From: John Hudson (tiro@tiro.com)
Date: Sun May 02 2004 - 16:10:55 CDT
Asmus Freytag wrote:
> At 10:25 AM 5/2/2004, Michael Everson wrote:
>
>> Do you really think it necessary that the proposal be a thesis
>> reprising a hundred years of script analysis?
>
> I think what's desirable is something of a summary that applies this
> analysis in a way that it can be related to the research. A thesis would
> imply original development.
Some acknowledgement that there is disagreement in this field would also be welcome. I
don't think there is anything wrong with saying 'this encoding unified the following
writing systems based on this analysis', while also acknowledging that this is not the
only possible analysis and that some scholars may disagree or propose altertnative
analyses. Michael can, quite often, give the impression that he is objectively right and
everyone who disagrees is an idiot, while I have tried to suggest, throughout this debate,
how opposing views are based on variant analyses of old Canaanite writing systems by
experts in different fields.
Michael thought, based on his analysis and that of the studies he consulted, that encoding
of Phoenician was 'simple and obvious'. Whatever else he is right about, he seems to have
been wrong in this: many of the people most likely to be working with old Canaanite texts
in various languages -- i.e. semiticists -- seem to consider Phoenician anything but
simple and obvious.
John Hudson
--
Tiro Typeworks www.tiro.com
Vancouver, BC tiro@tiro.com
I often play against man, God says, but it is he who wants
to lose, the idiot, and it is I who want him to win.
And I succeed sometimes
In making him win.
- Charles Peguy
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