From: Dean Snyder (dean.snyder@jhu.edu)
Date: Mon Dec 29 2003 - 09:20:15 EST
Jim Allan wrote at 4:16 PM on Sunday, December 28, 2003:
>James Kass wrote on using variation selectors for fine glyph variations:
>
>> So, that approach might meet epigraphers' needs while enabling
>> painless cross-variant searching, and still permit scholars to
>> get on with encoding their texts as they see fit.
>
>For an example of what might be needed, see Rochelle I. S. Altman's
>discussion "Some Aspects of Older Writing Systems: With Focus on the
>DSS" at http://orion.mscc.huji.ac.il/orion/programs/Altman/Altman99.shtml :
>
>Altman indicates how differences in ligaturing, height, spacing and
>glyph variation are used in the unpointed "Phoenician/Hebraic Writing
>Systems" to indicate emphasis, pause, stress and even the difference
>between shin and sin.
>
>Encoding these texts with reasonable fullness would require a "stressed
>variant" variation selector, vowel phone variation selectors, a sin/shin
>variation selector as well as ZWJ and variant spaces already encoded.
I would be extremely reticent about using this article as an authority in
determining Northwest Semitic script system features.
Just a few of the caution signs in this Altman article:
* "The outer framework of Western writing systems consists of two
horizontal lines ... The main purpose of a bilinear limit system is to
confine and constrain the written word. Such limit systems intentionally
"freeze" the words into an unchanging form to preserve the magical power
of the word and to control people and things. ... Bilinear limit systems
are preferred by magical-mystical oriented societies."
* "Unlike the mystical-magical "frozen" bilinear limit system, the North-
West Semitic pragmatic-practical writing systems use the "flexible"
trilinear limit system."
* In her treatment of the Phoenician Kilamu inscription Altman claims
glyph modification based on stress and duration, but gives not one
character of phonemically or morphonemically analyzed text to support her
assertions!
* She makes sweeping paleographical judgments based on a HAND DRAWN image
of the text, not on photographs or, even better, the original!
* In order to support her stress/duration thesis when dealing with some
Exodus texts from Murabba'at, Altman conveniently replaces standard
"textbook" explanations of Hebrew stress by her own very subjective,
arbitrary, and unsubstantiated theory:
"The textbooks tell us that stress is grammatically determined in Hebrew,
and this is true. What the textbooks do not tell us is that what is true
in theory is not always true in practice. Stress is very flexible and a
specific syllable may receive none, secondary (medial), or primary stress
- even in Hebrew. Stress can either be intrinsic, that is, the normal
(textbook) pronunciation of the word, or extrinsic, that is, impressed by
musical, poetic, or rhetorical requirements -- of which emphasis is the
most common. In other words, any document that records quoted statements
may or may not follow the intrinsic (normal) rules for pronunciation.
This is an important point to remember when examining these two fragments
from Murabba'at"
* Altman - "Ductus (the direction of a pen or brush stroke) cannot be
used to isolate scribal hands in [formal] scripts and fonts."
In addition to incorrectly defining ductus, she makes the unsubstantiated
statement that one cannot distinguish scribal hands in formal scripts
(except by detecting her "ideographs", which can be as minimal as one
character in a word!)
* "Ancient writing systems also have a hierarchy of sizes: the largest
documents are always 'The Law'."
* "scripts do NOT develop, they mutate" [footnote 33]
33 "The concept that scripts 'develop' is quite erroneous and stems from
the conflation of a scribe with a calligrapher. Development implies that
a letter change here, another there, until, finally, we have a new
script. Scripts, however, are closed systems, carefully designed to work
within the complex unity we call a writing system. Script families
consist of a script, the class, and numerous mutations, fonts,
descendants of the class. All modern "scripts," for example, are
descendants, mutations, of precisely four script classes. All uppercase
serifed fonts are descendants, mutations, of Roman Capitals and all
lowercase serifed fonts are mutations of North African half-uncials; all
modern sans-serif uppercase fonts are mutations of Roman Rustic Capitals
and all lowercase fonts are mutations of Roman half-uncials. There are
only two script classes for Hebrew, Paleo-Hebraic and Square Aramaic: The
fonts used in the documents from, for instance, Gezer, are mutations of
Paleo-Hebraic and the fonts used for the majority of the documents found
in the Judean Desert and still used today are mutations of the Square
Aramaic. Likewise, there are only two script classes for Greek, Attic
Capitals and Constantine's ethnic-blend "Uncial." There are very few
script classes in any writing system, no matter the language for which
that script system is intended. 'New' script designs are extremely rare
and occur under special -- and very predictable -- circumstances. There
is no such thing as a "proto-typic" script; there must be a script class
for a font to mutate from."
----------------------------------
I haven't had time to look into her assertion that SIN and SHIN are
glyphically differentiated in one manuscript (her serech.jpg image is of
too low resolution to check this out), but her verbal descriptions of the
differences strike me as the sorts of glyphic variations one expects as
normal in any author's handwriting.
Respectfully,
Dean A. Snyder
Scholarly Technology Specialist
Library Digital Programs, Sheridan Libraries
Garrett Room, MSE Library, 3400 N. Charles St.
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, Maryland, USA 21218
office: 410 516-6850 fax: 410-516-6229
Manager, Digital Hammurabi Project: www.jhu.edu/digitalhammurabi
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