Re: Cannibal revisited; invitation to Ray Martinez
- From: Burkhard <b.schafer@xxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2009 16:19:56 -0800 (PST)
On Jan 9, 2:37 am, Ray Martinez <pyramid...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Dr. Scott is, of course, recognized as a premier scholarly authority
in Biblical exposition, Philosophy, ancient dead languages, ancient
history, Church history and Theology. (He also has a strong scientific
backround in Agricultural Geography.) When an ancient text or
manuscript or bas-relief is interpreted by a scholar and published,
anyone wishing to cite any portion thereof in a paper, or in support
for an argument, to establish as fact what the ancient communication
says, needs only to quote the scholar and make proper attribution. The
speaking of the scholar is fact and evidence. This is our system
recognized, of course, by scholars themselves. In just about everyone
of their publications a system is employed to list references, showing
the source of their fact (other scholars).
I woudl nto quite put it like this, and the speaking of the scholar is
most certainly not a fact - though it is of course a fact that he
spoke.
References have three functions;
The first is intellectual honesty: by showing my indebtedness to other
researchers, I do not claim their findings to be my own (essentially
an IP issue)
The second is to allow the reader to check up on me: did I understand
my sources correctly? At the moment, we have two possibilities: A)
Scott made a mistake when researching the etymology of "cannibal". B)
You misunderstood Scott, or misremembered, or willfully misrepresent
him to make him look stupid. Without being able to check Scott's text,
the reader of your posts can't say which.
The third reason is for the reader to be able to check the
correctness of what he source states, and with that the correctness of
the assumptions the writer assumes.
Scholarly experts, unlike priests, do not just rely on their authority
when they make claims, they give the REASONS for their claim. That the
OED and not Scott is a good source for the issue of the etymology of
cannibal is not (just) their greater expertise in the relevant field,
but that they give all the reasons they have for their analysis, and
put them in the open for everyone to check up on - you can actually go
to the original texts by Columbus, Hakluyt ( a priest btw) or Herrera
check how they spoke about the Caribes and see for yourself how the
word became "cannibal". Little has to be taken on trust.
Thus far in this debate my opponents have offered two or three
dictionary sources that testify to the same basic fact: the first
known use of the English word "cannibal."
No, see above. They have shown, independently from each other, how the
English language borrowed it from Spanish, which in turn borrowed and
corrupted it from the Carib languagues
It is important to note that what Dr. Scott said (above) says nothing
about the first known use of the English word. I interpret Dr. Scott's
rendering to convey *an* ancient origin for each contraction, and an
ancient origin for the concept. This ancient origin precedes the 15th
century AD.
The direct implications seen in Dr. Scott's rendering is that the
*concept* of cannibalism was practiced during the historical time
frame that the O.T covers: that would be from the days of Abraham
(before 2000 BC) to the end of Malachi's prophecy.
Now, we see why the use of 2) above of references is so important. If
that is really what Scott said, he is not just wrong, but talking
meaningless gibberish. So I assume he did not actually say this, and
it is your misinterpretation.
Now let's start from the very basics: Out there is the WORLD (you
know, the thing you bump against all the time). Sometimes, it snows.
Sometimes, people out there eat other people. Then there is LANGUAGE
and WORDS. We use them to "talk about" the world. So the word
"cannibal" refers to people who eat other people, the word "snow"
refers to snow. Finally, according to some linguists and philosophers,
there are CONCEPTS. These are abstract objects that are a sort of
intermediary between words and objects. Assuming concepts allows us to
say things like: "Snow" "Schnee" and "neige" have the same meaning,
they mean (denote) the concept of SNOW, and they refer to the white
thing that falls fromthe sky. Equally, "Menschenfresser"
"anthropophagos" and "Cannibal" have the same meaning, CANNIBAL, which
in turn refers to people out there in the world eating each other.
Now people who eat each other may not have a concept for what they are
doing (and in this case also not a word for it) They may have a
concept of what they are doing, but not a word in their language to
express this concept (Whorf thought that if you don't have a word, you
are also lacking the concept, but this is now discredited) And they
may have a concept and a word for it.
Each of the three things, the practice of cannibalism, the concept of
cannibalism, and the word "cannibalism" can be studied by their
respective disciplines. Any reasonable scholar, indeed I would hope
every high school graduate, would know when they are talking about the
one, and when they are talking about the other. Scott, from what
little you told us, was talking about words - only then does it make
any sense at all to even argue that Cana in Chaldean means priest.
Only then does it make any sense to argue that the word "bal" is a
contraction of the word "Baal" (a contraction of the word! Not of Baal
himself, and also not of the concept of Baal, each of these statements
would be semantically meaningless. Gods don't contract, concepts don't
contract, words do) Only then does it make sense to say that Cana and
Baal form a compound word Canibal - the God and the priest do not form
a compound, the words used to talk about them do, according to the
phonetic laws of the language you study.
So forget about concepts and forget about the practice of cannibalism,
both are irrelevant for the claim that word cannibal is a compound of
cana and baal
It is absurd to
assert or suggest that the practice or concept of cannibalism to not
have existence before the 15th century AD.
And nobody does
Therefore, there is no contradiction between Dr. Scott and any
dictionary source (which is, of course, produced by scholars).
Yes, theer is. Scott claims (according to you) that the Chaldean
language formed
a compound word, cannibal, of two words, and that the word cannibal
as we use it can be traced back to this compound. It can't
If
there is a contradiction, that is, IF these sources are judged to be
providing the origin of the concept, then I contend that they are in
gross error. Again, it is absurd to even suggest that cannibalism did
not exist before the 15th century AD. But again, these sources are not
suggesting that cannibalism began in the 15th century AD.
Indeed. That is because dictionaries are about words. Not all words
refer to things that exist, not all things that exist have words for
them. If Scott is claiming that cannibalism was first practiced in
Babylon, the issue of whether "cana" and "baal" form the word cannibal
is irrelevant. Relevant sources would be text describing the practice
(with or without a word for it), findings of bones with human teeth
marks, etc. Etymology and speculation about word formation would be
utterly irrelevant.
.
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