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#144999 07/16/05 10:09 PM
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Thanks for the link, Bingley. I know very little about Semitic languages, but wonder... Hebrew and Arabic are written only with the consonants, far as I know, with the idea that you can fill in the vowels according to the structure.


#145000 07/18/05 09:25 AM
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> with the idea that you can fill in the vowels according to the structure.

Plus you can then claim that almost any word in virtually any language is *obviously descended from the ancient Semitic script meaning 'to worship the left nipple of a one-legged camel', or if not that then almost certainly from the curiously similar form meaning 'a small grain pit once used for fermenting a sort of proto-beer made from rancid goat milk', or if not that then quite *definitely from the word meaning 'he who is the greatest of the tribe with shiny hair' (which in the Demotic Greek was tranlated as 'angel')...

ah, where would modern etymologists be without that ancient vowel disorder? ;0


#145001 07/18/05 02:34 PM
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> Hebrew and Arabic are written only with the consonants, far as I know, with the idea that you can fill in the vowels according to the structure.

Not sure if this is really relevant or of interest to you, but I know that some see traditional Hebrew as a phonetic alphabet that mimics sonic verbal pronunciations. A Dutch thinker of the 17th century, Van Helmont, wrote a book called "The Natural Alphabet" in which he speaks of the divine and pure nature of the language. This seems to have something to do with Kabbalah - mystical Torah teachings. But what interested me is the notion that the characters of the alphabet can be seen as a type of two-dimensional map of the phonetic sound that was/is created. As such, the language apparently looks like its verbal, audio source might look when disstilled in computer visualisations.
I can't seem to find any scientific work regarding this topic online, and as such, am not sure if this is really based on any fact or perhaps just religious fervour, but I think it a quite fascinating idea nonetheless.


#145002 07/18/05 06:11 PM
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> based on any fact or perhaps just religious fervour...

English has at least 50 phonemes and only 26 graphemes to represent them, so I know where my money falls!

http://victorian.fortunecity.com/vangogh/555/Spell/number-of-phonemes.html


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