I graduate tomorrow!!

by Leolaia 75 Replies latest jw friends

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  itsallgoodnow

  That's fantastic! Congrats!
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  Leolaia

  Jacques....It is so nice to hear from you! LTNS. I'm happy to hear the translation is coming along. BTW, I think I may have found a reason why the WT falsely claimed that Livy used crux to mean only "stake". I think they might have been misled by a Bible encyclopedia (I think it's the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, but I'm not sure), which says:

  "The stauros was originally a pointed stake used in fortifications, and in the earliest uses as an instrument of torture or punishment the sufferer was either bound to this stake, from which he hung by his arms (Livy, xxvi. 13, xxviii. 29)...." (p. 281)

  I found this in one of my old photocopies of encyclopedias I did for my research. But if the WT "scholars" bothered to look up the references (as any decent scholar would do), they would see right away that the word used is palus (i.e. pale) and not crux. Note also that the quote is not really referring to the use of the word stauros (Livy wrote in Latin, so the word would have been crux), but rather the shape and early utilization of the stauros, but the wording is ambiguous. I'm not sure if this is origin of the WT's claim about Livy, but it seems quite possible.
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  Leolaia

  Realist.....Those are some good questions. The evolution of language is an area with a lot of theory and speculation, but evidence is quite scarce. There are indeed many who propose monogenesis for language. One should distinguish the language faculty, which is the intrinsically human ability to think in language and represent ideas and concepts via verbal symbols, from individual languages which are specified systems of symbolic representation. One could argue for monogenesis of the language faculty, but argue that once it was in place, it could have given rise to different languages in different settings that are not necessarily related to each other. Many animals have communication systems, but what makes language unique is that it is modality-free and context-free. That is, animals only communicate in reaction to stimuli or within a prescribed situation. Animal calls do not discuss things that do not yet exist, or things that should happen, or about a stimulus outside of a situation containing the stimulus. Animal calls are not "words", they are vocal reactions to specific situations. Humans however can talk about things that don't exist or refer to abstract generalities that don't refer to a specific situation but a class of situations, or talk about expected things, etc. Now as it turns out, humans are not the only ones who have the capacity for abstract representation. It has been experimentally shown that chimps, bonobos, and gorillas have the capacity to learn an abstract system and to learn signed symbols, even if they "naturally" do not use such a system. Monkeys, on the other hand, have no known capacity for abstract concepts and the same goes for nearly all other animals (except for perhaps bees, dolphins, and a few other animals). But again, they do not use such a system for verbal expression tho they have the capacity for it. Rather, they appear to think symbolically but not express their thoughts verbally. So that is the first step to language. Since monkeys lack such a capacity but apes have it, one could posit the Pliocene epoch as the time the capacity emerged. Then there is the verbal expression of such abstract concepts -- but without any grammar. Viewing evidence from ontogeny, children about 2 years old can utter abstract concepts but have not yet learned any grammar in stringing the words together into sentences. So some theorists believe that specifically within the homonid branch (i.e. Australopithecus) that "words" emerged as a means of articulating abstract concepts. This is advantageous because one can plan for situations and more effectively organize groups. Some prefer to limit the emergence of "words" to the genus Homo. One piece of evidence are the endocasts of homonid skulls and detecting the existence of Broca and Wernicke's areas (which are central to language processing). Since there was already a capacity for symbolic representation, it is possible that "words" emerged in different places at different times. But this is still not a real language. What truly makes human language unique is the existence of syntax (that is, hierarchical structure in sentences -- the architecture of language, the existence of clauses, phrases, movement rules, grammatical constructions, etc.). Syntax enables the expression of complex thoughts and its processing critically involves the frontal lobes. So it is thought that syntax emerged when the frontal lobes dramatically expanded, especially within early Homo sapiens. The final stage was the evolution of the modern vocal tract, I think maybe around 200,000 y.a. The selective pressure for this anatomical change suggests that Homo sapiens sapiens was using already language quite regularly by this time. Within this whole complex pattern of development, individual languages likely emerged in different places at different times but it also possible (if the "Eve" hypothesis is anywhere near correct) that all our languages derive from one particular language spoken by one ancestral group. But it is utterly impossible to prove this empirically, of course.

