Re[2]: [tied] The harvest of suppressing evidence

At 6:20:31 AM on Monday, August 10, 2009, tgpedersen wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
> <BMScott@...> wrote:

>> At 4:11:18 AM on Monday, August 10, 2009, tgpedersen
>> wrote:

>>> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "gknysh" <gknysh@>
>>> wrote:

>> [...]

>>>> = Germanic spread due to the arrival into Germania in the
>>>> 1rst c. CE of "Romanized Sarmatian deserters" who had
>>>> largely forgotten their Iranic speeches, and used "some
>>>> version of Latin for everyday purposes". (This is what
>>>> enabled them to become leaders of the Germanic tribes and
>>>> creators of the genuine Germanic languages.)

>>> Apart from the fact that you don't create languages, at
>>> most you make them literate languages by inventing an
>>> alphabet and the rudiments of a grammar (from
>>> observation of the spoken language), yes, that's what I
>>> think happened.

>> The idea that PGmc. developed from the speech of people
>> who used 'some version of Latin for everyday purposes'
>> doesn't pass the laugh test.

> Did someone propose that?

It is what you agreed to when you wrote 'yes, that's what I
think happened'.

> As for me, I proposed they switched to the local language.


>> By the way, it's rather obvious that George was using
>> 'creators of' as a shorthand for 'the people whose speech
>> developed into';

> No.

Oh, it certainly is -- unless one is deliberately looking
for nits to pick.

>> a language has a grammar irrespective of whether it's a
>> written language or any attempt has been made to describe
>> that grammar;

> Yes. And?

What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, so I
chose to point out *your* sloppiness.

>> and one doesn't need an alphabet to have writing.

> You are thinking of some type of ideographic writing like
> Hieroglyphs etc.

There is no such thing as ideographic writing. Egyptian and
Mesopotamian hieroglyphics are basically logosyllabic.
Besides this and alphabetic scripts there are also syllabic
scripts (Cherokee), abjads (Arabic), abugidas (Sanskrit),
and featural scripts (Korean).

> True. And how is that relevant?

See my last comment but one.

>> As long as I'm wasting my time, what evidence do you
>> imagine to have been suppressed?

> Snorri etc.

>> If you say 'Snorri's', you're merely displaying your
>> continued profound ignorance of medieval studies.

> I tried to make sense of all those attempts at imparting
> some other purpose to those sources other than the
> straightforward one of of passing on oral traditions, but
> it really got so complicated.

Rather like trying to do physics while giving up on making
sense of mathematics because it's so complicated.

Brian