
But my point was if God didn't choose to distribute the universal truth
in all localities ie languages (since the localities aren't equivalent
and it's difficult to impossible to move between them perfectly for
human beings) then he is clearly biased towards one or certain
linguistic/ethic groups so claims that "God is fair" or "God is just" go
out the window.
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Message: 2
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 18:32:03 +0100
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT, and religeous
Quoting Chris Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> Since the concensus seems to
> be that the universe is finite,
Really? All popular cosmology works from recent years I've read have said it's
probably not.
But I think this thread would better die; it's OT, and potentially inflammable.
Instead of debating the biasedness of God, go reply to my post about nasalized
fricatives! *impatient*
:)
Andreas
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Message: 3
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 18:14:56 +0000
From: Chris Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Nasalized fricatives ...
Okay.... I like nasalized fricatives. There. :p But seriously, I like
the idea, and if I ever get the pronounciation of them right then I
might just introduce them into one of my conlangs. :) Do you have any
problems pronouncing them?
>I was reviewing Meghean phonlogy earlier today, and it occured to me that a
>series of nasalized fricatives [B~ D~ G~] would be quite the thing to make
>would-be learners pull their hair out. They'd occure as initial mutations of
>nasal stops, which as an added bonus means the definite form would be less
>dysfunctional (indef and def would then only coalesce for words beginning in /s
>l r j w i e/).
>
>Now, this is a non-human (Elvish) language, so I don't care too much about
>violating universals and anadewistic precedent (the lang's got [e] and [o] but
>no [E] or [O], which is apparently already quite unusual), but I'd anyway like
>to know if there's any natlang out there with phonemic nasalized fricatives.
>The only lang I can recall hearing of it in is Sindarin, which, in archaic
>stages, had a sound described as "fricative m" or "nasal v" - this must mean
>[v~] or [B~] (very possibly both along the way, since the starting point was
>[m]
>and the end result [v]).
>
>Words in which the little monsters would occur include _mhedh_ [B~eD] "the
>elf",
>_nhagh_ [D~aG] "the dwarf"*, and _nhoch_ [G~ox] "the day". By parallel to the
>development of oral stops, one'd also expect them to occur medially in some
>words, but I think I'll stomp that out with a bit of merging and leveling.
>
>* It's actually completely by accident that the words for "elf" and "dwarf" are
>so phonetically parallel - I hadn't realized it till I was writing this mail.
>The words _pera_ "human" and _taea_ "orc" (definite forms _phera_ [Pera] and
>_thaea_ [Taja]) - the two other humanoid species of this coniverse - don't
>follow the same pattern.
>
>
>Meghean vocabulary of the day:
>Verb _guth_ "to die", related noun _guthu_ "death", irreg pl _gunt_.
>
>Consociolinguistic item of the day:
>The phrase _guthu magel_, lit "evil death", a death for which someone bears
>responsibility and must be punished. Includes murder, manslaughter, death by
>criminal neglect, that sort of thing.
>
> Andreas
>
>
>
>
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Message: 4
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 13:37:30 -0500
From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT, and religeous
Chris Bates scripsit:
> Of course this is bias. Is it easier for someone who speaks a modern
> dialect of Arabic to learn Classical Arabic, or someone who speaks a
> completely unrelated language?
I don't know. Is it easier for an anglophone to learn French or Scots?
> I'm afraid I'm not convinced by these arguments really. :) People on the
> religeous right quote the bible to determine right and wrong, eg as
> proof that homosexuality is a sin, so if we accept that the bible is
> something like a novel that's just a guide through giving ideas rather
> than representing truth directly, then we must also throw out the window
> any claim to making moral judgements based upon it as many religeous
> people do.
Granted, but abusus non tollit usum.
--
I marvel at the creature: so secret and John Cowan
so sly as he is, to come sporting in the pool [EMAIL PROTECTED]
before our very window. Does he think that http://www.reutershealth.com
Men sleep without watch all night? --Faramir http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
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Message: 5
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 18:34:19 +0000
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT, and religeous
Andreas Johansson wrote:
>Quoting Chris Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
>
>
>>Since the concensus seems to
>>be that the universe is finite,
>>
>>
>
>Really? All popular cosmology works from recent years I've read have said it's
>probably not.
>
>
>
Really? I find that very surprising. All the stuff I've read suggest
that it's boundless, but finite. Like the surface of a sphere.
