lets hear it for diacritical marks! (speaking of diacritical marks)
--- In [email protected], "gina_ellis_ca" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I got this from another e-list. > > Scholars Scrutinize the Koran's Origin A Promise of Moist Virgins > or Dried Fruit? New York Times (and International Herald Tribune), > March 4, 2002 > > ........ > Scholars like Mr. Luxenberg and Gerd- R. Puin, who teaches at > Saarland University in Germany, have returned to the earliest known > copies of the Koran in order to grasp what it says about the > document's origins and composition. Mr. Luxenberg explains these > copies are written without vowels and diacritical dots that modern > Arabic uses to make it clear what letter is intended. In the eighth > and ninth centuries, more than a century after the death of Muhammad, > Islamic commentators added diacritical marks to clear up the > ambiguities of the text, giving precise meanings to passages based on > what they considered to be their proper context. Mr. Luxenberg's > radical theory is that many of the text's difficulties can be > clarified when it is seen as closely related to Aramaic, the language > group of most Middle Eastern Jews and Christians at the time. For > example, the famous passage about the virgins is based on the word > hur, which is an adjective in the feminine plural meaning > simply "white." Islamic tradition insists the term hur stands > for "houri," which means virgin, but Mr. Luxenberg insists that this > is a forced misreading of the text. In both ancient Aramaic and in at > least one respected dictionary of early Arabic, hur means "white > raisin." > > [Suggested t-shirt: I blew myself up and all I got was these damned > raisins. And I'm even forbidden to make brew out of them...] >
