Don't complain I'm shouting at you -- yahoogroups is very unforgiving about interpolating comments in different fonts or whatever, and yahoo email doesn't do "quote" chevrons.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...



----- Original Message ----
From: Richard Wordingham <richard@...>
To: qalam@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, March 4, 2007 9:03:09 PM
Subject: Re: Cuneiform Hittite -ah-

--- In qalam@... com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@. ..> wrote:

> First of all, Hittite scribes did not have a "Unicode Standard";
it's entirely reasonable that different scribes or different
generations used slightly different forms of a sign.

The Unicode standard allows considerable glyph variation. The same
sign may have many different forms, which is why am I phrasing the
question as I have. If the standard did not allow considerable
variation, I would be asking which Akkadian sign it derived from.

YOU DID. YOU PROVIDED TWO ADJACENT LABAT NUMBERS.

> What is "Old Borger"? The numbers you use are Labat's, and they go
back to Deimel.

The earlier of two books by Borger, but if there is a good way of
designating these numbers, please advise.

BORGER HAS PUBLISHED AT LEAST THREE SIGN LISTS OVER THE PAST 40 YEARS OR SO.

> For Hittite paleography, use a manual of Hittite cuneiform!

THE WWS BIBLIOGRAPHY MENTIONS RUESTER AND NEU. THAT IS WHERE YOU WILL FIND YOUR INFORMATION.

WATKINS'S SKETCH OF HITTITE IN THE WOODARD ENCYC. RIGHTLY DOESN'T EVEN MENTION THE HELD BOOK.

WWS represents the cuneiform of different languages by neo-Assyrian
glyphs. Are you repudiating this practice even where it is feasible?
It seemed to work well enough for Hittite.

THE HITTITE TEXT IS PRESENTED IN HANDCOPY, AS IS THE NORM, WITH A TRANSLITERATION INTO NEO-ASSYRIAN FOR THOSE WHO COULD NOT ON THEIR OWN GO FROM THE COPY TO THE (PARTIAL) LIST OF CUNEIFORM SIGNS INCLUDED EARLIER.

NO ASSYRIOLOGIST (OR HITTITIOLOGIST) USES OR WOULD USE TYPE (OF ANY SORT) TO PUBLISH A TEXT, FOR PRECISELY THE REASONS YOU'RE FUSSING ABOUT. THERE WAS NO SUCH THING AS STANDARDIZATION, AND SUBSTITUTING TYPE FOR THE ACTUAL SHAPES REMOVES WHAT MAY SOMETIMES BE CRUCIAL INFORMATION ABOUT ALTERNATIVE INTERPRETATIONS OF THE WEDGES.