From: Peter Kirk (peterkirk@qaya.org)
Date: Mon May 24 2004 - 12:07:40 CDT
On 24/05/2004 07:47, Curtis Clark wrote:
> on 2004-05-24 06:37 Dean Snyder wrote:
>
>> Diascript is to script as dialect is to language - part of a
>> continuum of
>> relatively minor variations.
>
>
> A script is a diascript with an army? (To paraphrase a saying about
> dialects...)
>
And the Phoenicians haven't had an army since Hannibal's elephants were
defeated. Does that imply that Phoenician is not a separate script? :-)
On 24/05/2004 08:05, Curtis Clark wrote:
> I want to start out by saying that, although I personally support
> encoding Phoenician, I really have no stake in the outcome one way or
> the other, and I'm only participating in the "thread from Hell" (as I
> believe James Kass called it) because its dynamics interest me.
>
> on 2004-05-24 03:08 Peter Kirk wrote:
>
>> If so, please give us some evidence for another side.
>
>
> I have none. I would be astonished if there weren't another side, but
> far stranger things than that have happened, and I've been wrong before.
>
>> But maybe it is something else. For example, if you read evolutionary
>> biologists strongly defending Darwinian evolution against creationist
>> theories, does that imply an internal squabble among evoutionary
>> biologists and therefore that some support creationism? Or does it
>> rather imply a closing of ranks against outsiders who are attacking
>> their discipline, a defence against (what they perceive as)
>> unscientific attacks from those who don't know what they are talking
>> about?
>
>
> This is a very apt analogy. IMO, it is *precisely* because
> evolutionary biologists disagree about some fundamental issues in
> evolutionary biology (such as the relative importance and scope of
> natural selection) that they "close ranks". As a result, some of the
> arguments presented against creationism are caricatures. And the "they
> don't know what they are talking about" rhetoric is common on both sides.
>
> As one who has debated creationists, I know that there are other
> approaches, that work incrementally better in educating people whose
> minds are not already made up. But the Semiticists who have posted
> against the proposal on this group seem to be falling into the same
> closed-rank pattern that I know so well from my own field.
>
Well, I see your point, but actually that is not what I see happening.
One of the three supporters of the Phoenician proposal is a Semitic
scholar. There has been open debate on the issue on the ANE list, see
https://listhost.uchicago.edu/pipermail/ane/2004-May/012945.html and
related postings - unfortunately the thread index doesn't work well.
I note the following from Peter Daniels on the ANE list at
https://listhost.uchicago.edu/pipermail/ane/2004-May/013076.html:
>>/ (The comment in the document about unifying Phoenician with
>/>/ Proto-Sinaitic/ Proto-Canaanite was an error in the document and will
>/>/ be removed in the revised version.)
>/
>It was obvious to the subscribers to this list that it was an error, as
>was clear from the discussion, but that it was circulated as part of an
>official Unicode proposal cast extremely grave doubts on the Unicode
>operation.
>
>
>
Well, of course anyone can make a proposal to Unicode, and so errors in
proposals do not reflect on "the Unicode operation" or the UTC, only on
the proposer.
On 24/05/2004 09:05, Michael Everson wrote:
> We have statements from real Semiticists who do not want their names
> dropped into this fray that they support the encoding of Phoenician as
> a separate and distinct script from Square Hebrew.
I understand their reluctance. But how many, and how "real"? Are you
prepared to provide evidence of their support to the UTC?
-- Peter Kirk peter@qaya.org (personal) peterkirk@qaya.org (work) http://www.qaya.org/
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