  Regarding your second question, you should probably check out Salikoko Mufwene's book THE ECOLOGY OF LANGUAGE EVOLUTION. Instead of likening language to an organism, Mufwene thinks of language as a species, comprising a set of idiolects with inherent variability and the emergence of new languages as speciation. He looks at the effects of the founder principle, barriers to comprehension, and especially what you refer to as "blending inheritance" and how languages can borrow and mix features from other languages. In language contact situations, languages can dissemble and reshape into very different forms in a process similar to genetic recombination. Mufwene also argues that since idiolects continue to develop and change throughout a person's lifespan, a linguistic species is rather like a Lamarckian species.
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  Leolaia

  Hey, everyone, thanks again for the congrats! :) You all are so sweet :))))
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  dh

  congratulations leolaia!
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  Earnest

  Well done, Leolaia. It really is a joy to finally achieve what must have seemed a very distant goal not so long ago.
  

  BTW, I think I may have found a reason why the WT falsely claimed that Livy used crux to mean only "stake". I think they might have been misled by a Bible encyclopedia (I think it's the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, but I'm not sure)

  I have found another source which seems to support the WT's claim. The Catholic Encyclopaedia says :

  The penalty of the cross goes back probably to the arbor infelix, or unhappy tree, spoken of by Cicero (Pro, Rabir., iii sqq.) and by Livy, apropos of the condemnation of Horatius after the murder of his sister. According to Hüschke (Die Multa, 190) the magistrates known as duoviri perduellionis pronounced this penalty (cf. Liv., I, 266), styled also infelix lignem (Senec., Ep. ci; Plin., XVI, xxvi; XXIV, ix; Macrob., II, xvi). This primitive form of crucifixion on trees was long in use, as Justus Lipsius notes ("De cruce", I, ii, 5; Tert., "Apol.", VIII, xvi; and "Martyrol. Paphnut." 25 Sept.). Such a tree was known as a cross (crux). On an ancient vase we see Prometheus bound to a beam which serves the purpose of a cross. A somewhat different form is seen on an ancient cist at Præneste (Palestrina), upon which Andromeda is represented nude, and bound by the feet to an instrument of punishment like a military yoke -- i.e. two parallel, perpendicular stakes, surmounted by a transverse bar. Certain it is, at any rate, that the cross originally consisted of a simple vertical pole, sharpened at its upper end. Mæcenas (Seneca, Epist. xvii, 1, 10) calls it acuta crux; it could also be called crux simplex. To this upright pole a transverse bar was afterwards added to which the sufferer was fastened with nails or cords, and thus remained until he died, whence the expression cruci figere or affigere (Tac., "Ann.", XV, xliv; Potron., "Satyr.", iii) The cross, especially in the earlier times, was generally low. it was elevated only in exceptional cases, particularly whom it was desired to make the punishment more exemplary or when the crime was exceptionally serious. Suetonius (Galba, ix) tells us that Galba did this in the case of a certain criminal for whom he caused to be made a very high cross painted white -- "multo præter cætteras altiorem et dealbatam statui crucem jussit".
  

  Lastly, we may note, in regard to the material form of the cross that somewhat different ideas prevailed in Greece and Italy. The cross, mentioned even in the Old Testament, is called in Hebrew, `êç, i.e. "wood", a word often translated crux by St. Jerome (Gen., xl, 19; Jos., viii, 29; Esther, v, 14; viii, 7; ix, 25). In Greek it is called , which Burnouf would derive from the Sanskrit stâvora. The word was however frequently used in a broad sense. Speaking of Promotheus nailed to Mount Caucasus, Lucian uses the substantive and the verbs and , the latter being derived from which also signifies a cross. In the same way the rock to which Andromeda was fastened is called crux, or cross. The Latin word crux was applied to the simple pole, and indicated directly the nature and purpose of this instrument, being derived from the verb crucio, "to torment", "to torture" (Isid., Or., V, xvii, 33; Forcellini, s. vv. Crucio, Crux). It is also to be noted that the word furca must have been at least partially equivalent to crux. In fact the identification of those two words is constant in the legal diction of Justinian (Fr. xxviii, 15; Fr, xxxviii, S. 2; Digest. "De pnis", xlviii, 19).

