Re: [hebrew] Re: proposals I wrote (and also, didn't write)

From: Mark E. Shoulson (mark@kli.org)
Date: Mon Dec 06 2004 - 22:33:21 CST

  • Next message: Peter Constable: "RE: [hebrew] Re: proposals I wrote (and also, didn't write)"

    E. Keown wrote:

    > Elaine in Vancouver
    >
    >Dear Mark:
    >
    >Thanks, I guess.
    >
    >
    >
    >>This is the one I'm going to comment on, since it's
    >>the one I know best.
    >>I know that Michael Everson and I are working on a
    >>Samaritan proposal,
    >>
    >>
    >
    >It appears to me that my proposal came first, no? By
    >some months...I have some material from Abraham Tal, a
    >well-known figure in Israel.
    >
    >
    Yes, yours did come first. Like I said, we're working on one also,
    which I hope will also be useful, and possibly more complete than what
    you started out with. I also corresponded with Abraham Tal, and also
    with several other experts in the field. I thought it was a good thing
    that we all sought expert input.

    >So what's the significance of what you're saying,
    >politically?
    >
    >
    I don't know. I try to avoid politics, if possible. The significance
    of what I'm saying is that you have made a good start in your proposal,
    that it has some shortcomings, and that I hope to be able to help put
    something more complete together.

    >My work is based on scholarly info, and looks at the
    >marks as pointing---one of several sets of pointing
    >which will ultimately all need to be collated in.
    >
    >
    As is mine. I have Ben-Hayyim's book on Samaritan Hebrew, stuff by Alan
    Crown, the same Dotan article you have, a few other books and articles
    from the scholarly community, etc. I would hope that all our work would
    be as firmly based in scholarship (both from within and without the
    Samaritan community) as possible.

    I'll have to look closely at samples again, but it seems to me that the
    accent marks are not pointing and thus not combining marks (though the
    vowel points of course are combining marks). They appear to be used
    more as punctuation than as letter-diacriticals. When the books I've
    ordered come in, I'll have more to go on, this time from the inside of
    the community (beyond what I've gotten so far).

    >I didn't comment at all on the upper- or lower- case
    >issue because it wasn't clear at all to me how they
    >should be handled. And still isn't.
    >
    There'll probably be some lively discussion about it as we get through
    this, but it's pretty clear to me, anyway, that it's a font distinction
    and nothing more. The only reason for thinking about it as "case" is
    because Western scholars chose to call them "majuscule" and "minuscule"
    and not "book-hand" and "cursive" or something like that.

    ~mark



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