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Message: 6
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 18:40:35 +0000
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Pater Noster (purely linguistically)
On Thursday, December 2, 2004, at 12:17 , Mark J. Reed wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 01, 2004 at 11:47:05PM +0100, Henrik Theiling wrote:
>> 1) Pater noster qui es in caelis.
>> Our father, which art in heaven.
>>
>> - Would it be appropriate to translate 'heaven' with 'divine world'
>> ?
>> - Maybe 'divine transcendental world', but that might be redundant?
>
> Well, the words for "heaven" in natlangs - including "heaven" itself -
> all originally meant just "sky".
Yep - by suggesting "divine world" or "divine transcendental world" Henrik
is ceasing to be 'purely linguistic'.
Translating texts that large numbers of peoples hold to be religious has
its own difficulties. This is presumably why Muslims insist that any
translation of the Koran should retain the Arabic text as well, so the
original is there for comparison. If one paraphrases one is likely to be
moving into areas of interpretation & controversy. IMO it is best to keep
as close as possible to the original and as literal as you can without
doing violence to the language.
If you are translating from Latin means you are translating a translation,
i.e. you are partaking in a "relay" :)
The Greek has:
Pater he:mo:n ho en tois ouranois
Father of-us the in the skies.
"our Father in the skies"
Presumably Qthen|gai has a word for the 'blue stuff, usually covered with
clouds in these northern climes' above us. If it can be made plural, then
the translation is more literal.
[snip]
>> And now the main problem:
>>
>> 2) Sanctificetur nomen tuum.
>> Hallowed be thy name.
>
> [snip definitions of "holy"]
>
>> I found these quite enlightening, and I think the meaning of
>> the above line would be
>>
>> optative(be.reserved.from.profane.use(thy name))
>
> The Latin is expressing a desire, or perhaps a "third person imperative"
> . . . is that what an "optative" is?
The Latin is subjunctive which, among other things, can express a desire
or wish (optative) or can be used as a 3rd person imperative, which is
_not_ the same as the optative. In other words the Latin is ambiguous.
The Greek has:
hagiasthe:to: to onoma sou.
made-holy-AORIST.PASSIVE-3SING.IMPERATIVE the name of-you
Greek, unlike Latin, has subjunctive, optative and imperative moods for
3rd person. I know this has been discussed before on this list, but
whatever is said, the simple fact is that the Greek is *imperative_*
'Aorist' BTW denotes _aspect_, not tense - it is the aspect that is
_unmarked_ with regard to duration, incompleteness or completeness etc. If
we use Esperanto as an example, we could say:
mi skribas - I write - present aorist
mi estas skribanta - I am writing - present imperfective
mi estas skribinta - I am having-written - present perfective
mi estas skribonta - I am going-to-write - present futuritive
(I am using Esperanto simply as an example of 'unmarked' aspect vis-a-vis
marked ones because it is a language widely known to members of the list)
> But if you use "profane", you run into question-begging, since "profane"
> is pretty much defined as "the opposite of holy/sacred".
Of course.
=============================================
> On Thursday, December 2, 2004, at 01:47 , John Cowan wrote:
>
> Henrik Theiling scripsit:
[snip]
>> - How to translate 'to hallow'? Again, it will be a derived
>> word. Probably from 'holy'.
>
> Indeed: specifically meaning 'let it be made holy': the Latin has an
> explicit morpheme _fic_ < _fac_ meaning 'make'.
...and so sort of does the Greek _as_, an allomorph of -az-
The Greek word is composed of four morphemes: hagi - as - the: - to:
hagi- lexical morpheme meaning "holy".
-as- an allomorph of -az- which is a formative morpheme whose use is to
derive verbs from nouns or adjectives, e.g. _dike:_ "justice" -->
_dikazein_ "to judge" (-ein is the present active infinitive suffix);
_eune:_ "bed" --> _eunazein_ "to put to bed" (passive: "to go to bed");
_skia:_ "shadow" --> skiazein_ "to shade, to darken"; _hygie:s_ "heathy"
(stem hygi-) --> hygiazein "to make healthy, to cure".
So _hagiazen_ "to make holy, to hallow"
-the:- grammatical morpheme denoting the passive voice of the aorist (i.e.
unmarked) aspect.
-to: - grammatical morpheme, denoting 3rd person singular imperative.
_hagiasthe:to:_ most certainly does not express a wish - 'may your name be
made holy' 'I want your name to be made holy' etc. That is expressed in
Greek with the optative mood. The Greek has no-nonsense imperative: it is
to be made holy!
