|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
This episode in "engines of our ingenuity" tells of the invention of parchment, leading to the invention of the book. It told me a lot I did not know before. http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi687.htm
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
You're right, Dr. Bill--this was very interesting. Dr. Lienhard, eh? Wonder who he liens on? Ah, har, har, har...
At first I thought it was a nice touch of humor that he had {theme music} at the end of the talk; then I remembered that there's an audio version. Shoot, woulda been nice. Anyway--I liked his final note: Bibliophiles might prefer that I had introduced the old Latin word codex for the first books. I'll excuse myself on the basis that the Germanic word "book" is more elegant. It traces back to the Gothic word boka, which means a letter of the alphabet. Codex literally means the trunk of a tree or a block of wood.
I don't think I knew that the Turks gave us books. Thank you.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146 |
Don't run away with the idea that the Turks invented the book, Jackie. The Greeks did that. They just happened to live on the western edge of what is now Turkey at the time. Not far from Troy, actually. Our own Of Troy is more closely related to them, at least nominally, than the current Turks!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
Codex literally means the trunk of a tree or a block of wood.
Book, on the other hand traces back to the word for beech tree. Apparently it was the preferred wood for carving runes into. The word histories of book and codex are practically identical.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Don't run away with the idea that the Turks invented the book, Jackie. The Greeks did that.
[bow] Tell me more, if you've time.
Ruh roh, looks like we need some source citations: we have one person saying the word book came from a word meaning a letter of the alphabet, and another saying it came from a word for beech tree.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
I may be out on a limb here (ahem), but wasn't the OE plural of book 'beech'?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
re: Book, on the other hand traces back to the word for beech tree.... preferred wood for carving runes into-- yes, i made a post last month quoting someone who pointed out the old plural of book was beech.
but its not just the wood, and any one who has ever seen a beech tree would know why. (i live on BEECH knoll -- a well named street)
Beeches have smooth grey bark, and are the favorite tree for carving ones initial into.. In fact, a guide to trees of the North east that own(ed) gave initals and other graffiti carved into the bark as the most identifiable feature of a beech tree!
one could cut messages into the bark of a beech tree and have a public library of information that would last a hundred or more years!
its not just my block that has beech trees, i have close at hand, in the nieghborhood, copper beeches (just like the A conan Doyle story of the same title) and weeping beeches.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146 |
Don't run away with the idea that the Turks invented the book, Jackie. The Greeks did that.
[bow] Tell me more, if you've time.
Well, Pergamon was one of the Greek colonies that were planted all over the Med. basin during the classical and not-so-classical period. I think Pergamon was one of Alexander's efforts, but I could be wrong. LIU if you're interested. It grew larger than most and in fact appears to have been the administrative centre for the area. The Romans took it over during the second century BC and so in time it became your actual Graeco-Roman ruin. They had the library there until Antonius sold it down the river. Well over the sea, anyway. Being Greeks, the city's leaders were a pretty unscrupulous lot, by and large, and it is likely that the locals preferred the Romans as bosses, The Romans would pretty much leave you alone if you paid your taxes, nodded to the capitolinum from time to time and weren't likely to rebel.
The use of vellum as books rather than scrolls wouldn't have been a big leap for Greek minds, always on the lookout for novelty and innovation. It would, on the other hand, have been less likely to occur to a Roman. The Romans preferred the known to the unknown, by and large, and didn't adopt engineering/mechanical change easily. If their granddaddies rolled vellum up like it was papyrus, then, by Jupiter, they'd roll the damned stuff up, too. That's serious gravitas, man! If they had been inventive, it's quite likely they would have come up with gunpowder. Then where would we be? Speaking some debased form of Latin or some Latin-like language. Like English.
And that's it, really. All I know, I mean.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
we have one person saying the word book came from a word meaning a letter of the alphabet, and another saying it came from a word for beech tree.
To get down to specifics, book came from beech tree through letter of the alphabet (or fuŽork, to be slightly more accurate).
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
And that's it, really.
Merci, m'ami. :-)
And thank you, Helen, for reminding me about beech bark. One day, a couple of autumns ago, I found some fresh deer prints in some just-right mud, and came back and told my family. We all went over there, armed with quick-drying plaster of paris, which we poured into the depressions. While we waited for it to dry, my husband and son practiced their archery. My dau. and I did a little bit, but soon we sat down on a big log with what I now realize must have been a piece of beech bark, upon which I scratched a tic-tac-toe board, and we played the game using acorn caps and twigs for our circles and x'es. We felt like real pioneers, I can tell you! In half an hour or so, we pulled out four nearly perfect casts of deer hooves. A great time.
|
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,913
Posts229,344
Members9,182
| |
Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
|
|
|
1 members (A C Bowden),
770
guests, and
1
robot. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|
