Re: Aramaic unification and information retrieval

From: Christopher John Fynn (cfynn@gmx.net)
Date: Fri Dec 26 2003 - 22:10:46 EST

  • Next message: Dean Snyder: "Re: Ancient Northwest Semitic Script"

    "Dean Snyder" <dean.snyder@jhu.edu> wrote:

    > To get a feel for the kinds of variations that occurred over many
    > centuries in the ancient Northwest Semitic script take a look at these
    > paleographic charts, which include glyphs for Phoenician, Moabite, Old
    > Hebrew, Samaritan, and Old Aramaic:

    > <http://www.jhu.edu/ice/ancientnorthwestsemitic/gesenius.gif>
    > <http://www.jhu.edu/ice/ancientnorthwestsemitic/gibson1.gif>
    > <http://www.jhu.edu/ice/ancientnorthwestsemitic/gibson2.gif>

    > These are exactly the same kinds and extents of variations one encounters
    > in various Greek inscriptions and manuscripts over the centuries, the
    > script variants of which are not, of course, encoded separately. And so I
    > think there must be a compelling reason to do so for Northwest Semitic,
    > one which I have not heard yet.

    > Don't get me wrong, I do think there may be good reasons to separately
    > encode some of the script "nodes", as you call them, (Samaritan comes to
    > mind, because of its long and separate transmission tradition associated
    > with its religion) but we should be very clear that the reasons are NOT
    > based on the fact that they are separate writing systems. I see, for
    > example, no justification for calling Phoenician, Punic, Moabite,
    > Ammonite, Old Hebrew, and Old Aramaic different writing systems.
    > (Samaritan, I would have to do more research on with this issue in mind,
    > but from what I know now about it, it is not a separate writing system.)

    But there is the same kind of variation between Indic scripts which have been
    encoded separately - or at least between the different scripts used to write
    the contemporary North Indian languages or between the various scripts used to
    write the contemporary Dravidian languages. The compelling reasons for encoding
    them as separate scripts probably include: ISCII encodes them as separate (even
    if only by means of a control sequence) ; there is often a need to use these
    different scripts in one and the same document (Indian currency notes and
    railway station signs for a start); each of these scripts is used to write
    different languages and in normal use they are not interchangeable. There is
    also a strong resistance to any one linguistic group gaining cultural hegemony
    over another in India and since particular scripts are associated with
    particular languages it is popular to emphasise their distinctiveness more than
    their similarity.

    OTOH in their sphere Han Chinese at least seem keen to stress cultural unity
    as much as possible - hence they see the 'Phags-pa script as a Chinese
    invention - though others would say it was invented by a Tibetan for Mongolian
    and is ultimately based on an Indic script.

    Since Pali is written in several scripts none of which is predominant I've had
    several Pali scholars and those involved in digitising Pali texts ask "Why
    can't there be a single encoding for Indic scripts which can be used to encode
    Pali texts which could then be displayed in Devanagri, Sinhalese, Burmese,
    Thai, Lao or Khmer script?"

    Personally I think although many scholars may regard Phoenician, Moabite, Old
    Hebrew, Samaritan, and Old Aramaic:as one "writing system" - for contemporary
    political reasons some descendents of the users of those scripts might take
    offence if these old scripts were lumped together under the name "Hebrew" (old
    or new), and no one wants that to happen.

    It is interesting to compare your charts of variations in "ancient Northwest
    Semitic"
    with charts showing variations in Indic scripts e.g.
    http://www215.pair.com/sacoins/images/scripts/master_script.gif
    http://www.ukindia.com/zalph.htm
    http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/9594/brahmi.html
    http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~malaiya/images/brah11.gif
    http://www.medvarsity.com/vmu1.2/dmr/dmrdata/currenttopics/coins/Andhra%20script.htm

    - Chris



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