[snip]
> Note the overall pattern of the prayer, which is an invocation ("Our
> father in heaven") followed by seven petitions:
>
> 1) Hallowed be thy name
> 2) Thy kingdom come
> 3) Thy will be done on earth as in heaven
> 4) Give us this day our *** bread
> 5) Forgive us our debts/trespasses, as we forgive our debtors/
> those who trespass against us
> 6) Lead us not into temptation
> 7) Deliver us from evil
_ALL_ the verbs, except "lead", are imperatives in Greek. Not only
"hallowed be" but also "come", "be done", "give", "forgive" and "deliver"
are all aorist imperatives.
The only reason that "lead" is not is that it is negative. Even in the
Classical period, _me:_ (not) is rarely found with the 2nd pers. of the
aorist imperative & then only in verse. The normal construction was, as
here: _me_ + aorist subjunctive. However, in the context of the rest of
the prayer, it is clearly a negative imperative.
> And in some versions, not the oldest ones, a doxology:
>
> For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever
Yep and an 'embolism' may come between the end of the prayer and the
doxology. Such embolisms & doxologies were generally added when the prayer
was used in Christian worship. In some later manuscripts, the doxolgy got
added, but it wasn't there in the oldest ones. Also it is only Matthew's
Gospel that has the version given above by John. The older manuscripts of
Luke have a rather shortened version.
> Finally:
>
> _Amen_, which means 'let it be so' but is usually untranslated.
Well, yes - the word is Hebrew, and it is left untranslated in Greek!
>
> *** The Greek word _epiousion_ here is problematic: it's not the usual
> word for 'daily', and appears only once outside the Lord's Prayer.
Yes - the word is extremely rare. But there can be no real doubt that it
is derived from 'epi' (preposition = "on" in a very wide range of meanings)
plus iont- the stem of the present participle of the irrgular verb
_ienai_ "to go, to come" (depending on direction of movement) and the
formative suffixes -io-n (the last is the accusative singular). The
adjective _epiousios_ is thought by most to be derived from _epiousa: (he:
mera:)_ "the coming day". That is: "give us bread for the coming day" -
whether that is today or tomorrow will depend up whether the prayer is
said in the morning or the evening :)
> Pre-Vulgate translations rendered it as _quotidianem_ 'daily';
_quotidianum_
> the Vulgate uses this form in Luke, but in Matthew uses the calque
> _supersubstantialem_. Modern English versions usually use _daily_
> in both places.
Yes, by the time Jerome revised the existing Latin versions to produce the
Vulgate, the petition had become very much associated with the eucharist
and several people had argued that this rare word _epiousios_ was in fact
derived from _epi_ + ont-, the stem of the present participle of "to be" -
'the bread which has a being beyond being'. Linguistically, in fact, this
is untenable: epi+ont- would become epont-. But Jerome was not sure - so
he 'hedged his bets' so to speak and adopted the 'new' translation in
Matthew but retained the older one in Luke. More to the point, church
liturgy, which both in the East & in the West has always used the Matthew
version, retained "quotidianum" as it still does to the present day.
==============================================
On Thursday, December 2, 2004, at 02:42 , Henrik Theiling wrote:
> Hi!
>
> Mark wrote:
[snip]
>>> optative(be.reserved.from.profane.use(thy name))
>>
>> The Latin is expressing a desire, or perhaps a "third person imperative"
>> . . . is that what an "optative" is?
>
> Yes, desire, but not imperative. Humans are not in the position of
> using imperative here, I think.
You may think so, but the writers of the Gospels clearly did not agree. In
both Matthew & Luke there is no ambiguity: it is the imperative. Desire
was expressed by the optative mood in Greek.
> It seems quite different from 'let
> there be light', where the imperative would be appropriate. :-)
Not in the Greek scriptures it ain't. Indeed the very *same* verb is used
in the Septuagint version of Genesis 1:3 as in the the 3rd petition of the
Lord's Prayer:
genethe:to: pho:s - "Let there be light"
genethe:to: to thele:ma sou - "Your will be done"
_genthe:to:_ is that aorist imperative again! It is derived from the verb
_gignesthai_ "to come into being, to be produced, to be made". The root of
this verb is -gn- ~ -gen- ~ -gon- (ablaut grades).
