Re: New contribution

From: Dean Snyder (dean.snyder@jhu.edu)
Date: Sat May 01 2004 - 23:46:10 CST


Kenneth Whistler wrote at 4:32 PM on Friday, April 30, 2004:

>John Hudson said:
>
>> but all I'm personally questioning is the one
>> sentence in which he says the new Phoenician characters should be used
>used for
> ^^^^^^
>> Palaeo-Hebrew.
>
>Actually, as long as we are all pretending expertise in philology ;-), we
>should refer to the *original* text:
>
>"The twenty-two letters in the Phoenician block may be used, with appropriate
> ^^^
>changes, to express Punic, Neo-Punic, Phoenician proper, Late Phoenician
>cursive,
>Phoenician papyrus, Siloam Hebrew, Hebrew seals, Ammonite, Moabite, and
>Palaeo-Hebrew."
>
>There is a world of difference, in terms of prescriptive implications,
>between a "should" and a "may" in that context.

But the proposal also says, I believe somewhat contradictorily, in the
technical section:

"4a. The context of use for the proposed characters (type of use; common
or rare)

Phoenician script is proposed to unify Proto-Sinaitic/Proto-Canaanite,
Punic, Neo-Punic, Phoenician proper, Late Phoenician cursive, Phoenician
papyrus, Siloam Hebrew, Hebrew seals, Ammonite, Moabite, Palaeo-Hebrew."

Doesn't that sound stronger, almost like a recommendation?

Respectfully,

Dean A. Snyder

Assistant Research Scholar
Manager, Digital Hammurabi Project
Computer Science Department
Whiting School of Engineering
218C New Engineering Building
3400 North Charles Street
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, Maryland, USA 21218

office: 410 516-6850
cell: 717 817-4897
www.jhu.edu/digitalhammurabi



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