From: Arnaud Fournet
Message: 61683
Date: 2008-11-16
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rick McCallister" <gabaroo6958@...>
>
>
> I will just briefly say that I prefer the "old"
> word Chamito-Semitic (CS),
> because my opinion about the word Afrasian or Afro-asiatic
> is that this word
> was invented by Greenberg to sell the myth that the
> perimeter of CS was
> known once and for good.
> This word is basically a marketing operation by Greenberg
> mixed with some
> kind of scientific putschism that previous works amount to
> nothing.
> I don't want to give any credentials to that myth which
> is part of the
> problem we now have in general when dealing with
> macro-comparative issues.
>
=========
I appreciate your review of Ehret. If it's like you say it is, it's garbage.
Please use the currently accepted designations Afro-Asiatic or Afrasian.
Hamito-Semitic et al. is not scientific and smacks of racism. There is no
Hamitic branch and the term Hamitic is rooted in pseudo-scientific racist
dogma that originally tried to find justification in the Bible by tainting
Africans as accursed "sons of Ham". Even if it is the most common form used
in France, correct people.
========
I'm sorry,
but I won't use the "currently accepted designation" in the _USA_.
As I have explained,
That term : Afro-Asiatic or Afrasian is just American putchism and a
marketing operation by Greenberg.
As a matter of fact, most works on AA coming from your side of the Atlantic
are not worth that much.
The traditional name in French "Chamito-Semitique" does not convey any
racist undertones at all.
It's a perfectly acceptable scientific word, for two centuries now, I guess,
It's the standard word.
I have written a couple of articles, soon due, and nobody here asked me to
change CS to something else.
I noticed Russian people often use the traditional term HS as well.
Fortunately, we have very few Bible-obsessed people here in France, if any,
In other words,
It is somehow a matter of principle,
As I reject the words Afro-Asiatic or Afrasian, the underlying American
putchism and most works done by people who use these words,
most of them I consider mildy incompetent to outrageously incompetent.
In other words, I have no particular reason to subdue to arrogant BS
sellers.
I find it useful to have another word, I mean Afro-Asiatic or Afrasian, to
stigmatize what I reject,
and keep a clean word for what I consider valid Chamito-Semitique.
This is more the way I would use Afro-Asiatic or Afrasian, if necessary.
Somehow in the same way as Aryan is an unpalatable synonym of Indo-European.
I believe we need to keep the traditional word,
because sooner or later, we will need it to discard the myth Greenberg gave
the perimeter of that family.
I consider Afro-Asiatic or Afrasian words to be completely "rotten".
Hope you understand my point of view.
Arnaud