>> But if you use "profane", you run into question-begging, since "profane"
>> is pretty much defined as "the opposite of holy/sacred".
>
> Ah, right! :-) I did not notice. Thanks!
>
> But anyway, my current translation is 'cannot-be-used-malevolently'
> (with an axiomatic negation particle).
Umm - it seems to me that you have strayed way beyond the bounds of purely
linguistic considerations here!
If Qthen|gai is so 'modern' that it is entirely secular and has no concept
of 'the divine' at all then clearly you have problems! But if there is a
way of expressing 'the divine' or divinity, then surely some phase closer
to the _hagios_ is possible?
> This one does not have this
> problem, but 'holy' seems to imply that it shall not even be used
> benevolently for non-divine purposes whatsoever.
Quite - _hagios_ meant "devoted to the gods", "set apart for the gods" -
it was rather like the Polynesian word 'tapu' ("taboo").
> Maybe 'we shall not
> curse with thy name.' With 'curse' being a variable like 'bread' is
> one for 'food' that many translations have.
Is that so? Then those that have "food" are paraphrases, not translations.
The Greek word _artos_ meant no more and no less than 'bread' or 'loaf
[of bread]'. I have checked and can find no examples of it meaning
anything else.
> Hmm... Not very satisfactory.
Indeed, not.
[snip]
> John wrote:
[snip]
>
>> *** The Greek word _epiousion_ here is problematic
>
> Oh, if that's the only problem! :-) I have a lot of problems with the
> vocative + first two lines.
:-)
>> it's not the usual word for 'daily', and appears only once outside
>> the Lord's Prayer.
>
> Where?
Sammelbuch griechisher Urkunden aus �gtpten 5224.20. The Sammelbuch was a
publication of papyrological texts; it was produced between 1913 and 1934,
I believe. It was published originally in Strassburg, then later in
Berlin, Leipzig & Heidelberg. I think 5224 comes in the 2nd volume.
> Is it known what exactly it means?
Not with 100% certainty. But the general opinion is "for the coming day"
(see above). It is probably a matter of choice whether you translate:
ton arton he:mo:n ton epiousion
the bread of-us the ??? (the definite article is repeated if the
adjective follows the noun)
as: "our daily bread"
or as: "our bread for the coming day"
> Is it important for the
> message of that line? I thought I understood that line...
Did you? Good luck with the translation ;)
Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
===============================================
Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
which is not so much a twilight of the gods
as of the reason." [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]
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Message: 7
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 19:56:12 +0100
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Nasalized fricatives ...
Quoting Chris Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> Okay.... I like nasalized fricatives. There. :p But seriously, I like
> the idea, and if I ever get the pronounciation of them right then I
> might just introduce them into one of my conlangs. :) Do you have any
> problems pronouncing them?
I've always found nasalized sounds tricky. It took me years to get nasalized
vowels, and they still tend to denasalize in connected speech. So from my POV,
introducing nasalized frics makes Meghean much harder to pronounce. But that's
not bad; it'll give me practice!
I've always had a hard time acquiring 'new' phones. I suppose that makes me an
unlikely conlanger ... But I'm persevering, and now manage such once
impossible-seeming sounds as [T D R\ X\]. Nasalized fricatives do not rival
such in dauntingness!
Andreas
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Message: 8
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 19:15:21 +0000
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT, and religeous
Andreas Johansson wrote:
>Quoting Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
>
>
>>Andreas Johansson wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Quoting Chris Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Since the concensus seems to
>>>>be that the universe is finite,
>>>>
>>>>
>
>
>
>>>Really? All popular cosmology works from recent years I've read have said
>>>
>>>
>>it's
>>
>>
>>>probably not.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>Really? I find that very surprising. All the stuff I've read suggest
>>that it's boundless, but finite. Like the surface of a sphere.
>>
>>
>
>Very briefly, an expanding general relativistic universe can have three overall
>shapes; spherical, flat, hyperbolic. In the first case, it's boundless but
>finite, in the two later, both boundless and infinite. The parameter
>determining which is the mean matter density; if high, spherical, if low,
>hyperbolic, with flat at the critical value. It's used to be thought that the
>spherical version was the most likely, but observations in recent years seem to
>have established that we're well with the hyperbolic regime.
>
>
Interesting. Can you explain to me what exactly the hyperbolic shape
implies - I do, I'm afraid, have a very limited grasp of non-Euclidean
geometry (especially in three dimensions).