  The passage in Livy that it refers to is The History of Rome, Book I, chapter 26 "Horatius' Murder of his Sister" and the relevant passages read as follows :
  

  The dreadful language of the law was: "The duumvirs shall judge cases of treason; if the accused appeal from the duumvirs the appeal shall be heard; if their sentence be confirmed the lictor shall hang him by a rope on the fatal tree and shall scourge him either within or without the pomoerium."

  Lex horrendi carminis erat: "Duumuiri perduellionem iudicent; si a duumuiris provocarit, provocatione certato; si uincent, caput obnubito; infelici arbori reste suspendito; verberato vel intra pomerium vel extra pomerium."

  Whilst saying this he embraced his son, and then, pointing to the spoils of the Curiatii suspended on the spot now called the Pila Horatia, he said: "Can you bear, Quirites to see bound scourged, and tortured beneath the gallows the man whom you saw, lately, coming in triumph adorned with his foemen's spoils?

  Inter haec senex iuvenem amplexus, spolia Curiatiorum fixa eo loco qui nunc Pila Horatia appellatur ostentans, "Huncine" aiebat, "quem modo decoratum ouantemque victoria incedentem vidistis, Quirites, eum sub furca vinctum inter verbera et cruciatus videre potestis?

  Go, cover the head of the liberator of this City! Hang him on the fatal tree,...

  I, caput obnube liberatoris urbis huius; arbore infelici suspende;...

  Earnest
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  Leolaia

  Here is me and my advisor:
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  Leolaia

  Thank you, Earnest. Actually, those sources do not support the WT's claim. Their claim is this:

  "In the writings of Livy, a Roman historian of the first century B.C.E., crux means a mere stake". (1984 NWT, Reference Edition, p. 1577)

  The claim relates to the meaning of the word crux, not whether Livy describes a crux simplex type torture or execution. Thus the references to arbor infelix in your post do not address the usage of the word crux.

  Whilst saying this he embraced his son, and then, pointing to the spoils of the Curiatii suspended on the spot now called the Pila Horatia, he said: "Can you bear, Quirites to see bound scourged, and tortured beneath the gallows the man whom you saw, lately, coming in triumph adorned with his foemen's spoils?

  Inter haec senex iuvenem amplexus, spolia Curiatiorum fixa eo loco qui nunc Pila Horatia appellatur ostentans, "Huncine" aiebat, "quem modo decoratum ouantemque victoria incedentem vidistis, Quirites, eum sub furca vinctum inter verbera et cruciatus videre potestis?

  In this text, the word that occurs is not crux but cruciare "to torture" -- which could denote any sort of torture, and does not mean "affix to a cross" (e.g. cruci figere), and it is the word from which crux is derived. The use of the word furca itself was used as a synonym of the patibulum (crossbeam) that formed part of common practice of torturing slaves in pre-Republican times, and which was later incorporated into the two-beamed cross (definitely by the time of Plautus, third century BC).
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  doodle-v

  Leolaia,

  Congratulations!!! What an accomplishment!! You rock!

  -Doodle-V
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  PopeOfEruke

  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Here is me and my advisor:

  Which one are you???

  JUST KIDDING!!!!

  Congrats on your PhD, Leolaia. Its a real honour to have you posting on this board.....

  Bikpela digri i kamap nau! Ol guting bilong mas mani i kamap long yu nau!

  Bless you my child!

  The Pope