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Message: 9
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 20:08:36 +0100
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT, and religeous
Quoting Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> Andreas Johansson wrote:
>
> >Quoting Chris Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> >
> >>Since the concensus seems to
> >>be that the universe is finite,
> >
> >Really? All popular cosmology works from recent years I've read have said
> it's
> >probably not.
> >
>
> Really? I find that very surprising. All the stuff I've read suggest
> that it's boundless, but finite. Like the surface of a sphere.
Very briefly, an expanding general relativistic universe can have three overall
shapes; spherical, flat, hyperbolic. In the first case, it's boundless but
finite, in the two later, both boundless and infinite. The parameter
determining which is the mean matter density; if high, spherical, if low,
hyperbolic, with flat at the critical value. It's used to be thought that the
spherical version was the most likely, but observations in recent years seem to
have established that we're well with the hyperbolic regime.
Andreas
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Message: 10
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 13:19:20 -0600
From: Cian Ross <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT, and religeous
On Thursday 02 December 2004 01:08 pm, Andreas Johansson wrote:
>
> Very briefly, an expanding general relativistic universe can have three
> overall shapes; spherical, flat, hyperbolic. In the first case, it's
> boundless but finite, in the two later, both boundless and infinite. The
> parameter determining which is the mean matter density; if high, spherical,
> if low, hyperbolic, with flat at the critical value. It's used to be
> thought that the spherical version was the most likely, but observations in
> recent years seem to have established that we're well with the hyperbolic
> regime.
Interesting. Last I'd heard the universe was pretty much thought to have to
be flat (i.e., at or right next to the critical density). Would it be
possible to ask for some references to what shows that the universe is
hyperbolic?
Regards,
Cian Ross
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Message: 11
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 14:33:30 -0500
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Universe_s_ (was: Re: OT, and religeous)
I recently read-- I think in Time Magazine perhaps past 2-3 issues ago--that
a newly respectable _theory_ posits that there may be multiple universes
(perhaps an infinite number). The man who proposes this is an amateur, but
for some reason the interest of professionals has been excited . Sorry I
don't remember more details.........
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: December 2, 2004 1:34 PM
Subject: Re: OT, and religeous
> Andreas Johansson wrote:
>
> >Quoting Chris Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> >
> >>Since the concensus seems to
> >>be that the universe is finite,
>
> >Really? All popular cosmology works from recent years I've read have said
> >it's
> >probably not.
> >
> Really? I find that very surprising. All the stuff I've read suggest
> that it's boundless, but finite. Like the surface of a sphere.
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Message: 12
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 20:39:00 +0100
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT, and religeous
Taking this offlist ...
Well, the spherical universe is the 3D equivalent to the 2D surface of a regular
sphere. The hyperbolic is the corresponding 3D equivalent to a 2D saddle surface
(one that turns upwards along one axis and downwards along the other). Is that
of any help?
If not, I can only recommend an introductory text to non-Euclidean geometry. I
find it very difficult to explain geometrical concepts in a text-only medium.
Andreas
> Andreas Johansson wrote:
>
> >Quoting Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> >
> >
> >
> >>Andreas Johansson wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>Quoting Chris Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>Since the concensus seems to
> >>>>be that the universe is finite,
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >
> >
> >
> >>>Really? All popular cosmology works from recent years I've read have said
> >>>
> >>>
> >>it's
> >>
> >>
> >>>probably not.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>Really? I find that very surprising. All the stuff I've read suggest
> >>that it's boundless, but finite. Like the surface of a sphere.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >Very briefly, an expanding general relativistic universe can have three
> overall
> >shapes; spherical, flat, hyperbolic. In the first case, it's boundless but
> >finite, in the two later, both boundless and infinite. The parameter
> >determining which is the mean matter density; if high, spherical, if low,
> >hyperbolic, with flat at the critical value. It's used to be thought that
> the
> >spherical version was the most likely, but observations in recent years seem
> to
> >have established that we're well with the hyperbolic regime.
> >
> >
>
> Interesting. Can you explain to me what exactly the hyperbolic shape
> implies - I do, I'm afraid, have a very limited grasp of non-Euclidean
> geometry (especially in three dimensions).
>
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Message: 13
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 14:53:00 -0500
From: azathoth500 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [NATLANG] Mongolian
One of my conlangs I'm working on is supposed to be spoken somewhere
in Mongolia. Each language in the family is supposed to be influenced
by surrounding languages, so if anyone knows anything about Mongolian
morphology and some interesting grammatical features, or can point me
to a good site, please reply.
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Message: 14
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 13:51:35 -0600
From: "Thomas R. Wier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Schpamm?!
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> That site *is* serious. I googled for it.
How so? The guy's ideas are kinda nutty, or poorly presented, or
both. Or maybe that's what you meant.
==========================================================================
Thomas Wier "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637
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Message: 15
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 13:51:21 -0600
From: "Thomas R. Wier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: a "natural language" ?
From: Joerg Rhiemeier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > "Thomas R. Wier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > In my experience with the languages of North America and the
> > Caucasus, this is not at all the case. On top of all the other
> > things that make Georgian a difficult language to learn, it is
> > replete with suppletive verb (and noun!) stems, a number of
> > different kinds of verbal and nominal ablaut, sometimes intersecting
> > one another but sometimes not, and many verbs which simply lack
> > certain stems and so have to recruit other stems to fill out
> > paradigms.
>
> I never seriously tried to learn Georgian, but I did try to get to
> an understanding of how its morphology works - and found that none of
> the sources I found gave comprehensive paradigms, and couldn't figure
> it out from examples, either. Apparently, this is because things
> are frantically irregular in Georgian!
Well, I would definitely agree that Georgian is towards that end of
the scale. I'd say individual IE languages -- e.g. Homeric Greek --
can be like that too.
> I am not very familiar with North American languages, but I have heard
> that their morphologies are formidable.
They can be, certainly. With over 300 languages spoken in 1492
north of the Rio Grande alone, a good number are not so morphological.
(But it is also my impression that Amerindian languages are more
morphological than, say, African or European languages.)
> > Yes, that's often the case. But languages with much more
> > complex morphological systems than IE-languages can be far,
> > far worse, let me assure you, for purely morphological reasons.
>
> So IE actually occupies a middle position on the irregularity scale,
> I assume.
Yeah, I think this is fair. Maybe slightly more irregular than
most, but certainly not the highest. It all depends on what criteria
one uses for irregularity.
==========================================================================
Thomas Wier "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637
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Message: 16
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 22:24:25 +0200
From: Isaac Penzev <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Pater Noster (purely linguistically)
Ray Brown wrote:
> Translating texts that large numbers of peoples hold to be religious has
> its own difficulties. This is presumably why Muslims insist that any
> translation of the Koran should retain the Arabic text as well, so the
> original is there for comparison. If one paraphrases one is likely to be
> moving into areas of interpretation & controversy. IMO it is best to keep
> as close as possible to the original and as literal as you can without
> doing violence to the language.
I second it.
> [skip]
> > *** The Greek word _epiousion_ here is problematic: it's not the usual
> > word for 'daily', and appears only once outside the Lord's Prayer.
>
> Yes - the word is extremely rare. But there can be no real doubt that it
> is derived from 'epi' (preposition = "on" in a very wide range of
meanings)
> plus iont- the stem of the present participle of the irrgular verb
> _ienai_ "to go, to come" (depending on direction of movement) and the
> formative suffixes -io-n (the last is the accusative singular). The
> adjective _epiousios_ is thought by most to be derived from _epiousa: (he:
> mera:)_ "the coming day". That is: "give us bread for the coming day" -
> whether that is today or tomorrow will depend up whether the prayer is
> said in the morning or the evening :)
I think it makes a certain parallel with Proverbs 30:8 _lehhem hhuqi_ "my
lawful bread", explained by the sages as "a portion of food necessary to
live a day".
In general, it's a wonderful piece of exegesis!!!
-- Yitzik
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Message: 17
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 21:26:36 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Pater Noster (purely linguistically)
Hi!
Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>...
> IMO it is best to keep as close as possible to the original and as
> literal as you can without doing violence to the language.
Ok, that's a good way, I think. I will do this if the meaning is not
shifted by the translation. If it has to be shifted, e.g. because my
language has several words where the source language had only one, I
will select the one that *I* think is appropriate. That's
interpretation, of course. In the example of 'heaven', I will choose
to translate 'divine world', because Qthen|gai has two words for the
the word in Greek, namely 'sky' and 'heaven'. I will use 'heaven',
because 'sky' would shift the meaning.
> If you are translating from Latin means you are translating a translation,
> i.e. you are partaking in a "relay" :)
My problem is that there seem to be no translators for Qthen|gai that
are able to read Greek. Is there is good glossed version? (For the
Babel text I once translated, I had a good source of his kind found
via Langmaker.)
> The Greek has:
> Pater he:mo:n ho en tois ouranois
> Father of-us the in the skies.
> "our Father in the skies"
Yeah, glosses like this help *a lot*! Thanks!
> Presumably Qthen|gai has a word for the 'blue stuff, usually covered with
> clouds in these northern climes' above us. If it can be made plural, then
> the translation is more literal.
But it would mean something different then. As I understand it, the
Greek word above means 'heaven' and 'sky'. Qthen|gai has both, so
I'll use 'heaven'.
> The Latin is subjunctive which, among other things, can express a desire
> or wish (optative) or can be used as a 3rd person imperative, which is
> _not_ the same as the optative. In other words the Latin is ambiguous.
>
> The Greek has:
> hagiasthe:to: to onoma sou.
> made-holy-AORIST.PASSIVE-3SING.IMPERATIVE the name of-you
Great! Thanks. So it *is* imperative. I'll use imperative then.
> Greek, unlike Latin, has subjunctive, optative and imperative moods for
> 3rd person. I know this has been discussed before on this list, but
> whatever is said, the simple fact is that the Greek is *imperative_*
Here, I will stick closely to the original, because Qthen|gai support
this natively, too.
> 'Aorist' BTW denotes _aspect_, not tense - it is the aspect that is
> _unmarked_ with regard to duration, incompleteness or completeness etc.
Aha. I read that *one* of the possible meanings was 'timeless'.
Qthen|gai has aorist, too, which is a tense and means 'is, was and
will be'. If there is a less confusing gloss, please tell me. In any
case, Qthen|gai's aorist does not seem to be appropriate given your
explanation. 'unmarked' wrt. aspect would be morphologically zero in
Qthen|gai, which is what I chose here.
> _hagiasthe:to:_ most certainly does not express a wish - 'may your name be
> made holy' 'I want your name to be made holy' etc. That is expressed in
> Greek with the optative mood. The Greek has no-nonsense imperative: it is
> to be made holy!
Ok! Very helpful explanations. :-)
> _ALL_ the verbs, except "lead", are imperatives in Greek. Not only
> "hallowed be" but also "come", "be done", "give", "forgive" and "deliver"
> are all aorist imperatives.
Ah.
>...
> the prayer, it is clearly a negative imperative.
Ok.
> > _Amen_, which means 'let it be so' but is usually untranslated.
> Well, yes - the word is Hebrew, and it is left untranslated in Greek!
I don't have initial vowels nor [m] or [E]/[e]. What was the precise
pronunciation (if known) in Hebrew? Assuming /amEn/ or something
similar, the closest would be /[EMAIL PROTECTED]@/ in Qthen|gai. Weird.
Do some languages translate this? Because another problem is that
Qthen|gai has no interjections (yet?) and *all* words start with a
fixed one- or two-syllable preamble for evidence, mood, case and
class. I doubt words without that would be grammatical.
Using the classifier |\|\ (voiceless lateral click, silent or
fricative release) with the strange gloss 'hyper', which is used for
all super-natural and transcendental concepts plus predicative case,
we'd get
|\|[EMAIL PROTECTED]@n@ for Amen (with some tones added for spicyness).
Well... Borrowing is not really supported by Qthen|gai.
>...
> mera:)_ "the coming day". That is: "give us bread for the coming day" -
> whether that is today or tomorrow will depend up whether the prayer is
> said in the morning or the evening :)
Ah, also very enlightening! I'll try my best.
> Not in the Greek scriptures it ain't. Indeed the very *same* verb is used
> in the Septuagint version of Genesis 1:3 as in the the 3rd petition of the
> Lord's Prayer:
> genethe:to: pho:s - "Let there be light"
> genethe:to: to thele:ma sou - "Your will be done"
Helpful! I did not know.
> _genthe:to:_ is that aorist imperative again! It is derived from the verb
> _gignesthai_ "to come into being, to be produced, to be made". The root of
> this verb is -gn- ~ -gen- ~ -gon- (ablaut grades).
That's one of the few Greek verbs that I recognise in most forms:
egeneto, gignomai... Only I never know whether theta or tau or eta or
espilon or omega or omikron. I should learn some Greek.
> Umm - it seems to me that you have strayed way beyond the bounds of purely
> linguistic considerations here!
>
> If Qthen|gai is so 'modern' that it is entirely secular and has no concept
> of 'the divine' at all then clearly you have problems!
Yes, I noticed myself and changed that. :-) Of course there is a
concept of 'divine', but I lost the track when trying to figure out
the translation. Currently, the 'holy' I use is derived as
'use'+'divine'+'benefactive'+'only' = 'to be used (benefactively) for
divine purposes only'.
The 'benefactive' affix seems superfluous, but implements 'for _'.
Without it, it would mean 'to be a divine tool only' or 'the divine
using/usage/tool' (also as a verb, which is hard to translate).
> Quite - _hagios_ meant "devoted to the gods", "set apart for the gods" -
> it was rather like the Polynesian word 'tapu' ("taboo").
Ok, then my current translation is quite close, I think.
> Is that so? Then those that have "food" are paraphrases, not translations.
I found it in a Chinese translation.
> > Is it important for the
> > message of that line? I thought I understood that line...
>
> Did you? Good luck with the translation ;)
Thanks! :-)
And thanks for the comments, they are great! :-)
**Henrik
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Message: 18
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 21:44:02 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Pater Noster (purely linguistically)
Hi!
Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>...
> The Greek has:
> hagiasthe:to: to onoma sou.
> made-holy-AORIST.PASSIVE-3SING.IMPERATIVE the name of-you
I'm so stupid! I searched a lot of languages at christusrex.org for many
languages, but oversaw that the Greek version is with glosses...
<bang>
I just found a Greek version! :-)
**Henrik
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Message: 19
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 16:41:10 -0500
From: # 1 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [NATLANG] Mongolian
[This message is not in displayable format]
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Message: 20
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 17:30:00 -0500
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [NATLANG] Mongolian
"#1" wrote:
>
> I don't know much about mongolian grammar but i know that the possession
> is odd
>
> In english you have: "my father's car"
> In frensh it's: "la voiture de mon p�re"
> In mongolian it would be ordered like: "me, my father, his car"
>
Looks like Mongolian may distinguish alienable/inalien. possession--- That's
quite similar to the construction in some of the Indonesian languages I'm
interested in (Lesser Sundas: Leti/Kisar etc.):
Kisar (has both alienable and inalienable possession):
Inalienable: Pronoun NOUN+Pron.suffix:
ya?u amu 'my father'; ai aman 'his father'
I ama+u he ama-n
Alienable: pronoun POSS.PART+suffix NOUN
ya?u ninu roma --- ai nin(a) roma my.../his house
I nin+u house he nin-n(a)
(Not entirely sure I've got the suffixes completely right, but very
close.......)
Both at once: ai aman nin kuda 'his father's horse'
he father+n PART-n horse(lit. he, his father, his horse)
'my father's horse' presumably: ya?u amu nin kuda (me, my father, his horse)
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Message: 21
Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 00:21:04 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [NATLANG] Mongolian
Hi!
Maybe you might want to switch off HTML posting. It cannot be
read by some people (e.g. me). This is what I get:
# 1 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> <P>>From: azathoth500 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Reply-To:
> azathoth500 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Subject: [NATLANG] Mongolian
> >Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 14:53:00 -0500 >MIME-Version: 1.0
> >Received: from listserv.brown.edu ([128.148.19.203]) by
> mc9-f3.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.6824); Thu, 2 Dec
> 2004 12:07:46 -0800 >Received: from canis.services.brown.edu
> (canis.services.brown.edu [128.148.19.203])by listserv.brown.edu
> (8.11.6+Sun/8.9.3) with ESMTP id iB2Jr4719841;Thu, 2 Dec 2004
> 14:53:04 -0500 (EST) >Received: from LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU by
> LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 1.8d) with spool id
> 327361 for [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Thu, 2 Dec 2004 14:53:03
> -0500 >Received: from wproxy.gmail.com (wproxy.gmail.com
> [64.233.184.196]) by listserv.brown.edu (8.11.6+Sun/8.9.3) with
> ESMTP id iB2Jr2719830
So whatever you wrote, thank you for switching off HTML.
**Henrik
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Message: 22
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 18:38:29 -0500
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Pater Noster (purely linguistically)
I've just uploaded a Kash version:
http://cinduworld.tripod.com/paternoster.htm
The various comments here have been helpful; it's not the same as the
version I translated way back in 1999 or 2000 (one of my first); in fact
many translations from those days need revision. :-((
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